SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

A health walk billed “Push Back Two” that at­tract­ed hun­dreds— in­clud­ing chil­dren—came to an abrupt end on Sun­day af­ter po­lice used tear gas to break up the crowd.

The po­lice re­port­ed that par­tic­i­pants of the walk be­gan act­ing er­rat­ic and hurled mis­siles at armed law­men who had to throw can­is­ters of tear gas to dis­perse the un­ruly crowd.

Fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, 11 peo­ple were ar­rest­ed and chil­dren left nurs­ing in­juries.

Up to late yes­ter­day, the 11 ar­rest­ed were still de­tained at the St Clair Po­lice Sta­tion.

But chair­man of Push Back com­mit­tee and busi­ness­man Robert Amar has dis­put­ed the po­lice re­port that the par­tic­i­pants were un­ruly.

“This is in­sen­si­tiv­i­ty of the po­lice and in­con­sid­er­a­tion for peo­ple’s rights. In my view that is the on­ly rea­son that could hap­pen. These peo­ple went there with no hos­til­i­ty...peo­ple went there to ex­press them­selves with the way the coun­try is go­ing...the manda­to­ry po­si­tion the Prime Min­is­ter is forc­ing on the peo­ple and the lies that are be­ing told to the coun­try,” Amar told Guardian Me­dia in a tele­phone in­ter­view.

“Ab­solute­ly ridicu­lous, ab­solute­ly un­called for. No­body went there with any mis­siles. What are mis­siles? You could walk with a plas­tic wa­ter bot­tle. I didn’t see any bot­tle fly­ing.”

Amar said they video­taped the walk and gath­er­ing which would sub­stan­ti­ate their sto­ry that they went there in peace.

“They (po­lice) would say any­thing they want to say. They want to dis­perse the crowd be­cause the crowd was not mov­ing.”

He in­sist­ed that ex­ces­sive force was used by the po­lice.

“Ab­solute­ly. There were chil­dren and el­der­ly peo­ple there. They had no right to do that. Is that the best way the Po­lice Ser­vice has been trained? It’s ridicu­lous.”

Asked how many tear gas can­is­ters were dis­persed, Amar said, “I un­der­stand it was four or six based on the smoke we saw. Two of them end­ed up in the old for­eign af­fairs build­ing and the se­cu­ri­ty guards there had to run.”

The walk, which be­gan at 11.15 am and end­ed at 12.30 pm, Amar said, was or­gan­ised to get peo­ple back on a health con­science move­ment.

“We don’t have a prob­lem with vac­ci­na­tion. We al­ways tell peo­ple we are pro-choice.”

Amar promised to write a let­ter to act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob re­gard­ing the in­ci­dent.

Among the 11 ar­rest­ed, Amar said, was so­cial me­dia ac­tivist David Welch.

“They ar­rest­ed Welch for tear­ing up a plac­ard.”

In the first Push Back on No­vem­ber 30 last year, Amar said, 35 peo­ple were ar­rest­ed and charged for breach­ing pub­lic health or­di­nance, specif­i­cal­ly gath­er­ing in groups more than ten.

The 35 were de­tained for 16 hours.

“It was to teach the 35 peo­ple a les­son. This is not go­ing to stop the peo­ple. The peo­ple are not sat­is­fied with the feed­back. Let the Prime Min­is­ter an­swer the ques­tion, how many peo­ple of the 82 per cent were not vac­ci­nat­ed at all...that died (of COVID-19).”

Amar said they in­tend to con­tin­ue the walk every Sun­day.

Act­ing Supt Kissoon­lal, of the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion, who head­ed a team of armed of­fi­cers at the walk, told Guardian Me­dia that peo­ple at the sa­van­nah “were hes­i­tant to re­move them­selves and they start­ed be­hav­ing in a very vi­o­lent man­ner...I think one or two of them threw some­thing at the po­lice....that is what caused that. It could have been emp­ty bot­tles. I don’t know what they throw.”

He said be­cause the crowd re­fused to dis­perse tear gas had to be used by of­fi­cers of Guard and Emer­gency Branch.

“Eleven per­sons were ar­rest­ed. One of them is a fe­male. They are be­ing de­tained.”

Kissoon­lal could not say if charges will be laid against them.

Pri­or to the walk, pres­i­dent of the First Wave Move­ment and ac­tivist Umar Ab­dul­lah told the gath­er­ing that their pres­ence at the sa­van­nah sig­nalled that enough is enough.

But Ab­dul­lah’s ad­dress was in­ter­rupt­ed by Kissoon­lal who in­formed the crowd that no per­mis­sion was grant­ed for the meet­ing.

“And if you do en­gage in any protest and march around the sa­van­nah we will have to deal with you ac­cord­ing to law. We are ask­ing every­body, please get your per­mis­sion first from the of­fice of the com­mis­sion­er (po­lice) and please abide by the laws,” Kissoon­lal told the at­ten­dees, who start­ed to jeer him and loud­ly ob­ject.

Ab­dul­lah plead­ed with the crowd to fol­low the in­struc­tions and walk around the sa­van­nah six feet apart.

Fol­low­ing the walk, an uniden­ti­fied woman ap­peared in the mid­dle of the as­sem­bly hold­ing aloft a plac­ard with the words “Pushin’ For­ward with D PNM” while shout­ing “vac­ci­nate to op­er­ate.”

A lone man was al­so seen wav­ing a red and white PNM flag.

Short­ly af­ter Welch was ar­rest­ed and tak­en away.