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Tuesday, July 8, 2025

CoP warns protesters and activists

by

Guardian Media
1871 days ago
20200523
Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith

Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith

SHIRLEY BAHADUR

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith is con­cerned that cit­i­zens are now break­ing the law in an ef­fort to have their griev­ances high­light­ed in the me­dia, in the hope that they can pres­sure the au­thor­i­ties to act ac­cord­ing­ly.

In a re­lease on Sat­ur­day, Grif­fith fo­cused on three sep­a­rate in­ci­dents with­in the last few days.

The first re­port­ed­ly in­volved the or­ches­trat­ed act by cer­tain res­i­dents in Moru­ga, where roads were blocked with de­bris in an ef­fort to trans­mit their con­cern over the se­lec­tion of a po­lit­i­cal can­di­date.

Grif­fith said CCTV and me­dia footage would be used to have peo­ple brought in for ques­tion­ing.

He ad­vised the pub­lic, "As we ap­proach a gen­er­al elec­tion, that any such acts, in­clu­sive of those who block roads in an ef­fort to have their con­cerns aired as it per­tains to pub­lic util­i­ties be­ing pro­vid­ed for the com­mu­ni­ty, the po­lice would take the nec­es­sary ac­tion and those re­spon­si­ble would be ar­rest­ed pur­suant to Sec­tion 64 N of the Sum­ma­ry Of­fences Act Chap­ter 11:02, and fur­ther to which, if any pub­lic protest is made with­out the req­ui­site per­mis­sion they would be ar­rest­ed pur­suant to Sec­tion 109 of the Sum­ma­ry Of­fences Act Chap­ter 11:02."

The sec­ond in­ci­dent al­leged­ly in­volved an ac­tivist who al­so had a con­cern in re­la­tion to a road be­ing con­struct­ed.

The COP said, "Quite co­in­ci­den­tal­ly, the me­dia was briefed in ad­vance and on lo­ca­tion to get the prop­er footage to see him be­ing ar­rest­ed be­cause of him break­ing the law."

Such peo­ple, he said, would be ar­rest­ed forth­with, pur­suant to Sec­tion 46 of the Po­lice Ser­vice Act Chap­ter 15:01 for breach­ing the peace and, or ob­struc­tion of the po­lice in the ex­e­cu­tion of their du­ty, or, un­law­ful protest­ing pur­suant to Sec­tion 109 of the Sum­ma­ry Of­fences Act Chap­ter 11:02."

Ear­li­er this week, sev­er­al ac­tivists al­so held silent protests out­side the home of the Prime Min­is­ter.

Grif­fith re­mind­ed that for such ac­tions, they re­quired ap­proval from the COP, up­on which it was sub­mit­ted and ap­proval was giv­en.

Fail­ure to ac­quire such ap­proval and per­sons are gath­ered, they can be ar­rest­ed for a breach of Sec­tion 109 of the Sum­ma­ry Of­fences Act Chap­ter 11:02.

The COP said, "It is the con­sti­tu­tion­al right of any cit­i­zen to free­dom of speech. How­ev­er, there are al­so laws that all must ad­here to whilst protest­ing and ad­her­ing to your Con­sti­tu­tion­al right to protest."

Gary Griffith


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