Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds is con­cerned about the rep­u­ta­tion­al dam­age and neg­a­tive in­flu­ences that may arise from the re­cent trend of in­ter­na­tion­al YouTu­bers high­light­ing gang cul­ture in this coun­try.

He made the com­ment dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence at his min­istry yes­ter­day, a day af­ter Cana­di­an vlog­ger Christo­pher “Chris Must List” Hugh­es se­cured $100,000 bail on sedi­tion charges.

Asked whether he was con­cerned about what the con­tent Hugh­es and oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al vlog­gers were shar­ing on so­cial me­dia was do­ing to this coun­try’s im­age, Hinds said, “I am con­cerned when peo­ple act in ways or do any­thing or say any­thing to the detri­ment to the rep­u­ta­tion of the na­tion and as a min­is­ter, I know what that means in a di­rect way be­cause I in­ter­face with our in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners.

“For ex­am­ple, Trinidad and To­ba­go earned it­self an in­ter­na­tion­al rep­u­ta­tion as be­ing a ma­jor ex­porter of for­eign ter­ror­ist fight­ers dur­ing the hey­day of ISIS, that’s a rep­u­ta­tion that we earned and it af­fects every one of you in very di­rect ways. So, the an­swer to your ques­tion is yes, I am very con­cerned.”

Hinds said it al­so both­ers him as a man and pa­tri­ot.

Asked if such con­tent by the YouTu­bers was tan­ta­mount to sedi­tion, which was the charge laid against Hugh­es, Hinds said, “That’s a mat­ter for the DPP and the po­lice. While I am a lawyer by pro­fes­sion, I am here as a min­is­ter of gov­ern­ment and that is above my own pay grade.

“In ad­di­tion to that, the mat­ter is sub ju­dice (un­der ju­di­cial con­sid­er­a­tion and there­fore pro­hib­it­ed from pub­lic dis­cus­sion) and I want to know why would you in­vite me to act ir­re­spon­si­bly and com­ment up­on that mat­ter?”

Sedi­tion is overt con­duct, such as speech or or­gan­i­sa­tion, that tends to­ward re­bel­lion against the es­tab­lished or­der. It of­ten in­cludes sub­ver­sion of a con­sti­tu­tion and in­cite­ment of dis­con­tent to­ward, or in­sur­rec­tion against, es­tab­lished au­thor­i­ty.

Hinds was asked if the Cab­i­net would wel­come a re­view of the Sedi­tion Act, giv­en that it is of­ten crit­i­cised as an ar­cha­ic and colo­nial-era law.

He said while he was un­able to speak on the Cab­i­net po­si­tion, in gen­er­al terms, “laws are al­ways un­der re­view”.

“The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al is for­ev­er look­ing at laws. As we speak now, com­mit­tees are meet­ing so in that gen­er­al sense the an­swer is yes, be­cause laws were made for the use of man and laws must de­vel­op or­gan­i­cal­ly to meet so­ci­etal trends.”