Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has de­fend­ed the ac­tions of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) in shut­ting down a protest out­side the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions on Wednes­day, warn­ing that at­tempts to in­tim­i­date pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al of­fi­cials “will not be tol­er­at­ed” dur­ing the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE).

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar praised po­lice for what she de­scribed as a quick re­sponse to se­cure the DPP’s of­fice from pos­si­ble threats.

“I com­mend the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) for mov­ing swift­ly to se­cure the of­fice of the DPP yes­ter­day (Wednes­day) and pro­tect­ing them from in­tim­i­da­tion, ha­rass­ment and pos­si­ble harm,” the Prime Min­is­ter stat­ed.

Her com­ments came one day af­ter po­lice moved against demon­stra­tors gath­ered near the DPP’s of­fice dur­ing protests linked to the po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing of Joshua Sama­roo and the crim­i­nal charges laid against Ka­ia Sealy in his death.

The state­ment was al­so is­sued hours af­ter the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er an­nounced a list of 15 no-protest zones un­der the emer­gency reg­u­la­tions. The re­strict­ed ar­eas in­clude Par­lia­ment, the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre and the Of­fice of the DPP, with protests pro­hib­it­ed with­in 500 me­tres of the list­ed lo­ca­tions.

The Prime Min­is­ter did not re­fer specif­i­cal­ly to the TTPS’ re­lease of the 15 zones in her re­lease.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment of en­cour­ag­ing hos­til­i­ty to­ward law en­force­ment and pros­e­cu­tors through its pub­lic crit­i­cism of the SoE and re­cent po­lice ac­tions.

“The PNM’s pro­mot­ing of law­less­ness, ha­tred against law en­force­ment, racist in­vec­tive, crim­i­nal gang pro­pa­gan­da and mob in­tim­i­da­tion tac­tics se­ri­ous­ly en­dan­gers the safe­ty of law-abid­ing cit­i­zens,” she said.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­leged that po­lit­i­cal fig­ures and crim­i­nal el­e­ments were at­tempt­ing to un­der­mine con­fi­dence in law en­force­ment in­sti­tu­tions through what she de­scribed as in­flam­ma­to­ry rhetoric.

“It ap­pears that the PNM and sup­port­ers of the crim­i­nal gangs are try­ing their best to fo­ment ha­tred against law en­force­ment in the hope that it may re­sult in vi­o­lence against law en­force­ment of­fi­cials,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar stat­ed.

“Will they be sat­is­fied if TTPS of­fi­cers and pros­e­cu­tors are gunned down in our streets?”

She fur­ther claimed that at­tacks on law en­force­ment and pros­e­cu­tors formed part of a broad­er ef­fort to weak­en the rule of law and em­bold­en crim­i­nal net­works.

“The ones that en­cour­age crim­i­nal­i­ty and dis­re­gard for the rule of law are the very ones shout­ing the loud­est in per­for­ma­tive fake out­rage, race-bait­ing, pub­lic­i­ty farm­ing and po­lit­i­cal the­atrics,” the Prime Min­is­ter said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so reaf­firmed her ad­min­is­tra­tion’s sup­port for the coun­try’s pro­tec­tive ser­vices, say­ing the Gov­ern­ment would con­tin­ue to stand be­hind po­lice of­fi­cers and pros­e­cu­tors.

“My Gov­ern­ment will al­ways stand firm­ly with our pro­tec­tive ser­vices,” she said.

“We will en­sure that law en­force­ment mem­bers and pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al of­fi­cers are re­spect­ed, pro­tect­ed and val­ued, while law­break­ers are nev­er glo­ri­fied, ex­cused or en­cour­aged.”

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so ref­er­enced the De­cem­ber 2024 killing of spe­cial State pros­e­cu­tor Ran­dall Hec­tor, who was shot dead in front of his fam­i­ly af­ter a church ser­vice. At the time, he was pros­e­cut­ing a case in­volv­ing a re­put­ed gang leader.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar did not re­spond to Guardian Me­dia ques­tions re­gard­ing the TTPS list­ing or ar­eas where protests will not be al­lowed.