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Thursday, February 13, 2025

Video of taunts for elderly man in PNM jersey condemned

by

47 days ago
20241228
A screengrab of the man who was taunted for wearing a PNM jersey at the Tunapuna Market

A screengrab of the man who was taunted for wearing a PNM jersey at the Tunapuna Market

SOCIAL MEDIA

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

A video cir­cu­lat­ing of an el­der­ly man be­ing taunt­ed by an­oth­er man for wear­ing a PNM jer­sey is be­ing con­demned.

The video, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 20 sec­onds long, is shot in the first per­son, with the per­son hold­ing the cam­era shout­ing at the man in the Tu­na­puna Mar­ket.

“Watch this moth­er *ex­ple­tive*,” the man says, as the el­der­ly man walks away from him and takes a seat.

“PNM jer­sey in the mar­ket. Watch the mar­ket. Peo­ple can’t even self buy *ex­ple­tive* goods, he wear­ing PNM jer­sey. This lit­tle *ex­ple­tive* Row­ley sup­port­er.”

The cam­era then zooms in­to the man’s face as the per­son record­ing asks who knows him. He then tells the man to “take off that jer­sey and walk on it,” curs­ing him again. Then the video cuts off. 

Ac­cord­ing to the Con­sti­tu­tion, every cit­i­zen has the right to join po­lit­i­cal par­ties and ex­press po­lit­i­cal views. The on­ly re­stric­tion on wear­ing po­lit­i­cal par­ty gear is on elec­tion day, with­in 100 feet of a polling sta­tion.

The PNM Women’s League called out the ac­count cre­ator, “shak­star 296,” for vi­o­lat­ing that and oth­er sec­tions of the Con­sti­tu­tion, in­clud­ing the free­dom of thought and ex­pres­sion.

“As cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go, we must col­lec­tive­ly work to up­hold the dig­ni­ty, rights, and free­doms of every in­di­vid­ual, as out­lined in our na­tion’s Con­sti­tu­tion. As for this ac­count cre­ator, we pray for your men­tal well-be­ing and want you to know that we are NOT (sic) afraid of wear­ing our PNM T-shirts,” the Women’s League said in its state­ment.

It said it stood unit­ed in re­ject­ing all forms of bul­ly­ing and dis­crim­i­na­tion, en­sur­ing a so­ci­ety where democ­ra­cy and re­spect for hu­man rights thrived. They said true democ­ra­cy was up­held when every cit­i­zen, re­gard­less of po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion, could ex­press their views freely and con­tribute to na­tion­al dis­course with­out fear or ha­rass­ment.

The video was al­so swift­ly con­demned by NTA leader Gary Grif­fith, who called for calm and a low­er­ing of ten­sions.

“The NTA wants to re­mind all cit­i­zens that, as we soon go to the polls, we can be po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents but nev­er en­e­mies, and that we must al­ways be guid­ed by the prin­ci­ples of democ­ra­cy, which con­demn po­lit­i­cal vi­o­lence and thug­gery,” Grif­fith said in a state­ment.

“In that re­gard, we al­so urge the pub­lic not to fall vic­tim to the dan­ger­ous and di­vi­sive rhetoric of those who as­pire to lead.”

He said call­ing for peo­ple to be burnt and us­ing deroga­to­ry names against women, as seen in the com­ment sec­tions on so­cial me­dia, goes against the coun­try’s long and dis­tin­guished his­to­ry of po­lit­i­cal tol­er­ance.

Al­so con­cerned about the video, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Bish­nu Ra­goo­nauth said, “Par­ty lead­ers have placed their sup­port­ers on no­tice to be ready for the elec­tion at any time. It is not sur­pris­ing, there­fore, that sup­port­ers will start parad­ing with their par­ty colours and sym­bols. That is their right, and be­ing the free, de­mo­c­ra­t­ic coun­try that we live in, we must re­spect each oth­er’s rights, and any no­tion to un­der­mine or cur­tail such rights must be re­ject­ed and con­demned.”

Ra­goo­nauth is al­so the head of the Coun­cil of Eth­i­cal Po­lit­i­cal Con­duct. How­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to the code, which the par­ties signed, the coun­cil can­not make any pro­nounce­ments three months pri­or to the elec­tion. The coun­cil can make state­ments once the elec­tion is called.

Guardian Me­dia sent the video to UNC PRO Dr Kirk Meighoo for com­ment, but he did not re­spond up to press time.


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