00:00Canadian blogger Christopher Hughes, widely known as Christmas List, was charged with sedition in May 2024,
00:09following the publication of a video that officials claimed incited public disorder.
00:14He maintains his innocence, insisting his commentary was taken out of context,
00:20and says all he wants now is a fair trial, though he claims he has been barred from re-entering the country to properly defend himself.
00:28How best to put this, you know, even those that want to prosecute me for sedition are dumbfounded to understand how this has happened,
00:39where a man myself that's up against very serious charges is not allowed into the country in which I'm being charged.
00:47So the people that have banned me never spoke to the lawyers that are prosecuting me when putting that ban in place.
00:55So a new judge was given my case over the course of the last couple of weeks,
01:02and even when he stepped in, he was very confused and could not recall the last time that something like this has happened.
01:09Hughes says the drawn-out legal process has been deeply frustrating,
01:14noting that he has made some 30 virtual court appearances over the past year,
01:19with little to no progress in the case.
01:22Each time, he explains, the matter is adjourned to yet another month.
01:27He says he was offered the option to plead guilty in exchange for the charges being dropped,
01:33an offer he considers deeply unfair.
01:36And my thoughts are that they're just dragging this on to exhaustion,
01:41but the courts somehow believe that I'm going to end this abruptly by simply pleading guilty to something I did not commit,
01:50which will not happen.
01:51He also sought to clarify that the legal restriction preventing him from entering the country
01:56is separate from and unrelated to the sedition charge.
02:00It's a different pending case that's before a different judge into me holding a camera.
02:10Well, that's something that I really can't talk much about,
02:13but they're saying that the average person should not be able to hold a camera
02:17and upload to social media without a business visa.
02:21And they said, I came as a tourist,
02:23so tourists should not be able to document their time in Trinidad,
02:27which is a completely separate matter.
02:29But that is the reason that I've been banned from Trinidad.
02:33Hughes remains on $100,000 bail
02:37as he awaits the outcome of the sedition charges fired against him
02:41while continuing to assert his innocence
02:43and challenges the restrictions preventing him from returning to Trinidad and Tobago.
02:50Nicole M. Romany, TV6 News.
Comments