State of Emergency Extended For Three Months

The State of Emergency has been extended for a three-month period. After a lengthy debate in the House of Representatives on Monday, the Motion to extend the current State of Emergency after its initial 15-day period was passed with no objections. On the 15th and final day of the initial implementation of the State of Emergency, the Government went to Parliament on Monday to seek the necessary approvals for a further three-month extension. The State of Emergency was declared on December 30th, 2024, based on police-led intelligence suggesting a dangerous increase in gang-related violence. According to Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley, this SOE was carefully crafted to ensure it causes minimal disruptions to law-abiding citizens. He said the Government, as far as it is able, will continue to put measures in place to dissuade, detect, and respond to crime so that persons wanting to commit these acts will think twice before doing so. "But the Senior Counsel self-appointed spend the whole evening telling us that we are breaching the rights. There is no greater breach of the right of a citizen than to be having to lose your life to unlawful action. It is precisely that which caused us to intervene to protect the right of the life of the law-abiding." According to Minister of Energy and Energy Industries and Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister, Stuart Young, this SOE is focussed on the criminal elements and those affecting the lives of the law-abiding population of Trinidad and Tobago. "This State of Emergency is targeted at those elements, targeted at the elements that unfortunately have access to high-caliber weapons and unfortunately have been committing the most heinous acts on law-abiding citizens of Trinidad and Tobago. So we were forced to act, and we did." Responding to claims by the Opposition of the Government's lack of preparation pertaining to the implementation of a State of Emergency, Minister Young denied the Government's alleged plagiarism of the Opposition's 2011 SOE regulations. "Because the Member of Barataria/San Juan is not someone who cannot read. He must have done a comparison between the 2011 Regulations and the 2024 Regulations, and to come here and try to mislead the population that it is a simple cut-and-paste is absolutely untrue. But the 1990 Regulations and the 2011 Regulations, which I have in my hand, Madame Speaker, are a copy." According to the Minister of National Security, Fitzgerald Hinds, this SOE has been a success. Thus far, the murder rate has fallen by 50%, and of the 3,915 searches conducted, 32 firearms and 1,030 rounds of assorted ammunition were found, along with illicit narcotics and other illegal items.