00:00The emergency powers will end. The fight against crime will continue.
00:07The announcement by Homeland Security Minister Roger Alexander in the House of Representatives
00:11just days before the current extension of the state of emergency in Trinidad and Tobago is due to end.
00:17There will be no ease up, Madam Deputy Speaker, on the pressure.
00:23There will be no retreat, no surrender, no white flags, or red, at our doors.
00:40The Constitution requires that a further extension of the state of emergency would require the support
00:44of the members of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, which includes the independent Senators.
00:50However, Minister Alexander made no specific reference to that requirement.
00:54Madam Deputy Speaker, let me make something absolutely clear from the outset.
01:01The state of emergency is ending because the law say that it must.
01:07It is not ending because the threat has disappeared.
01:12It is not ending because the police has finished its job.
01:16And it is not ending because the criminal gangs have been given reprieve.
01:24Madam Deputy Speaker, and it is not the end because the government has lost its resolve.
01:33As he praised the work of law enforcement during the state of emergency,
01:37Minister Alexander said that after 191 days,
01:40while those not lawfully held will be released from state detention,
01:44240 held under preventive detention orders have been charged and will now face the courts.
01:52Jewel Brown, TV6 News.
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