Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies lec­tur­er and his­to­ri­an Dr Jerome Teelucks­ingh says Trinidad and To­ba­go’s strong tra­di­tion of re­li­gious tol­er­ance was forged through the shared strug­gles, suf­fer­ing and re­sis­tance of en­slaved Africans and in­den­tured In­di­ans un­der colo­nial rule.

A dri­ve-by shoot­ing in Sea Lots in the ear­ly hours of Sat­ur­day morn­ing end­ed with the death of a 33-year-old man and the wound­ing of a woman, po­lice said.

Po­lice said the man got in­to an al­ter­ca­tion with his sis­ter's boyfriend who shot him in his chest on Ab­dool Lane, off the South­ern Main Road, af­ter 10 pm.

With those words em­bla­zoned on mask­ing tape criss-cross­ing her face mask, protest or­gan­is­er Alyssa Phillip yes­ter­day begged off an­swer­ing ques­tions re­lat­ing to her re­cent ar­rest, af­ter po­lice pre­vent­ed them from stag­ing their lat­est demon­stra­tion di­rect­ly out­side the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre (FSC) in St James.

Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard has is­sued a warn­ing to me­dia or­gan­i­sa­tions and so­cial me­dia users against pub­lish­ing ma­te­r­i­al that could prej­u­dice on­go­ing crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings aris­ing from the killing of Joshua Sama­roo.

Hours be­fore ac­tivists and demon­stra­tors tried to stage a protest in sup­port of po­lice shoot­ing vic­tim Ka­ia Sealy out­side the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, yes­ter­day, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der called on po­lice to pre­serve their in­tegri­ty, as he ac­knowl­edged that the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice was fac­ing sev­er­al chal­lenges in terms of their im­age.

As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) Richard Smith says a call for war­ring gangs to unite to fight the po­lice will be met with the full force of the law.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has ques­tioned whether Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro is act­ing in­de­pen­dent­ly, al­leg­ing that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was be­hind the cre­ation of 15 new no-protest zones be­cause her Gov­ern­ment is fear­ful of grow­ing pub­lic op­po­si­tion.

Sev­er­al trade union lead­ers are con­demn­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro’s re­cent move to des­ig­nate 15 “no-protest zones” across Trinidad and To­ba­go, de­scrib­ing the mea­sure as a dan­ger­ous threat to democ­ra­cy and con­sti­tu­tion­al free­doms.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has ex­tend­ed greet­ings to cit­i­zens of T&T on the oc­ca­sion of In­di­an Ar­rival Day, de­scrib­ing it as a defin­ing mile­stone in the na­tion’s his­to­ry.

Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo has called for greater re­spect, re­straint and uni­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go, warn­ing against a cul­ture where “pub­lic speech of­ten moves faster than re­flec­tion.”

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has used her In­di­an Ar­rival Day mes­sage to ho­n­our the con­tri­bu­tions of In­do-Trinida­di­ans while rais­ing con­cerns of grow­ing threats to de­mo­c­ra­t­ic free­doms un­der the cur­rent State of Emer­gency (SoE).