Trinidad PM changes number after UNC activist released it

(Trinidad Guardian) There is no let-up on Gov­ern­ment from De­vant Ma­haraj.

Now the UNC ac­tivist has re­leased Com­mu­ni­ca­tion/Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young’s cell num­ber and urged peo­ple to call Young.

And he in­tends to re­lease all PNM gov­ern­ment min­is­ters’ num­bers, “…Be­cause they have to ac­count to the pub­lic. Peo­ple can’t wait ‘til elec­tion,” Ma­haraj told the Guardian yes­ter­day.

This af­ter Gov­ern­ment blis­tered Ma­haraj with crit­i­cism last Sat­ur­day when he re­leased Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s cell num­ber, caus­ing Row­ley to change it. While Gov­ern­ment has crit­i­cised Ma­haraj’s moves as po­ten­tial­ly sedi­tious, so far the on­ly thing po­lice are ex­am­in­ing is the is­sue of some­one hav­ing ac­cess to the Prime Min­is­ter’s cell num­ber and us­ing it to con­tact him with al­leged threat­en­ing and abu­sive mes­sages.

Last Sat­ur­day Min­is­ter Young, un­der cov­er of the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Min­istry, said Ma­haraj’s pub­li­ca­tion of the Prime Min­is­ter’s per­son­al con­tact in­for­ma­tion was wor­thy of “crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion’. He ac­cused Ma­haraj of con­tin­u­ing to in­cite the peo­ple to use the PM’s in­for­ma­tion to, “at a min­i­mum, ha­rass the Prime Min­is­ter and at a max­i­mum, ex­pose him to harm”. Young claimed Ma­haraj last Sat­ur­day cir­cu­lat­ed calls for protest ac­tion “in a way which is wor­thy of crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion and may qual­i­fy as the se­ri­ous crime of sedi­tion”.

Row­ley ac­cused Ma­haraj of pub­lish­ing his num­ber wide­ly on so­cial me­dia and en­cour­ag­ing/in­cit­ing peo­ple ha­rass and threat­en him. Row­ley said he has been the sub­ject not on­ly of abuse but of threat­en­ing be­hav­iour which war­rant­ed the in­volve­ment of the CoP. Row­ley changed the num­ber.

What the Sedi­tion Act says

The Se­di­tion Act, Chap­ter 11:04: Sec­tion 3(1a) states that a se­di­tious in­ten­tion is an in­ten­tion to bring in­to ha­tred or con­tempt or ex­cite dis­af­fec­tion against Gov­ern­ment or Con­sti­tu­tion.

Sec­tion 3(1c) states that a se­di­tion in­ten­tion is an in­ten­tion to raise dis­con­tent or dis­af­fec­tion amongst T&T in­hab­i­tants.

Chap­ter 11:04, Sec­tion 4(1c) states that a per­son is guilty of an of­fence who pub­lish­es, sells, of­fers for sale or dis­trib­utes any se­di­tious pub­li­ca­tion.

A per­son guilty of an of­fence un­der the Sedi­tion sec­tion is li­able to, on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion, to a fine of $3,000 and to im­pris­on­ment for two years.

Plan­ning parang protest out­side Stollmey­er’s Cas­tle Fri­day

But a de­fi­ant Ma­haraj said yes­ter­day, “Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley has opt­ed to be dis­con­nect­ed from the suf­fer­ings of the av­er­age cit­i­zen—caused di­rect­ly by mis­man­age­ment of the econ­o­my—by ter­mi­nat­ing his cel­lu­lar phone. Giv­en that Min­is­ter Young ac­cused me of sedi­tion for call­ing for a law­ful protest and shar­ing the PM’s cell num­ber, I now call up­on cit­i­zens to call Min­is­ter Young and speak out against the un­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic pat­tern of be­hav­iour of the Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion on his phone at (num­ber giv­en).”

Young, al­so Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter, said yes­ter­day, “I am ig­nor­ing the Op­po­si­tion and press­ing on with my work for the cit­i­zens of the coun­try.”