The Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, through Di­rec­tor of Gov­ern­ment Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Kirk Jean-Bap­tiste, yes­ter­day re­quest­ed the au­dio record­ing of a morn­ing ra­dio show on which the Prime Min­is­ter was dis­par­aged.

Ac­cord­ing to a me­dia re­lease on the is­sue yes­ter­day, Jean-Bap­tiste con­firmed that po­lit­i­cal ac­tivist turned talk how host Lennox Smith used deroga­to­ry ref­er­ences to de­scribe the PM on 104.7FM.

The re­lease de­scribed the com­ments as “un­war­rant­ed and er­ro­neous” and said they were made by Smith on No­vem­ber 17.

“The Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Di­vi­sion, for­mal­ly de­mands a copy of the en­tire pro­gramme with Mr Lennox Smith,” Jean-Bap­tiste said in the let­ter, giv­ing the ra­dio sta­tion un­til 3 pm that same day to co­op­er­ate.

It is un­der­stood the record­ing of the morn­ing pro­gramme was de­liv­ered to the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter.

But in an im­me­di­ate re­ac­tion yes­ter­day, fel­low ra­dio talk show host and po­lit­i­cal ac­tivist Michael T Kerr “Mikey K” is­sued a state­ment say­ing he was plan­ning to protest at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah next Tues­day. He ques­tioned why Jean-Bap­tiste didn’t go through the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Au­thor­i­ty of T&T in­stead of writ­ing to the ra­dio sta­tion.

“Is it that Kirk Jean-Bap­tiste couldn’t write to TATT be­cause he would have to men­tion, on who’s (sic) in­struc­tions he was act­ing up­on?” Kerr asked.

“What au­thor­i­ty does Lt Cdr Kirk Jean-Bap­tiste has (sic) to de­mand a copy of any­thing? Is Kirk Jean-Bap­tiste Dr Row­ley’s new at­tor­ney? Has he re­placed Michael Quam­i­na? Is Kirk Jean-Bap­tiste an at­tor­ney?”

He al­so ques­tioned who in­struct­ed Jean-Bap­tiste to re­quest the record­ing and if he con­sult­ed with the Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

“Why was he al­leged­ly re­moved from the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Di­vi­sion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice?” Kerr asked.

He al­so ques­tioned whether Jean-Bap­tiste’s cor­re­spon­dence was a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter or press re­lease.

Kerr said, “We de­mand an­swers. We will not be si­lenced and our democ­ra­cy is un­der threat”

He al­so called on the cit­i­zen­ry to stand their ground and “push back.”

In 2008, for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning vis­it­ed Ra­dio 94.1 FM af­ter he grew con­cerned about state­ments made by the an­nounc­ers then.