Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter 

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

The Gov­ern­ment has de­cid­ed to “re­strain” Vy­bz Kar­tel from per­form­ing some songs deemed to be vul­gar when he vis­its this coun­try lat­er this month for a con­cert. It is al­so con­sid­er­ing in­sti­tut­ing an age lim­it for those at­tend­ing the event. The de­ci­sion comes as the Ja­maican dance­hall artiste, re­al name, Adid­ja Palmer, said he had no is­sue with the re­stric­tions be­ing im­posed on him in T&T.

Kar­tel has been booked for the One Caribbean Mu­sic Fes­ti­val on May 31, in what is con­sid­ered a high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed per­for­mance.

How­ev­er, on Thurs­day, Guardian Me­dia was first to break the news that De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge had is­sued a draft or­der lim­it­ing Kar­tel’s move­ment while in T&T for the con­cert.

Elab­o­rat­ing on the mat­ter at the post-Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence, Sturge said the de­ci­sion was made for the well-be­ing of the na­tion’s chil­dren, since Kar­tel was sched­uled to speak to young­sters and make oth­er ap­pear­ances. Kar­tel was re­leased from prison in Ja­maica last Ju­ly. He had been in prison for mur­der since 2014.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said it was she who had voiced con­cern about Kar­tel in­ter­act­ing with chil­dren.

But yes­ter­day, a re­lease from Sturge’s min­istry said Kar­tel re­quest­ed per­mis­sion to en­ter the coun­try on May 26, but the min­is­ter amend­ed it to May 29 un­til June 3.

The min­istry said that based on in­tel­li­gence of the artiste’s af­fil­i­a­tions and re­cent events in Tor­to­la, “the al­lo­ca­tion of scarce re­sources nec­es­sary for the safe­ty of the artiste and his en­tourage can­not be pro­vid­ed for the pe­ri­od sought.”

In the “pub­lic in­ter­est,” Min­is­ter Sturge re­fused per­mis­sion for Kar­tel to en­gage in a com­mu­ni­ty meet and greet, a school vis­it and youth cen­tre, a cul­tur­al lunch with com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers, a crime aware­ness func­tion, a pan­el talk and a com­mu­ni­ty walk-through.

The re­lease added that Min­is­ter Sturge care­ful­ly bal­anced Kar­tel’s free­dom of ex­pres­sion against na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and the best in­ter­est of the na­tion’s chil­dren hav­ing re­gard to treaty oblig­a­tions un­der the UN Con­ven­tion on the Rights of the Child and “in so do­ing, the Ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter has giv­en con­sid­er­a­tion to re­strict­ing at­ten­dance to the con­cert to be held on May 31 to per­sons of the age of 18 and over. Up­on re­ceipt of a le­gal opin­ion, a de­ci­sion would be made on this is­sue,” the re­lease said.

It added that Kar­tel may not be able to per­form some of his songs at the con­cert.

“Hav­ing re­ceived nu­mer­ous com­plaints and re­mon­stra­tions from in­di­vid­u­als and re­li­gious groups re­gard­ing the ex­plic­it and vul­gar lyrics con­tained in the song ‘Good like Je­sus’, where the qual­i­ty of a fe­male’s gen­i­talia is com­pared with the de­ity known as Je­sus, and hav­ing con­sid­ered the ef­fect such lyrics may like­ly have up­on those who ven­er­ate Je­sus ei­ther as their Lord and Sav­iour or as prophet, the Ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter has and will ex­er­cise his dis­cre­tion to re­strain Mr Palmer from per­form­ing this song whilst in this ju­ris­dic­tion, as well as any song which con­tains sim­i­lar con­tent.”

Min­is­ter Sturge, in the re­lease al­so re­spond­ed to crit­i­cism that as a de­fence at­tor­ney he rep­re­sent­ed al­leged gang­sters and lo­cal artistes, say­ing he was ad­vanc­ing the in­ter­ests of his clients. Now, he said his client is the cit­i­zen­ry of T&T.

Kar­tel blames pro­mot­er

Mean­while, Kar­tel said he had no is­sue with the re­stric­tions be­ing im­posed by T&T.

In a video post­ed on so­cial me­dia, he said, “There is no prob­lem with Vy­bz Kar­tel per­form­ing in Trinidad.

He said the nec­es­sary per­mits were grant­ed.

Kar­tel said his itin­er­ary was arranged by the pro­mot­er. 

“The prob­lem lies tak­ing it up­on him­self and try to fill Vy­bz Kar­tel itin­er­ary with things that had noth­ing to do with Vy­bz Kar­tel per­for­mance and right­ful­ly so the De­fence Min­is­ter pulled the plug on that part of itin­er­ary and there is no prob­lem there as Vy­bz Kar­tel rep­re­sent for Trinidad, rep­re­sent for Ja­maica, as a mat­ter of fact for the en­tire Caribbean.”

Pro­mot­er Ja­cho En­ter­tain­ment Com­pa­ny de­clined com­ment on this mat­ter.  

How­ev­er, for­mer tourism min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell did not agree with Gov­ern­ment’s stance.

In a What­sApp re­sponse, Mitchell stat­ed, “All in all, the de­ci­sion to lim­it Vy­bz Kar­tel’s ac­tiv­i­ties, in my view, ap­pears to be dis­pro­por­tion­ate as the pos­i­tive out­comes ex­pect­ed from his ap­pear­ances here far out­weigh any per­ceived neg­a­tive out­comes.”

He added the re­stric­tion on me­dia in­ter­views would sig­nif­i­cant­ly in­hib­it the pro­mot­er’s abil­i­ty to pro­mote his event and puts a damper on the con­cert’s ap­peal. 

“I think this is a missed op­por­tu­ni­ty to have some­one who is in­flu­en­tial, to speak pos­i­tive­ly to young peo­ple on avoid­ing a life of crime. There is no one bet­ter to do it, than some­one who has lived it,” he said.

List of ac­tiv­i­ties banned by Govt

• A com­mu­ni­ty meet and greet

• A school and youth cen­tre vis­it

• A cul­tur­al lunch with com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers

• A crime aware­ness func­tion

• A pan­el talk

• A com­mu­ni­ty walk-through

• Per­for­mance of the song "Good like Je­sus"