An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

So­cial ac­tivist First Wave Move­ment leader Umar Ab­dul­lah is call­ing on Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro to in­ves­ti­gate and pros­e­cute Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for sedi­tion over re­marks made dur­ing her In­de­pen­dence Day ad­dress.

Asked about Ab­dul­lah’s call yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­spond­ed cheek­i­ly: “They know where to find me.”

In a let­ter dat­ed Sep­tem­ber 1, Ab­dul­lah cit­ed ex­cerpts from the Prime Min­is­ter’s ad­dress, in­clud­ing her state­ments: “Do not crawl on your bel­ly for any­one. It’s ei­ther peace or to­tal war, noth­ing in be­tween,” and that “fi­nesse and diplo­ma­cy must be backed up with stee­li­ness and sav­agery when re­quired to de­fend the UNC mem­ber­ship.”

Ab­dul­lah ar­gued, “These words, com­ing from the sit­ting Prime Min­is­ter, are not mere po­lit­i­cal rhetoric. They are dan­ger­ous, di­vi­sive, and car­ry the un­mis­tak­able tone of in­cite­ment. They frame na­tion­al pol­i­tics as a bat­tle­field, dele­git­imise com­pro­mise, and nor­malise vi­o­lence as a tool of gov­er­nance.”

Ref­er­enc­ing T&T’s Sedi­tion Act, which crim­i­nalis­es speech that brings the gov­ern­ment in­to ha­tred or con­tempt, ex­cites dis­af­fec­tion, pro­motes hos­til­i­ty be­tween class­es of cit­i­zens, or in­cites vi­o­lence and pub­lic dis­or­der, Ab­dul­lah claimed the PM’s re­marks fell with­in those pro­vi­sions.

“By in­vok­ing to­tal war and sav­agery, she has ex­cit­ed dis­af­fec­tion and hos­til­i­ty, un­der­min­ing the peace and se­cu­ri­ty of the State,” he said.

To sup­port his ar­gu­ment, Ab­dul­lah not­ed that for­mer Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr (now de­ceased) was charged in 2005 af­ter de­liv­er­ing an Eid ser­mon in which he warned wealthy Mus­lims to pay za­kaat or face con­se­quences. Al­though the mat­ter end­ed in a hung ju­ry, Ab­dul­lah said au­thor­i­ties con­sid­ered the re­marks se­ri­ous enough to pros­e­cute.

He al­so ref­er­enced the 2018 charge against for­mer Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke over com­ments made dur­ing a protest, and a 2019 in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­volv­ing the late Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha leader Sat Ma­haraj fol­low­ing con­tro­ver­sial re­marks about To­bag­o­ni­ans and men, which led to con­sti­tu­tion­al chal­lenges to the Sedi­tion Act.

Ab­dul­lah al­so said Christo­pher “Christ Must List” Hugh­es was charged in 2024 over YouTube videos al­leged­ly glo­ri­fy­ing gang ac­tiv­i­ty and un­der­min­ing pub­lic or­der, which re­mains be­fore the courts.

“In each of these cas­es, in­di­vid­u­als were brought be­fore the courts for state­ments far less con­se­quen­tial than those of a sit­ting Prime Min­is­ter,” Ab­dul­lah said.

“If Abu Bakr’s re­li­gious ser­mon, Duke’s protest threats, Ma­haraj’s in­sults and Hugh­es’ videos war­rant­ed po­lice ac­tion, then Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s call to to­tal war de­mands im­me­di­ate in­ves­ti­ga­tion and pros­e­cu­tion.”

Ab­dul­lah al­so ar­gued that the re­marks were par­tic­u­lar­ly trou­bling be­cause they were de­liv­ered on In­de­pen­dence Day, a time when na­tion­al lead­ers are ex­pect­ed to pro­mote uni­ty.

In­stead, he claimed, the Prime Min­is­ter spoke pri­mar­i­ly to her po­lit­i­cal base, deep­en­ing par­ti­san di­vi­sions.

Re­gard­ing the al­leged in­cite­ment to vi­o­lence, Ab­dul­lah said, “To­tal war and sav­agery are not metaphors of peace; they are calls to con­fronta­tion. By fram­ing pol­i­tics as war, she dele­git­imis­es de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process­es and en­cour­ages sup­port­ers to treat op­po­nents as en­e­mies.”

Ab­dul­lah urged Gue­var­ro to act, warn­ing that fail­ure to do so would cre­ate the per­cep­tion that sedi­tion laws are en­forced se­lec­tive­ly.

“It would sig­nal that sedi­tion laws ap­ply on­ly to or­di­nary cit­i­zens, not to those in high of­fice, erod­ing pub­lic trust in the rule of law,” he said.

“The law is clear, and prece­dent is es­tab­lished. The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice has a du­ty to act with­out fear or favour.”

Ab­dul­lah con­clud­ed by say­ing the peo­ple of T&T de­served as­sur­ance that de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tions would not be un­der­mined by what he de­scribed as reck­less rhetoric.

“The voice of the peo­ple is the voice of God (vox pop­uli, vox Dei). It is your du­ty to up­hold that voice by en­forc­ing the law equal­ly,” he stat­ed.

Ef­forts to reach Gue­var­ro for com­ment were un­suc­cess­ful.