And like the protesting residents of Gales Point Manatee, the UDP came out on Tuesday to protest in Belize City. This was after they were denied two permits, with the reason cited being that due to the State of Emergency, police officers were stretched too thin.
Still, the UDP went out into the streets, but not before accusing the state of deliberately suppressing their right to protest. Today, we asked the Minister of Home Affairs, Kareem Musa, about this.
Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs
"I had a conversation with the Commissioner of Police, I was out of the country that week, and when I got back, I had a conversation with him, we met the day before the protest and I mentioned to him that, you know, when it comes to protests, unless there are really circumstances beyond our control that make it difficult for the police to be there, let us allow the protest to take place, I know that the commissioner has a lot of manpower out in the St Martin De Porres area, it's been I think 25 days of a state of emergency so yes we are very stretched for Human Resources in the police department and I understand the ComPol's reason for denying the protest in the circumstances that we have currently but at the same time nothing trumps an entity's to hold a protest and so that is why the police did not interfere or interrupt with the protesters on that morning and I think all went well, in terms of the United Democratic Party having their day to actually have a protest."
Courtney Menzies:
"Do you agree with their message?"
Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs
"Their message of?"
Courtney Menzies:
"Gas price too high, inflation too high, corruption "deh bout"?"
Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs
"There's no corruption, I didn't hear anything about any corruption, what I did hear them say is that they would want to lower the gas prices and absolutely, we in the government are doing our very best as you know we've removed the taxes on diesel and regular and so we are doing our absolute best, it's a worldwide crisis and I know everything is local, politics is local, and of course the opposition would want to take advantage of that and try to highlight that we have high gas prices like the rest of the world but at the end of the day I think the Belizean people are in tune with what is taking place Ukraine, they're in tune with what's taking place all across the world with transportation cost and fuel prices going up and so they are understanding of that fact and we're hoping that in the coming months, we're able to lower the gas price."
