Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les says the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) will host a pub­lic meet­ing in Tu­na­puna to­mor­row to ed­u­cate cit­i­zens about how their con­sti­tu­tion­al rights will be af­fect­ed un­der the new­ly de­clared State of Emer­gency (SoE).

Speak­ing dur­ing an in­ter­view on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew, Beck­les said, “We will be hav­ing a pub­lic meet­ing on Fri­day in Tu­na­puna, be­cause this is all about ed­u­ca­tion. So of­ten bills are de­bat­ed in Par­lia­ment, and peo­ple re­al­ly don’t have a clue as to what ex­act­ly is the leg­is­la­tion and how it will im­pact on their dai­ly lives.”

The Op­po­si­tion leader not­ed that while the de­c­la­ra­tion of a SoE of­ten re­ceives the most pub­lic at­ten­tion, many cit­i­zens re­main un­aware of the de­tailed reg­u­la­tions that gov­ern how the emer­gency pow­ers are ex­er­cised.

Beck­les said the meet­ing will pro­vide an op­por­tu­ni­ty for the pub­lic to ask ques­tions and gain a clear­er un­der­stand­ing of the le­gal pro­vi­sions con­tained in the reg­u­la­tions.

“We are go­ing to take the time to share with the pub­lic and take some ques­tions and say to the av­er­age mem­ber of the coun­try, be aware,” she said.

She al­so re­it­er­at­ed grow­ing con­cerns about how emer­gency reg­u­la­tions could af­fect cit­i­zens’ use of so­cial me­dia and dig­i­tal plat­forms.

Reg­u­la­tion 11 of the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions 2026 states: “No per­son shall— (a) en­deav­our, whether oral­ly or oth­er­wise, to in­flu­ence pub­lic opin­ion in a man­ner like­ly to be prej­u­di­cial to pub­lic safe­ty; or (b) do any act or have any ar­ti­cle in his pos­ses­sion with a view to mak­ing or fa­cil­i­tat­ing the mak­ing of any such en­deav­our.”

This reg­u­la­tion is not new and ex­ist­ed un­der the pre­vi­ous Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions dur­ing the pre­vi­ous SoE, which last­ed be­tween Ju­ly 18, 2025 and Jan­u­ary 31, 2026.

“You have been hear­ing a lot of dis­cus­sions about so­cial me­dia, about your phones,” Beck­les said, not­ing that com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nolo­gies have dra­mat­i­cal­ly changed po­lit­i­cal en­gage­ment since she first en­tered pub­lic life in the ear­ly 1990s.

“I mean, you go back when I be­came a coun­cil­lor in 1992, a phone wasn’t re­al­ly a big thing. Now you can’t do it with­out a phone. It’s be­come fash­ion­able to do a live, to do a Tik­Tok,” she added.

Ref­er­enc­ing the re­cent ar­rest of a so­cial me­dia ac­tivist dur­ing a pre­vi­ous SoE, Beck­les warned that cit­i­zens need to be mind­ful of the le­gal con­se­quences that could arise un­der emer­gency reg­u­la­tions.

The PNM has ar­gued that the reg­u­la­tions al­low the State to “po­lice” ex­pres­sion.

Un­der these rules, the gov­ern­ment can po­ten­tial­ly crim­i­nalise the pub­li­ca­tion or dis­tri­b­u­tion of in­for­ma­tion deemed “prej­u­di­cial to pub­lic or­der,” which the Op­po­si­tion fears could be used to si­lence po­lit­i­cal dis­sent or me­dia scruti­ny.

“In a state of emer­gency, if you’re locked away, ba­si­cal­ly that’s there for the time,” Beck­les said. “Your free­dom be­ing de­nied, if you are aware of the reg­u­la­tions, you may make a to­tal­ly dif­fer­ent de­ci­sion.”

On Tues­day, Guardian Me­dia asked the Prime Min­is­ter to re­spond to claims that the SoE is be­ing used to sti­fle dis­sent against the gov­ern­ment’s poli­cies.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­spond­ed, “PNM politi­cians are free to speak as much dumb things as they want, a right that they have pro­fuse­ly ac­cept­ed all day to­day.

“That’s a pret­ty des­per­ate ac­cu­sa­tion from peo­ple who are sup­port­ing dic­ta­tor­ships in Venezuela, Iran and Cu­ba.

“Al­so, I’ve re­peat­ed­ly said peo­ple are free to mash up and burn down the place if they want.”

Mean­while, Beck­les said Fri­day’s meet­ing is sched­uled to be­gin at 7 pm, al­though the ex­act venue is still be­ing fi­nalised.