The Op­po­si­tion PNM used last week­end's Low­er House de­bate to raise some of its con­stituents' SOE con­cerns. With some con­stituents in prob­lems con-cern­ing the SOE, the PNM has put to­geth­er a team of at­tor­neys to as­sist those peo­ple, PNM chair­man Franklin Khan said on Thurs-day. The PNM team is head­ed by two for­mer At­tor­neys Gen­er­al, Glen­da More­an and Bri-gitte An­nisette-George. It in­cludes PNM vice chair­man Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, at­tor­neys Pen­ny Beck­les and Mar­sha King, and oth­ers.

Robin­son-Reg­is said yes­ter­day:

"It was es­tab­lished fol­low­ing com­plaints that peo­ple not guilty of any­thing were be­ing picked up. I thought we should have lawyers in place to whom MPs can re­fer their con­stit-uents." Robin­son-Reg­is met with the Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er on in­for­ma­tion re­ceived so far. She said she is al­so li­ais­ing with the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty to sub­mit in­for­ma­tion.

She added:

"We've had sit­u­a­tion where a well re­spect­ed fam­i­ly man was picked up, tak­en to a po­lice sta­tion and was be­ing forced to sign a pre­pared state­ment stat­ing he was a gang mem­ber. "He didn't sign, but that is very fright­en­ing since a less knowl­edge­able per­son could have been pres­sured in­to sign­ing."

Reg­is said the pub­lic can con­tact PNM's le­gal team through its MPs, area co-or­di­na­tors or area chair­men. The PNM is al­so suf­fer­ing SOE ill-ef­fects in oth­er ar­eas. Since the SOE cur­tails free­dom of as­sem­bly -which knocks out PNM's re­cent rounds of pub­lic meet­ings-PN­Mites at Wednes­day's cen­tral ex­ec­u­tive meet­ing dis­cussed whether the par­ty can hold oth­er planned events. While PNM's last gen­er­al coun­cil took place just be­fore the SOE in Au­gust, PNM chair­man Khan said the up­com­ing coun­cil will like­ly be held.

Khan added, "It's not a pub­lic meet­ing. Coun-cil is held in an en­closed area, so it doesn't fall un­der SOE reg­u­la­tions-we've spo­ken to our lawyers . I don't think we'll have to seek per-mis­sion for it. "While it is of a po­lit­i­cal na­ture, our mem­bers are known by name and the meet­ing isn't ac­ces­si­ble to the gen­er­al pub­lic." Re­gard­ing the Sep­tem­ber 25 func­tion to com­mem­o­rate founder Er­ic Williams's 100th birth­day, Khan added, "We'll have to seek po­lice per­mis­sion for this since it is open to the pub­lic." Khan said the par­ty post­poned the first Au­gust draw of its BMW three-car raf­fle. "But we'll have two draws at the end of Sep­tem­ber, so keep your tick­ets," he added.