All threats made via so­cial me­dia or any posts in­cit­ing oth­ers to vi­o­lence will be tak­en se­ri­ous­ly and dealt with by the law.

The warn­ing comes from Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Gary Grif­fith.

Fol­low­ing the as­sas­si­na­tion of the Hait­ian Pres­i­dent, Jovenel Molse, on Wednes­day, sev­er­al Face­book users sug­gest­ed that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Prime Min­is­ter could suf­fer a sim­i­lar fate.

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith said he was con­cerned about the re­cent up­surge in so­cial me­dia threats, par­tic­u­lar­ly against politi­cians on both sides of the Par­lia­men­tary floor.

The CoP stat­ed, “Whilst cit­i­zens have a con­sti­tu­tion­al right to free­dom of ex­pres­sion and speech, such rights can­not be ex­er­cised in an ir­re­spon­si­ble man­ner, which in­fringe on the rights of oth­ers, in­clud­ing pub­lic of­fi­cials.”

The Com­mis­sion­er em­pha­sized that threat­en­ing, in­cit­ing and/or en­cour­ag­ing oth­ers to act in a man­ner that can lead to vi­o­lence, will not be tol­er­at­ed.

Those who do so, he added will be vis­it­ed by the TTPS and ac­tion will be tak­en where nec­es­sary.

The Com­mis­sion­er ex­plained that threats can con­sti­tute an of­fence of ha­rass­ment as set out in Sec­tion 30A and 30B of the Of­fences Against the Per­son Act, Chap­ter 11:08.

Sec­tion 30A of the Of­fences Against the Per­son Act states, “(2) A per­son who pur­sues a course of con­duct which amounts to ha­rass­ment of an­oth­er and which he knows or ought rea­son­ably to know amounts to ha­rass­ment of the oth­er, is guilty of an of­fence and is li­able on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion to a fine of two thou­sand dol­lars and to im­pris­on­ment for six months.”

Sec­tion 30B of the Of­fences Against the Per­son Act “(1) A per­son who is ac­cused of con­duct which would con­sti­tute an of­fence un­der sec­tion 30A and which caus­es the oth­er per­son to fear that vi­o­lence will be used against him, and the per­son whose course of con­duct is in ques­tion knows or ought to know that his con­duct will cause the oth­er per­son so to fear, com­mits an of­fence and is li­able on con­vic­tion on in­dict­ment to a fine of ten thou­sand dol­lars and to im­pris­on­ment for five years or, on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion, to a fine of five thou­sand dol­lars and to im­pris­on­ment for six months”.

Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith added that any­one who en­cour­ages some­one to en­gage in “threat­en­ing con­duct” could be held li­able un­der the Ac­ces­sories and Abet­tors Act.

He warned that the Cy­ber Crime Unit will be mon­i­tor­ing so­cial me­dia for peo­ple in­tent on com­mit­ting such of­fences.

The Com­mis­sion­er not­ed that those who com­mit such acts will be de­tained and charged ac­cord­ing­ly.