Sto­ries by KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Labour Day cel­e­bra­tions in Fyz­abad were over­shad­owed yes­ter­day by the ar­rest of so­cial ac­tivist Alyssa Phillip af­ter po­lice stopped her and mem­bers of the 19 Bul­lets, 19 Protests move­ment from join­ing the an­nu­al march, prompt­ing crit­i­cism from trade union lead­ers and politi­cians.

Video footage showed of­fi­cers in tac­ti­cal and ri­ot gear es­cort­ing Phillip in­to a po­lice ve­hi­cle as dis­ap­prov­ing on­look­ers shout­ed at of­fi­cers, call­ing them “shame­ful” and ac­cus­ing them of hav­ing “frag­ile egos.”

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the Fyz­abad Po­lice Sta­tion, an am­bu­lance was prepar­ing to trans­port Phillip to the Siparia Dis­trict Health Fa­cil­i­ty. Rel­a­tives de­clined to com­ment.

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (Op­er­a­tions) Suzette Mar­tin said she could not pro­vide spe­cif­ic de­tails as the mat­ter re­mained un­der ac­tive in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“The ap­pro­pri­ate in­quiries are be­ing con­duct­ed, and any de­ci­sion re­gard­ing charges will be made based on the ev­i­dence gath­ered and in con­sul­ta­tion with the rel­e­vant le­gal au­thor­i­ties. Should charges be laid, the in­for­ma­tion will be made avail­able through the ap­pro­pri­ate chan­nels. Un­til then, it would be in­ap­pro­pri­ate to com­ment fur­ther on the mat­ter,” Mar­tin said.

Phillip has been ad­vo­cat­ing for jus­tice fol­low­ing the fa­tal po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing of Joshua Sama­roo and the crit­i­cal in­juries sus­tained by his girl­friend, Ka­ia Sealy. Ear­li­er in the day, she ad­dressed sup­port­ers at Av­o­cat Junc­tion, de­scrib­ing the event as the move­ment’s “nine­teenth and fi­nal protest cam­paign.”

Phillip called on the trade union move­ment to recog­nise that the strug­gle for ac­count­abil­i­ty was not sep­a­rate from the work­ers’ strug­gle. She said jus­tice, hu­man rights, democ­ra­cy and na­tion­al ac­count­abil­i­ty were all “work­ers’ is­sues,” urg­ing unions, civ­il so­ci­ety or­gan­i­sa­tions and cit­i­zens to unite be­hind the prin­ci­ple that “no one should be above ac­count­abil­i­ty.”

Speak­ing lat­er at Char­lie King Junc­tion, Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice po­lit­i­cal leader David Ab­du­lah con­demned Phillip’s de­ten­tion, de­scrib­ing it as a vi­o­la­tion of peo­ple’s rights.

“When I got to Char­lie King Junc­tion a short while ago, I got the call from my col­leagues say­ing they had de­tained Alyssa. We do not know what the le­gal rea­son is for that. Ap­par­ent­ly, it was very in­tim­i­dat­ing be­cause a num­ber of heav­i­ly armed po­lice sur­round­ed the group, in­clud­ing my two col­leagues, and de­tained Alyssa,” Ab­du­lah said.

He said he was in­formed that po­lice told Phillip she could not join the march be­cause she was not part of a trade union.

“Which is non­sense be­cause any­body can be part of this demon­stra­tion. The trade union move­ment has al­ways wel­comed peo­ple to be part of the demon­stra­tion.”

Ab­du­lah main­tained the group’s par­tic­i­pa­tion was peace­ful and sug­gest­ed the de­ten­tion amount­ed to in­tim­i­da­tion. He al­so ar­gued that the State of Emer­gency reg­u­la­tions did not pro­hib­it such par­tic­i­pa­tion and warned against what he viewed as an ero­sion of civ­il lib­er­ties.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son al­so ques­tioned the in­ci­dent, say­ing it was un­for­tu­nate that it oc­curred on Labour Day.

“Tra­di­tion­al­ly, it is a time when you en­cour­age peo­ple. Yes, you have unions, but a lot of the peo­ple who march are not nec­es­sar­i­ly from the trade unions,” she said.

While not­ing that she did not have all the facts, Beck­les-Robin­son said it would be im­por­tant to hear the trade union move­ment’s po­si­tion if Phillip’s lack of union mem­ber­ship was cit­ed as the rea­son for her de­ten­tion.

Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers Trade Union pres­i­dent Michael An­nisette called on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her min­is­ters to in­ter­vene to se­cure Phillip’s re­lease.

“There was no rea­son; she was do­ing noth­ing wrong. She was cel­e­brat­ing Labour Day like all work­ers,” An­nisette said.

He al­so crit­i­cised of­fi­cers for push­ing his daugh­ter aside dur­ing the in­ci­dent and re­called be­ing told to “just move on” when he sought an ex­pla­na­tion.

“I say to those po­lice of­fi­cers, time longer than twine, and in this world, things hap­pen. There is some­thing called kar­ma,” An­nisette said, while adding that re­spect for law en­force­ment should be matched by law en­force­ment re­spect­ing the pub­lic.