Trinidad: Marijuana activist on obscene language charge

(Trinidad Guardian) Mar­i­jua­na ac­tivist Naz­ma Muller is claim­ing that po­lice in­fringed her con­sti­tu­tion­al rights by ar­rest­ing her out­side of Par­lia­ment, last Fri­day. 

Muller, who is ex­pect­ed to ap­pear in the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates’ Court on Mon­day on a charge of us­ing ob­scene lan­guage, took to so­cial me­dia af­ter she was re­leased on bail, hours af­ter her ar­rest, to com­plain. 

 
“How can a man put his hands on me out­side the Par­lia­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and drag me away be­neath my flag?” Muller said. 

In a post on her Face­book page, Muller ap­peared to ad­mit to com­mit­ting the of­fence, which car­ries a $200 fine or 30 days im­pris­on­ment up­on con­vic­tion. 

“I was man­han­dled by a male po­lice of­fi­cer twice my size for say­ing, “Free de f—ing weed” once. He grabbed my wrists and dragged me away. The Con­sti­tu­tion of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go pro­tects my free­dom of ex­pres­sion. I will have my day in court on Mon­day. Jah will de­fend de I and I,” Muller said. 

Muller al­so claimed that she would con­tin­ue her protest, this week.

“Next week me a cuss blood cl–t. It not ob­scene here,” a de­fi­ant Muller said. 

Mueller, the founder of the Caribbean Col­lec­tive for Jus­tice, a reg­is­tered NGO, was one of sev­er­al per­sons who protest­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s de­lay in bring­ing leg­is­la­tion for the de­crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion of mar­i­jua­na. 

Over the past year, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi led pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions on the is­sue and had promised to in­tro­duce the leg­is­la­tion in Par­lia­ment af­ter the de­bate on the Bud­get is com­plet­ed.

Last year, Cari­com’s Mar­i­jua­na Com­mis­sion led by the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) Dean of Law Rose-Marie Belle An­toine, pub­lished a re­port call­ing for mem­ber states to in­tro­duce de­crim­i­nal­i­sa­tion. 

Mar­i­jua­na has al­ready been de­crim­i­nalised in Ja­maica, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines and An­tigua and Bar­bu­da.