Rishard Khan

Ac­tivist and 1990 coup sur­vivor Wen­dell Ever­s­ley is call­ing for the po­lice and Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Com­mis­sion to in­ves­ti­gate Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­cent state­ments, which, he be­lieves, amounts to “hate speech”.

His call comes af­ter he and a small group of sup­port­ers marched from the Red House in Port-of-Spain to the Op­po­si­tion Leader’s of­fice on Tues­day, ex­pre­sis­ng out­rage over Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­cent “slave-mas­ter” state­ment.

De­spite the ex­is­tence of the Sedi­tion Act, Ever­s­ley called on At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour and the Gov­ern­ment “to bring leg­is­la­tion to deal with hate speech.”

“To the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, the time has come when we have to put an end to this kind of hate speech. You know what hate speech could do to a so­ci­ety? Hate speech could cause blood­shed. Is this what Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar wants?” he said.

He said he will be de­liv­er­ing a let­ter to the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Com­mis­sion on the mat­ter and promised yes­ter­day’s march was on­ly the be­gin­ning. He promised that he will en­sure the world knows of the Op­po­si­tion leader’s state­ment.

“This is the be­gin­ning of my protest. I will be length and breadth of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Caribbean al­so, in­ter­na­tion­al al­so. The world will know about that hate state­ment by Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar,” he said.

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