{"id":3994,"date":"2012-08-14T17:49:51","date_gmt":"2012-08-14T21:49:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/?p=3994"},"modified":"2012-08-14T17:49:51","modified_gmt":"2012-08-14T21:49:51","slug":"afc-visits-linden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/?p=3994","title":{"rendered":"AFC visits Linden"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Urges responsible behaviour<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Alliance For Change visited Linden Monday afternoon to urge residents  of the beleaguered community to guard against any further destruction  of property. The Party made it clear that it does not support such acts.<\/p>\n<p>The AFC team was headed by Party Leader Khemraj Ramjattan and General  Secretary David Patterson and included other members of the Party.<\/p>\n<p>While in Linden the AFC team was taken to the site of the burnt out  One Mile Primary School where they were assured by the protesters still  on the streets that they would not have set fire to the school as it  was the first school for many of them and their children are now pupils  of the school.<\/p>\n<p>The team also met with the parent of a ten year old who reported that  her child was on the \u2018landing\u2019\u00a0of their home when he was struck  by a pellet. The AFC was shown X-Rays of the child\u2019s head with the  pellet embedded. According to the mother, the doctors say it would be  dangerous to try to remove the pellet.<\/p>\n<p>The AFC team also met with Michael Wills who was shot through the  thigh. He contradicted reports on NCN that the joint services rendered  assistance to injured persons. There were also reports of the police  destroying food supplies donated by persons sympathetic to the Lindeners.<\/p>\n<p>Ramjattan and team also visited the McKenzie Police Station to enquire  into the welfare of a number of individuals arrested by the police.  They were informed that some of the arrested persons were transferred  to Georgetown.\u00a0 The Police are trying to have the cases brought  before the court.<\/p>\n<p>While in Linden, Ramjattan made the following statement to the residents:<\/p>\n<p>There has been  much comment over the Alliance For Change\u2019s objection to the inclusion  into the Terms Of Reference of\u00a0 \u2018an investigation into the events leading  up to the protest of the 18<sup>th<\/sup> July 2012.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>The constitution  of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana guarantees the right to protest.<\/p>\n<p>In its simplest  form if a citizen wants to protest against any issue however trivial  he has a right to do so. If he wants to protest against his neighbour\u2019s  green roof he can do so.<\/p>\n<p><a name=\"0.1__GoBack\"><\/a>If he wants to  persuade the rest of his neighbourhood to protest against his neighbour\u2019s  green roof he has to right to solicit their support. If he succeeds  and the entire community comes out against his neighbour\u2019s green roof,  they have a right to do so. If they then peacefully assemble unarmed  at the community bridge to protest where they are shot dead in cold  blood by the local police how relevant is it to any investigation into  the shooting to death of innocent community members that a neighbor  started the protest over a green roof?<\/p>\n<p>It was his right  to do so.<\/p>\n<p>We would be entering  very dangerous territory if we start to apportion blame for the organization  of an activity expressly guaranteed by the constitution.<\/p>\n<p>The real reason  the Government wants this included in the TORs is that they want to  deter citizens from attending protests which are anti-government thereby  effectively restricting the exercise of their constitutional right.<\/p>\n<p>The words of the  Prime Minster perfectly captured the government\u2019s preferred sentiment  \u201cThey should accept with quiet resignation\u201d. It\u2019s the same thing  they told slaves two centuries ago when they rose against oppressive  circumstances.<\/p>\n<p>Let it be stated  now and up front that whoever organized the protest on the 18<sup>th<\/sup> July 2012 had a guaranteed constitutional right to do.<\/p>\n<p>The people of  Linden should not be made to feel guilty or culpable for attending a  protest they had a right to attend irrespective of who organized it.<\/p>\n<p>It is an insult  to the intelligence of the community to say that they were misled or  led astray by some politicians to protest. Perhaps it\u2019s a commentary  on the President that he thinks citizens of this Republic are gullible  and can be led astray. We all know what time of day it is.<\/p>\n<p>The good citizens  of Linden were organized, courteous and civil enough to notify the authorities  a week in advance of their intended protests. More than enough time  to permit the Guyana Police Force to prepare\u00a0 and\u00a0 NCN to alert the citizenry  of Linden of their misguided intentions.<\/p>\n<p>The execution  of citizen in cold blood\u00a0 is a criminal act which requires a criminal  investigation irrespective of whether or not there is a Commission of  Inquiry. It is not good enough for the Crime Chief to say that the bullets  which shot the protestors dead were not issued by the police. Rather  than assure the citizenry it alarms them. When will the Police identify  and charge the killers?<\/p>\n<p>So let\u2019s not  waste any more time over debate on its inclusion in the TORs if we want  to pursue truth and justice then let\u2019s find out why three citizens  were innocently executed on July 18<sup>th <\/sup> [END]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Urges responsible behaviour The Alliance For Change visited Linden Monday afternoon to urge residents of the beleaguered community to guard against any further destruction of property. The Party made it clear that it does not support such acts. The AFC team was headed by Party Leader Khemraj Ramjattan and General Secretary David Patterson and included [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7134,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-activities"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/image001-2.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4F7T1-12q","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/afcguyana.com\/afcnew\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}