Protestors take ‘middle finger’ to State House

Sep 01, 2011 News

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A number of protestors yesterday gathered in front of State House on Main Street raising their middle fingers in solidarity with 18 year-old Kevin Simon, who was remanded to prison for two weeks, for allegedly showing his middle finger to President Jagdeo’s convoy.
The Alliance For Change (AFC) aired also voiced its concerns against the treatment of Simon due to the allegations.
According to the AFC yesterday at its weekly press briefing, “It is quite ironic that the PPP claims it is the party for the working class of Guyana and for the youth of Guyana when it quite hastily held 18-year-old Mr. Kevin Simon without bail for two weeks, allegedly for making a lewd manual gesture at the Presidential motorcade.”
The party compared the incident to those where Presidents of other countries are exposed to such matters on a daily basis, placing emphasis on the incident which recently took place in Trinidad & Tobago, involving that country’s Prime Minister and a teenaged girl.
“Now let us contrast this with the 14-year-old Trinidadian girl of African descent, who issued death threats, used obscene language and made racist remarks to the Prime Minister, Ms. Kamla Persad-Bissessar over the declaration of a State of Emergency in the country and curfew restrictions in some areas. Among her comments were that a sniper would shoot the Prime Minister and leave no evidence,” the AFC stated.
It was reported that the young girl was not locked up, instead, the Prime Minister had said that she became aware of the situation via newspaper where it was alleged that the girl made “some abusive remarks” about her on Facebook.
The case was discussed and placed in the hands of the Trinidadian police authorities.
Persad-Bissessar continued by saying that she read that the young girl had apologized on Facebook and the Prime Minister in her recognition of the young girl being a teen publicly stated that she wished to meet with the girl and “accept her apologies”.
“We should find out why, as a young girl she felt it necessary to do such a thing. I am not of the view in the circumstances that she should be punished in any way. I think first we should talk with her and see what help we can be, all these things are possible” said the Trinidad & Tobago Prime Minister.
With this in mind, the AFC stressed that it is condemning the actions of the Government of Guyana, since it “has a penchant for going overboard on minor matters and abusing its power”, citing that this was another reason why the “72-hour holding period”, whereby citizens can be held for minor infractions, has not yet been abolished.
The party also commented on such incidents which are likely to take place in another major country, the United States of America (USA), where the population is quite larger than that of Guyana’s.
“Can you imagine how many lewd gestures Mr. Obama gets daily? Yet no one is prosecuted there because that is a country that has freedom of speech enshrined in its constitution,” said the AFC.
In the case of Kevin Simon, he allegedly made the obscene gesture while travelling on the main East Coast Highway on August 8.
The young man was initially charged with breaching the peace under one section of the law and appeared before Magistrate Judy Latchman the following day and pleaded not guilty.
He was remanded to prison for one week but on his return to court on August 16, he was sent back to the Camp Street Prison for another week.
On those occasions, Simon was unrepresented by an attorney.
His family then secured the services of prominent defence attorney Nigel Hughes, who subsequently applied to the High Court and secured bail in the sum of $5,000.
On Tuesday, last, the Prosecution informed the court that they were withdrawing the charge against the young man, with a view to reinstitution under another section of the law.
Ewald Simon, the young man’s father, told this newspaper that when they turned up at the Sparendaam Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday, they learnt that the matter was already called.
However, a representative who was in the courtroom, related to them that the police had “reallocated the charge to another section (of the law), because it couldn’t stand up under the present section and, they will send the youth a summons to appear (in court) on September 20.”
The Prosecution is contending that the young man stuck out his middle finger at the President, which they claimed amounted to a criminal act.
The young man, a porter on a water delivery truck, is on the other hand contending that he was merely hanging his hand against the breeze when he was accused of the act.

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