In Trinidad and Tobago, a government that reached for extraordinary powers to contain extraordinary violence now finds itself reckoning with the costs of that reach. Two consecutive states of emergency — stretching from 2024 into 2025 — granted authorities the ability to arrest and hold people without charge, a tool the state wielded against more than 5,800 individuals before Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar announced this week that the emergency would be allowed to expire. The decision marks not an end to the conflict between security and liberty, but a shift in the terrain on which that
Trinidad and Tobago ends emergency powers amid mass arrest backlash
Over 5,800 people arrested under emergency powers; approximately 2,250 remain detained without charges; documented abuse including blindfolding, shackling, and denial of legal counsel access.