KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Po­lice de­scend­ed on Har­ris Prom­e­nade, San Fer­nan­do, yes­ter­day morn­ing to put a stop to a gath­er­ing by the Push Back Move­ment.

How­ev­er, un­like a pre­vi­ous event host­ed by the group at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah a few weeks ago, this gath­er­ing dis­persed peace­ful­ly.
One of the lead­ers of the group,

Robert Amar, ad­mit­ted that they did not have po­lice per­mis­sion to protest or march. He said they went to the Prom­e­nade to pray but af­ter the po­lice in­ter­vened he told mem­bers they could not march and had to dis­perse.

Some obeyed, oth­ers want­ed to push back.
“Every­body needs to unite and leave to­geth­er here. Every­body should be walk­ing up High Street. Noth­ing is wrong with walk­ing and stand­ing up for our rights. We are not do­ing any­thing wrong.” one man shout­ed at Amar.

An­oth­er said he came to protest, not pray. He said he knew how to pray and could do it at home.
Amar said while not every­one would agree with their de­ci­sion, he was pleased that the group was treat­ed with re­spect by the po­lice, which he saw as an in­di­ca­tor that democ­ra­cy worked.

“We have no ap­proval for a march. While what was in­tend­ed looked like if it was a march, I ap­pealed to the peo­ple who came not to pro­ceed be­cause at the end of the day, we would be in breach of the rules. If it is a protest, we would have to ap­ply for it. We un­der­stand, but this was not a protest. It was a prayer. We start­ed some­thing dif­fer­ent in the coun­try. A lot of peo­ple do not un­der­stand. It is un­for­tu­nate,” he said.
Amar said some mem­bers of the group want­ed to march around San Fer­nan­do but that was nev­er the in­ten­tion.
Com­ment­ing on the group’s cam­paign, he said T&T sup­port­ed for­mer South African pres­i­dent Nel­son Man­dela in his fight against seg­re­ga­tion, but Gov­ern­ment was try­ing to in­tro­duce it in T&T through safe zones and a pod Car­ni­val.

The Push Back Move­ment is op­posed to the pro­posed pub­lic sec­tor safe zone pol­i­cy that man­dates all em­ploy­ees must take the COVID-19 vac­cine to work. 

Snr Supt of the Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Ce­cil San­tana said of­fi­cers ex­plained to Amar that the Move­ment had no per­mis­sion to march. 

“They were told to dis­perse, and they did dis­perse in a peace­ful and or­der­ly man­ner. We still have some per­sons here on the Prom­e­nade on their own, but they are peace­ful, and they are well be­haved. The po­lice are out in full force, and we are keep­ing an ea­gle’s eye on the ac­tiv­i­ties on the Prom­e­nade and the sur­round­ing streets of San Fer­nan­do,” he said.
The Move­ment plans to go to the bor­oughs of Ch­agua­nas, Ari­ma and Point Fortin to share their mes­sage.

Amar said the Move­ment was not against vac­ci­na­tion but is pro-choice.