Dear Editor,
Reference is made to the following release from the Office of the Leader of the Opposition: “MORE PPP DESPARATION: At no time during their presentations did Opposition Leader Aubrey C. Norton or any other PNCR/APNU speaker even mention, let allow, criticise the US President or his administration. In fact, the focus was on the likely role the PPP government played in trying to silence the voice of one of its known critics and in denying citizens their basic human rights. We wish to alert Guyanese to expect similar hoaxes as the PPP and its activists become increasingly desperate as election approaches.”

Melissa Atwell was arrested, according to official records, Thursday last and remains in the custody of Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), under the President Trump-led U.S. Government.
She is scheduled to appear before Immigration Judge Richard Jacobs on June 25 for a master hearing—official records indicate. At said hearing, according to Demerara Waves, “the judge is expected to explain the charges she is facing, allow her to plead, and make an application to show why she should not be deported from the US.”

It is very clear that her arrest by United States Homeland Security officials is consequent to President Trump’s controversial immigration crackdown. If she is indeed deported, Melissa must be accorded due process just like any other Guyanese citizen.
No matter her vitriolic comments, slander or online abuse. Melissa is a Guyanese citizen like the rest of us, and due process is her constitutional right, no matter your feelings towards her.
This excuse of a “press release” is a pathetic contortion, seeking to weasel and shift blame, rather than directly criticising Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Stating that “the focus was on the likely role the PPP government played” and stressing that “at no time” was there even a mention of the US President, reads as someone frantically holding on to their VISA whilst casting Ali and Jagdeo as all-powerful, omniscient and omnipresent with control over Trump.
This is quivering, conspiratorial slime. Nothing more.
Yours faithfully,
Nikhil Sankar.