Richard Lord

Ef­fec­tive 11 pm to­day, an ad­di­tion­al 11 com­mu­ni­ties in Trinidad and its coast­line are to be un­der cur­few.This was re­vealed by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar dur­ing a spe­cial news con­fer­ence, af­ter yes­ter­day's six- hour Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil meet­ing at her St Clair of­fice.The new ar­eas un­der the 11 pm to 4 am cur­few are Car­li Bay in Cou­va, Moru­ga, Ce­dros, Clax­ton Bay, Mal­oney, La Hor­quet­ta, Windy Hill in Arou­ca, Dow Vil­lage in Cal­i­for­nia, To­co, McBean in Cou­va, and Chase Vil­lage in Cara­pichaima.Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "In ad­di­tion to these ar­eas on land, we will al­so have the cur­few im­posed along the 362 kilo­me­tres off our T&T coast­line and that will ex­tend out­ward three nau­ti­cal miles."She said peo­ple en­gaged in le­git­i­mate busi­ness dur­ing the cur­few hours could se­cure their cur­few pass­es to­day. She said the de­ci­sion to in­crease the ar­eas un­der cur­few was tak­en dur­ing yes­ter­day's Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil meet­ing, based on in­tel­li­gence re­ports. At the start of the news con­fer­ence, CCTV video of peo­ple on Nel­son Street, Port-of-Spain, en­gag­ing in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing mur­der and armed rob­bery, was shown.Be­fore the video was shown, Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­scribed it as "dis­turb­ing im­ages."She said she was com­mit­ted to win­ning the fight against the crim­i­nals.

Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons John Rougi­er de­nied claims by Nel­son Street res­i­dents of in­hu­mane treat­ment while in de­ten­tion.He said the claims were false.Per­sad-Bisses­sar lat­er said the state of emer­gency was not de­clared for gang lead­ers and mem­bers on­ly."The fight we have is a fight against crim­i­nals, not just on­ly gangs and gang- re­lat­ed of­fences," she added.Com­ment­ing on the re­lease of 21 peo­ple ar­rest­ed un­der the An­ti-Gang leg­is­la­tion, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said while some might see that as a strike-down, "I do not see it as that...I see it clear­ly as the rule of law op­er­at­ing in our coun­try."She said she ex­pect­ed that a few oth­ers might al­so be re­leased be­cause the sys­tem was not per­fect."There maya be slip­page in that re­gard, there may be one or two or three, but I think in the ma­jor­i­ty, in the main, that we will suc­ceed in the task that is be­fore us," she said."I will not aban­don this fight...I will pur­sue this just cause to the end, to en­sure that our coun­try and our peo­ple are safe in T&T."The PM said de­spite the state of emer­gency, busi­ness was pro­ceed­ing as there were more than one in­ter­na­tion­al con­fer­ences in T&T this week.She said she just want­ed to ad­vise tourists to en­sure that they were at their "homes" be­fore 11 pm for their safe­ty."Peo­ple have the rights and re­dress, which is what hap­pened in the court yes­ter­day," she said."It is an ex­am­ple of the sys­tem which pro­tects it­self and pre­serves the rule of law." Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs said a to­tal of 2, 043 peo­ple had been ar­rest­ed since state of emer­gency was de­clared on Au­gust 21.He said the ini­tia­tive was in­tend­ed to win back con­trol of the coun­try.Deputy Com­mis­sion­er Mervyn Richard­son said the fight against crime would be won by the state.He said "block by block," the coun­try would be re­stored to a re­duced lev­el of crime.