Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of di­rect­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro to im­pose new protest re­stric­tions out of fear over grow­ing pub­lic dis­con­tent, while ques­tion­ing whether the coun­try’s top po­lice of­fi­cer is act­ing in­de­pen­dent­ly.

Speak­ing at a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) meet­ing in Arou­ca on Thurs­day night, Beck­les sug­gest­ed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had pri­or knowl­edge of a new po­lice or­der es­tab­lish­ing 15 no-protest zones be­fore the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) for­mal­ly ex­plained the mea­sure.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader’s re­marks came amid con­tro­ver­sy over a le­gal no­tice signed by Gue­var­ro on May 27 cre­at­ing the re­strict­ed ar­eas, which re­quire demon­stra­tors to re­main at least 500 me­tres away from lo­ca­tions in­clud­ing Par­lia­ment, the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent, sev­er­al gov­ern­ment min­istries, and the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).