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Fish­er­men and Friends of the Sea (FFOS) has raised alarm over the re­cent re­vo­ca­tion of the U.S. visa of its cor­po­rate sec­re­tary, Gary Aboud, warn­ing that civ­il so­ci­ety voic­es may be un­der pres­sure for speak­ing out. The or­gan­i­sa­tion said NGOs are a crit­i­cal pil­lar of democ­ra­cy.

In a state­ment, Aboud said that with­out in­de­pen­dent civ­il so­ci­ety over­sight, there can be no trans­paren­cy or pro­tec­tion against abus­es of au­thor­i­ty.

FFOS ex­pressed sup­port for strong and de­ci­sive ac­tion against the drug trade, ac­knowl­edg­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s stat­ed com­mit­ment to stop­ping drugs and firearms from en­ter­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go. “Drugs have de­stroyed fam­i­lies, fu­elled vi­o­lence, and in­flict­ed gen­er­a­tional dam­age on our so­ci­ety,” the state­ment said.