For­mer Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has crit­i­cised the pro­posed Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions leg­is­la­tion and tak­en is­sue with re­cent com­ments made by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, warn­ing that the rhetoric and the law it­self could deep­en di­vi­sion and un­der­mine the rights of law abid­ing cit­i­zens.

In a Face­book post, Row­ley re­act­ed to pub­lic com­ments sur­round­ing the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion and said sim­i­lar re­marks would not have been ac­cept­ed if he had made them while in of­fice.

“If I had said any­thing near­ly as of­fen­sive and ar­ro­gant as what Kam­la re­cent­ly said, every­one in this coun­try would have known not to ac­cept that from the Prime Min­is­ter. I am proud of that fact. It con­firms to me that I was held to a high­er stan­dard and I am sat­is­fied that I met those stan­dards!”