And while Espat and Hyde are expected to protest with a no vote, they might be some of the only ones. That's because the Police Department has indicated to the Opposition that it will grant no protest permits for Belmopan on Friday. The Opposition had hopes to take up larger crowds than it did last Friday. But citing the volatility of the situation, police, no doubt working in lockstep with the political directorate, may block all protest permits. We say "may block" because up to this evening, the Commissioner still had not put it to the Opposition Leader in writing.
Speaking with us this evening Dean Barrow told us that he has gone to the Supreme Court to seek an injunction blocking the Commissioner from refusing to give his party a protest permit.
Hon. Dean Barrow, UDP Party Leader
"If I don't get the injunction then I expect that we will have to go 'plan b' which as I suggested are smaller individual protests in each of the district towns. We've also been told informally by the police that we won't get permits even for those. But those in any event will proceed if the larger protest in Belmopan can't. In terms of Belmopan, we will be determined to go regardless but clearly it will be fairly easy for the police to stop the buses which we don't control and to ensure that our people don't reach."
Jules Vasquez,
Do you fear a mass eruption of unrest for this Friday?
Hon. Dean Barrow,
"No I don't. Our requests, instructions if you will, to our people will be clear: there is no place for violence, there is no place certainly for organized violence coming from our supporters. Of course there is a difficulty if provocative acts are done by the police or anyone else in terms of control in such a situation.
So I believe that there is absolutely no question but that the protests need to go ahead and I certainly fear what will happen if in fact the protests are not allowed to go ahead in a lawful manner. If people can't protest lawfully, they'll protest unlawfully. The point I am trying to make is that there is much more to fear from protests not sanctioned by the police and therefore not controllable by the police.
The security forces in a country that's as well established and relatively speaking as long established as Belize is, cannot be jumping at shadows and using that as an excuse to stifle the legitimate right of people to protest. The protest that the people of this country demand that they be allowed to make on Friday is well within the bounds of the tolerable in a democratic society."
The Opposition has issued a release asking social partners to participate in a nationwide shutdown on Friday. The UDP will meet with those partners tomorrow evening to discuss the proposal.
