Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing Phillip Alexan­der has de­fend­ed law en­force­ment of­fi­cers, amid grow­ing crit­i­cism over the ar­rest of Alyssa Phillip and her moth­er dur­ing Labour Day cel­e­bra­tions in Fyz­abad last Fri­day, while con­demn­ing what he de­scribed as ef­forts by some pro­test­ers to de­lib­er­ate­ly pro­voke con­fronta­tions with po­lice.

Alexan­der said yes­ter­day that while he re­mained a strong sup­port­er of free speech, the cur­rent con­tro­ver­sy ex­tends be­yond is­sues of free­dom of ex­pres­sion.

“The sit­u­a­tion with this par­tic­u­lar is­sue that is trou­bling is the overt provo­ca­tion of po­lice, in­clud­ing threats against the lives of of­fi­cers, and a will­ing­ness to bolt what is still a po­lice and now a court mat­ter to a gov­ern­ment that has ab­solute­ly no ju­ris­dic­tion or au­thor­i­ty over any po­lice ac­tion what­so­ev­er,” he said.