Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les says con­cerns raised by sev­er­al coun­tries at the Unit­ed Na­tions about Trinidad and To­ba­go’s re­peat­ed use of states of emer­gency echo warn­ings the Op­po­si­tion has made from the out­set.

Gon­za­les ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of abus­ing its emer­gency pow­ers and vi­o­lat­ing cit­i­zens’ rights un­der the guise of fight­ing crime.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia af­ter Mon­day’s fourth Uni­ver­sal Pe­ri­od­ic Re­view of T&T be­fore the Unit­ed Na­tions Hu­man Rights Coun­cil in Gene­va, Gon­za­les de­scribed the use of pre­ven­tive de­ten­tion or­ders as a “scan­dalous abuse of State pow­er”.

He al­leged that the Gov­ern­ment had weaponised its de­ten­tion pow­ers, in­clud­ing by tar­get­ing po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents and la­belling in­no­cent peo­ple as gang mem­bers and crim­i­nals.

His com­ments come amid in­creased in­ter­na­tion­al scruti­ny of T&T’s re­peat­ed use of states of emer­gency to ad­dress vi­o­lent crime.

At the re­view, sev­er­al coun­tries, in­clud­ing Mex­i­co, Spain, Rus­sia, Cu­ba and Ger­many, raised con­cerns about ex­pand­ed law en­force­ment pow­ers, mass ar­rests and the po­ten­tial ero­sion of civ­il lib­er­ties.

Mex­i­co rec­om­mend­ed that the Gov­ern­ment lim­it its use of states of emer­gency and en­sure that any mea­sures re­main “ex­cep­tion­al, tem­po­rary, pro­por­tion­al and sub­ject to ju­di­cial re­view”.

Spain urged T&T not to treat states of emer­gency as an au­to­mat­ic re­sponse to in­se­cu­ri­ty.

Rus­sia ex­pressed con­cern about what it de­scribed as ex­ces­sive au­thor­i­ty grant­ed to law en­force­ment agen­cies un­der emer­gency reg­u­la­tions in­tro­duced in Sep­tem­ber 2026.

Mean­while, Cu­ba raised con­cerns about re­peat­ed de­c­la­ra­tions of states of emer­gency, which its del­e­ga­tion said in­volved the sus­pen­sion of civ­il lib­er­ties and mass ar­rests.

T&T’s del­e­ga­tion de­fend­ed the mea­sures, say­ing they were con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly sanc­tioned and nec­es­sary to ad­dress se­ri­ous se­cu­ri­ty threats.

Chargé d’Af­faires at T&T’s Per­ma­nent Mis­sion to the Unit­ed Na­tions in Gene­va, Chamyantie Lal, said the Gov­ern­ment recog­nised that emer­gency mea­sures should re­main “ex­cep­tion­al, time-bound and con­sis­tent with the prin­ci­ples of le­gal­i­ty, ne­ces­si­ty, pro­por­tion­al­i­ty and tem­po­ral­i­ty”.

The del­e­ga­tion al­so said peo­ple sub­ject to pre­ven­tive de­ten­tion or­ders had ac­cess to in­de­pen­dent re­view tri­bunals, le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion, con­sti­tu­tion­al re­dress and ju­di­cial re­view.

Gon­za­les ques­tioned the re­sults of the ex­tra­or­di­nary pow­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly in re­la­tion to the al­leged threats against the State that the Gov­ern­ment said had ne­ces­si­tat­ed their use.

“The Gov­ern­ment in­voked ex­tra­or­di­nary pow­ers in re­sponse to al­leged threats against the State. Where are the pros­e­cu­tions?” he asked.

“To our knowl­edge, no one has been pros­e­cut­ed in con­nec­tion with those threats.”

He said the pub­lic was en­ti­tled to ask what the emer­gency mea­sures had achieved and why cit­i­zens had been de­tained.

Gon­za­les al­so out­lined what he de­scribed as the Op­po­si­tion’s al­ter­na­tive ap­proach to tack­ling crime. He ar­gued that the State should strength­en the po­lice’s in­ves­tiga­tive ca­pac­i­ty rather than re­ly on ex­tra­or­di­nary pow­ers.

He called for prison re­form to pre­vent crim­i­nal net­works from di­rect­ing op­er­a­tions from be­hind bars and urged the Gov­ern­ment to ad­dress de­lays in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.

Gon­za­les said the PNM would al­so re­store youth pro­grammes that he claimed had been dis­man­tled by the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion.

The Op­po­si­tion al­so re­newed its call for a thor­ough, in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to al­le­ga­tions of wide­spread hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions dur­ing the states of emer­gency.

Gon­za­les said the coun­try de­served an­swers about who au­tho­rised the de­ten­tions, what ev­i­dence was re­lied on and whose rights may have been vi­o­lat­ed.

“Where the in­ves­ti­ga­tion es­tab­lish­es wrong­do­ing, those re­spon­si­ble must be held to ac­count.”

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar did not di­rect­ly ad­dress ques­tions about the con­cerns raised at the UN meet­ing.

Guardian Me­dia al­so sent ques­tions to Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie but did not get a re­sponse up to press time.