KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, CMC – Police Commissioner Colin John has told media representatives that the police take every crime report seriously and that the law enforcement agency believes in a free press.
He promises that St. Vincent and the Grenadines Police Force will do what it can to ensure that a free press continues to exist in the country.
John, accompanied by other senior officials, met with several media members who had written to him on January 30 complaining of the “aggression” directed at them outside the Serious Offences Court on January 25.
In their letter, copied to the National Security Minister and Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves and the Chief Magistrate, Rechanne Browne, the journalists said, “this has been an ongoing situation about which journalists have complained repeatedly over the years to police officers assigned to the court.”
“I can assure you that the police take incidents like this seriously,” John told the media workers during the meeting, adding that an investigation had been launched into the incident.
Meanwhile, in a February 6 response to the letter, Prime Minister Gonsalves said the issue is “a serious one, and the state authorities are obliged to address it firmly and urgently.”
He informed the media of a summary notation he had written for transmission to the Commissioner of Police, Chief Magistrate, and Attorney General.
In the notation, Gonsalves said St. Vincent and the Grenadines “is a free and democratic country which functions within the framework of the rule of law.
“In this context, among the persons who possess rights and obligations are journalists. Threats of violence against journalists are wholly unacceptable! Let us ensure that journalists are safe in the practice of their profession always, especially in the precincts of our Law Courts; for your urgent attention and advice.
“We must never allow unruly and utterly selfish, ignorant persons, however inflamed their passion may be, to subvert or diminish in unlawful and unreasonable, unacceptable ways our democratic way of life, social solidarity, and the basic rights of others,” Gonsalves wrote.
He said that too much of all this “‘subversion,” unlawful conduct, and atomized individualism are manifest across our Caribbean (including St. Vincent and the Grenadines) and the world. Decent, law-abiding citizens in social solidarity must resist”.
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