Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

YouTu­ber Christo­pher “Chris Must List” Hugh­es was brought to tears yes­ter­day evening, as he re­called the love and ap­pre­ci­a­tion he re­ceived while in the coun­try.

How­ev­er, he main­tains he has done noth­ing wrong by pub­lish­ing his video in­ter­view with lo­cal gang mem­bers.

Hugh­es spoke with Guardian Me­dia at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, as he sought to col­lect new equip­ment to con­tin­ue his vlog­ging be­cause he will have to re­main here to face charges of dis­sem­i­nat­ing a sedi­tious pub­li­ca­tion.

The 45-year-old fa­ther of three from On­tario, Cana­da, was grant­ed $100,000 bail by Mas­ter Mar­garet Sookraj-Goswa­mi and will reap­pear in court to­mor­row. He is ac­cused of pub­lish­ing the sedi­tious doc­u­ment on May 29. Hugh­es was re­leased on Mon­day night af­ter his bail bond was post­ed.

Hugh­es said as soon as he gets new equip­ment, he will re­sume his vlog­ging. Asked if he would con­tin­ue with some of the con­tent that land­ed him in le­gal hot wa­ter, Hugh­es said yes.

“I feel like I have done noth­ing wrong; up un­til to­day, there is no rea­son for me to stop do­ing what I’m do­ing. That’s what the courts will de­cide—if I have done some­thing wrong or not. As of right now, I will con­tin­ue to do what I have been do­ing.”

Hugh­es’ con­tent in­cludes videos of Point Fortin Bor­ough Day, oth­er fes­tiv­i­ties and some videos of men be­lieved to be gang­sters. His videos were re­moved from pub­lic to pri­vate mode af­ter he was ar­rest­ed. Hugh­es said af­ter his ar­rest, oth­er for­eign con­tent cre­ators left the coun­try in fear they too may be ar­rest­ed.

Choos­ing not to speak on be­half of his fel­low YouTu­bers, Hugh­es said, “I have learnt a les­son that some­times a coun­try that claims to be free and has free­dom of speech and press is not al­ways the case.”

He said the no­tion that he should learn the laws of the coun­tries he vis­its is ridicu­lous, as lawyers take years to do so while he vis­its mul­ti­ple coun­tries a year. T&T, he said, is the 128th coun­try he has vis­it­ed since he be­gan his ca­reer some four years ago.

He de­scribed his time in cus­tody as “the worst of the worst” but com­mend­ed the po­lice and prison au­thor­i­ties. There was urine and fae­ces on the walls as well, he said. Hugh­es said he lay on the bare ground with no mat­tress and no sun­light, so he and those in the cell were un­able to tell the time of day. That, to him, was “a re­al mind game”.

He said the six days felt like six months, and on his first taste of free­dom, he just want­ed fresh air. He spent time “check­ing in” at the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre (ECRC) but was not placed in a cell, as his bail was processed be­fore he was booked. In his mo­ment of free­dom, he said he want­ed to en­joy noth­ing­ness.

The YouTu­ber said he spent a lot of his time think­ing about his fam­i­ly.

“Get­ting out and open­ing the win­dow as I drove and smelling the fresh air was the mo­ment for me that I knew I was free.”

Asked about his fam­i­ly, Hugh­es said they just want him home, but de­pend­ing on how long he will have to stay here, he will want them to come here with him.

Hugh­es joked that he ate “a lit­tle too much” af­ter telling Guardian Me­dia off-cam­era that he re­frained from eat­ing while in cus­tody, afraid to use the one toi­let in the cell.

Af­ter his re­lease, Hugh­es spent some hours on Ari­api­ta Av­enue re­lax­ing, which turned out to be a pho­to op­por­tu­ni­ty for those lim­ing with him. He said his in­ten­tion was not to cel­e­brate, but the sup­port of the peo­ple around him turned it in­to a cel­e­bra­tion.

As he spoke yes­ter­day, school­child­ren were heard shout­ing, “Chris Must List, we love you!”

Re­spond­ing to the out­pour­ing of love and sup­port from the pop­u­la­tion, be­fore break­ing down in tears, he said, “Amaz­ing, amaz­ing peo­ple!”

He added, “I don’t know what else to say. I’m a stranger here. I don’t know if I de­serve this love. I’m not cry­ing out of sad­ness; the peo­ple are in­cred­i­ble.”

Sib­lings Tyan­nah and Re­nal­do Downes and Tyan­nah’s best friend, Far­rah Homer, rushed to get pic­tures and chat with Hugh­es in Guardian Me­dia’s pres­ence.

The YouTu­ber said he has no ill feel­ings for the coun­try. He re­solved not to be sad­dened by his le­gal ex­pe­ri­ence. He said he took it as a pos­i­tive and may look at get­ting in shape.

“I have been here for 35 days, and I have not met one man, woman, or child who has said any­thing neg­a­tive to me, nei­ther be­fore, dur­ing, or af­ter this or­deal. The biggest fear I had in all of this was, am I go­ing to be al­lowed to come back?

“I love the coun­try; I will keep pro­mot­ing the coun­try. I have no hard feel­ings at all,” he said.