Girl says sorry for threatening Trinidad PM

Attorney General Anand Ramlogan said yesterday that government has taken steps to draft laws to monitor and regulate the use of social media sites.

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, Monday August 29, 2011 – A 14-year-old girl who posted a video on Facebook and YouTube in which she verbally abused and threatened Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has been urged to turn herself in to police, despite issuing a videotaped apology.

Attorney General Anand Ramlogan says although the girl had apologised, the police investigation would continue and the law had to take its course.

“What I wish to say to her, as sorry as I might be for her actions and as disappointed and as disgusted people may feel by it, what you must do now is to turn yourself into the police and let them deal with the matter because it is a most serious matter,” he said.

"We all make mistakes but this is a very grave one…The best thing you can do is turn yourself in to the police and let the law take its course, and pray, and know that God will always have mercy and there will always be another door to open in life."

The girl, who called herself ‘Granny Quilla’, made a video which she posted last week in which she issued death threats, used obscene language and made racist remarks to 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”.

But in a subsequent video that was posted on Ramlogan’s Facebook page, she apologised for the comments, saying that she made the video “for fun” and did not mean any harm.

“I could not even sleep last night. I would like to say I am sorry to the Prime Minister for talking like that, especially the language and all the racial stuff I said,” she said. “I just real sorry. I should not have done it. I don’t know what to do right now. I really don’t know what to do right now. I just really, really sorry.”

The girl also appealed to those persons who had re-posted the original video, which she had removed, to desist from sharing it.

Ramlogan said yesterday that government has taken steps to draft laws to monitor and regulate the use of social media sites.

"I have, in fact, asked the acting Chief Parliamentary Counsel, Mr Cuthbert Jolly, and the chairman of the Law Reform Commission, Mr Samraj Harripaul, to undertake an immediate assignment with a view to drafting laws to take to Parliament to deal with the regulations and monitoring of the social networking sites to ensure that it is not being abused and misused and abused by persons who have hidden agendas and sinister and malicious motives to incite persons and to use it to form gangs of their own,” he said.

The Attorney General said the intention was not to curtail freedom of expression, but to ensure that there was no misuse of technology. Click here to receive free news bulletins via email from Caribbean360. (View sample)