Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Two lead­ing fe­male ac­tivists have come out in sup­port of po­lice ac­tion against pro­test­ers rep­re­sent­ing the High­way Re-Route Move­ment who staged a sit-in to block Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar from at­tend­ing and leav­ing an In­di­an Ar­rival Day func­tion in Debe on Wednes­day. But the leader of Men Against Vi­o­lence Against Women be­lieves the Prime Min­is­ter has lost po­lit­i­cal sup­port and cred­i­bil­i­ty by "hu­mil­i­at­ing" the fe­male pro­test­ers. Dr Rus­sell Foote said Per­sad-Bisses­sar's re­fusal to meet with the pro­test­ers, who sat on the road and sang Hin­du re­li­gious songs, was a re­flec­tion of the "lack of ed­u­ca­tion and deco­rum" at all lev­els of so­ci­ety. "Peo­ple run a so­ci­ety and how­ev­er they be­have and what­ev­er they say is a re­flec­tion of where that so­ci­ety is head­ing," he said yes­ter­day.

Crit­i­cis­ing the Prime Min­is­ter, Foote said: "This un­for­tu­nate in­ci­dent is a re­flec­tion of the ed­u­ca­tion of peo­ple. "Even though we claim to be ed­u­cat­ed, we are not, be­cause ed­u­cat­ed peo­ple will act re­fined and en­gage in di­a­logue. They will not stoop so low." He be­lieves Gov­ern­ment will lose sup­port in its strong­hold be­cause of the in­ci­dent. He said the Gov­ern­ment was con­tin­u­ing to put pri­or­i­ty on ma­te­r­i­al things in­stead of fo­cus­ing on oth­er ar­eas of de­vel­op­ment, such as agri­cul­ture. "Why build the high­way there? Why not use that land for agri­cul­ture, be­cause in a de­vel­oped coun­try we ought to be able to feed our­selves," Foote said. He sug­gest­ed the phys­i­cal re­moval of pro­test­ers was a vi­o­la­tion of their right to protest.

How­ev­er, head of the Coali­tion of Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence Di­ana Ma­habir-Wy­att said she did not think any­body's right to protest was vi­o­lat­ed. How­ev­er, she said, it was re­fresh­ing to see young women fight­ing for a cause. "It is won­der­ful that young women are tak­ing this kind of protest ac­tion and tak­ing so­cial ac­tion that they feel strong­ly about but it is not the way to get an in­ter­view with the Prime Min­is­ter." Ma­habir-Wy­att said the women should have ex­pect­ed that they would be forcibly re­moved. "This hap­pens all over the world. She is the Prime Min­is­ter, for good­ness' sake. You don't just block the PM and de­mand an in­ter­view and get it just like that. There are oth­er ways to do it," Ma­habir-Wy­att said. "The po­lice se­cu­ri­ty has a right to take that ac­tion if any­body tries to block the Prime Min­is­ter. These women were mak­ing a protest and any­body who breaks the law must ac­cept the con­se­quences." Mean­while, Hazel Brown, head of the Net­work of NGOs for the Ad­vance­ment of Women, al­so said the po­lice were with­in their rights to re­move the pro­test­ers who were block­ing the Prime Min­is­ter's free pas­sage. She said Per­sad-Bisses­sar was well with­in her rights to refuse to meet with them.