Woman arrested for threatening words against President, racial slurs

Last Updated on Monday, 10 April 2023, 20:22 by Denis Chabrol

A woman has been arrested in connection with her alleged desire to see Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali assassinated, Head of the Police Force’s Criminal Investigations Department, Assistant Police Commissioner Wendell Blanhum said Monday.

“The president needs to be assassinated,” she said when asked by an unseen and unidentified person to repeat what she said.

In the same video on the social media site, TikTok, the Indo-Guyanese woman is heard hurling racial slurs against an Afro-Guyanese man.

It is unclear when the woman uttered both categories of offending words, but the video was post on TikTok on April 9, 2023 and up to Monday night attracted more than 98,000 views.

Police did not immediately say where in Guyana the offending words were uttered but it is obvious that it is a market or vending area based on a limited view of the surroundings in the video.

Meanwhile, police  investigators were reportedly “checking” to ascertain whether  a report was made concerning another social media video of an Indo-Guyanese man urging that Afro-Guyanese be severely harmed.

The Racial Hostility Act prohibits the publication of the details of what was said by the woman and the man.

In the wake of the charging of Working People’s Alliance (WPA) executive member Tacuma Ogunseye with attempting to excite racial hostility or ill will on the basis of race, Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton last week questioned why no action was taken against that Indo-Guyanese man.