Outcry in Trinidad and Tobago after passing of police bill that could threaten press freedom

Officers in Port of Spain, the capital of Trinidad and Tobago. Photograph: Miami Herald/Tribune News Service/Getty ImagesView image in fullscreenOfficers in Port of Spain, the capital of Trinidad and Tobago. Photograph: Miami Herald/Tribune News Service/Getty ImagesOutcry in Trinidad and Tobago after passing of police bill that could threaten press freedomJournalists call for urgent amendment to special operations bill, which increases police search and seizure powers

Journalists in Trinidad and Tobago have called for an urgent amendment to a sweeping new bill that increases police powers of search and seizure, which they argue threatens the country’s much-vaunted freedom of the press.

The government says the special operations bill 2026, passed on 24 September, is designed to tackle alarmingly high crime and murder rates in the Caribbean nation.

The country has spent more than a year in an almost perpetual state of emergency, with police empowered to bypass normal constitutional rights around arrest, detention, and search and seizure.

But journalists in Trinidad and Tobago have called for explicit exemptions in the new legislation to prevent police from searching and seizing their notebooks, phones and laptops.

In the past, journalists have been forced to challenge warrants empowering police to raid their homes and offices.

Although the country prides itself in honouring freedom of speech, ranking 19 out of 180 countries in the 2025 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index, this year it fell 13 places to 32, and journalists say they are deeply concerned about whether they can protect whistleblowers and vulnerable sources who share information on the understanding that they will be protected.

The president of the Media Association of Trinidad and Tobago (MATT), Prior Beharry, said the organisation had called for clause 15 of the bill to be urgently amended “to explicitly shield our devices and materials … and confidential source information from standard police seizure”.

Clause 15 prevents police from seizing “a tool of a lawful trade or business” or material protected by legal professional privilege. But MATT says journalism is not explicitly recognised as a protected trade, nor does the bill establish a procedure for handling confidential journalistic material discovered during searches. It wants the clause changed to “expressly name journalism as a protected lawful trade and safeguard journalists’ devices, materials and confidential sources”.

Beharry said the bill’s search‑and‑seizure powers were particularly worrying in a digital era where “the tools of a journalist is … usually [a] cell phone”. Though he said journalists had not been directly threatened under recent states of emergency, he warned that other restrictions were worsening.

“One of the issues we are having is the access to the government, the executive, including the prime minister, who has not had an official press conference for more than a year,” he said. “Ministries use state resources and we are not invited, but state media is invited.”

The independent journalist Pearce Robinson said the combination of surveillance capability, expanded search powers – without explicit protection for journalistic practice – and declining access to government ministers created a “concrete” threat to press freedom, with a particularly significant impact on investigative reporting.

“If your phone, your laptop and your notes can be searched or seized without explicit protection for journalistic material, that raises serious constitutional concerns,” he said. “Investigative journalism depends on people being able to speak confidentially.”

He also raised concerns about phone tapping and surveillance, pointing to an investigation by the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian which said that “judges approved 314 warrants to intercept communications in Trinidad and Tobago between 2020 and May 2026”.

“My concern is not that press freedom has disappeared,” he said. “It is that several of these pressures … are accumulating at the same time.”

Pedro Cárdenas, of the press freedom and human rights organisation Article 19, expressed concern about the clause in the new bill. “It empowers law enforcement officers to seize any vehicle, article or document deemed likely to be of substantial value. We find this clause particularly problematic because it is vague and opens up to discussion what is substantial value or not,” he said.

He added that it “might directly counter” existing international human rights laws.

The office of the prime minister did not respond to a request for comment.

Stuart Young, Trinidad and Tobago’s former prime minister, labelled the bill “unconstitutional and very dangerous”, adding that it “breaches fundamental and entrenched constitutional rights” and was passed “without a required constitutional majority in highly questionable circumstances”.

He said the government’s past use of emergency powers – including detaining citizens without charge – showed “the real likelihood of abuse” under the new legislation.