SLP Communications Director, Senator Lisa Jawahir, is one such figure who has joined the call, demanding an explanation from the opposition UWP. She says Josie’s remarks are more than just a politicisaiton of crime, but an invitation to cause violence. She urges the opposition to set a better example for young people.
“You see in attendance a lot of young people.”, Jawahir observes, adding that “Nobody: not the P.R.O, not the former senate president - who is also a lawyer; not Dominic Fedee, who is also the leader of Opposition Business in the Senate; not the First Deputy of the Party…nobody told Peter Josie what he was saying was wrong.”
Jawahir questions Josie’s motives, saying that the seasoned politician may have been trying to incite violence against SLP members. “Was Peter Josie asking for unity among our youth?”
The Prime Minister Honourable Philip J Pierre has also voiced his disappointment with the statement made by Josie. Pierre says, however, UWP members are following the lead of the Opposition Leader.
“Absolutely no one from the UWP has come forward and said Peter Josie shouldn’t say that”, the Prime Minister said. “The Leader of the Opposition was asking people to feel angry, and he was saying to the whole world that Saint Lucia is unsafe.”
Concerned citizens have been asking for the intervention of the Royal St Lucia Police Force in the matter. According to section 355 of the island’s Criminal Code, “ where a person—
(a) uses towards another person threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour; or
(b) distributes or displays to another person any writing, signs or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting with intent to cause that person to believe that unlawful violence will be used against him or her or another by the person or to provoke the immediate use of unlawful violence by that person or another, or whereby that person is likely to believe that such violence will be used or it is likely that such violence will be provoked, [that person] commits an offence. A person who commits an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for 5 years.”
