Arrested Berbice protesters on $60,000 bail each, Ramjattan says PPP behind police’s heavy hand

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Several persons who were arrested and locked up yesterday during strike action by sugar workers in Region 6, Berbice, this morning received bail when they made their appearance in court. The persons, some of whom are sugar workers, were placed on sixty-thousand ($60,000) dollars bail each today. They were in the area of Canjie Turn, Main Road, at the time they were arrested by police.

Leader of the Alliance For Change, Attorney at Law Khemraj Ramjattan who has been giving representation to the grievances of the striking sugar workers spoke to the media after the matter was heard in court, and said, “All of them indicated to me that their wives and children had been expending a lot of money for school. And at this stage, they’re literally broken but still, the prosecutor wanted heavier bail.”

Ramjattan, a seasoned attorney who now represents those arrested as their counsel, stated, “The magistrate was using her discretion as best as she could. Although I pleaded that it be reduced to self-bail. There were, there are about five or six of them that had nothing to do with the striking workers. They were a taxi, one was a fisherman and a painter, and so on, but they were just held up in a clean sweep as the police want to impress the powers that be at Freedom House.”

“Now they gotta go and find $60,000 bail and all they were doing was a legitimate exercise. So many times sugar workers have been striking for better deals. But this government has found it appropriate to lock them up and beat up some of them yesterday,” Attorney Ramjattan told reporters. The arrested persons are also being represented by Attorney at Law, Senior Counsel Roysdale Forde, and Attorney at Law Darren Wade.