Press Release: Our Protest is a Right and a Duty

OUR PROTEST IS A RIGHT AND A DUTY

October 26, 2026

 

Following the statement by Commissioner of Police Shanta Knowles, Equality Bahamas asserts that the Bahamian people have both the right to protest and the obligation to continue in the practice of our ancestors to resist all attempts to (re)colonize The Bahamas and the minds of the Bahamian people. The Bahamian tax dollar is funding the visit of the colonizer, and without consent. The people are not to be silenced or scolded into a behavior considered acceptable to oppressors and those who do their bidding.

Bahamians are not loyal subjects. Bahamians need not “behave” as might be expected of a colony. Bahamians have welcomed no king to this independent country and need not meet any colonizer with painted smiles or baskets of fruit. 

The Progressive Liberal Party cannot both claim ownership of Independence and Majority Rule, leveraging it to maintain its base and win elections, and deny the right of the people to protest the unwelcome visit of the colonizer and the weak-kneed, permissive government allowing it.

Equality Bahamas Director Alicia Wallace said, “It is an embarrassment for any government official to weaponize the words of the national anthem to silence a free, independent people, in favor of a direct beneficiary of slavery and colonization. Our love and unity is for and with one another, and we ought to action that love and unity against continued colonial practices.” 

The Commissioner of Police stated that the police will attend to “anything that distracts negatively from this visit.” We call on the Prime Minister to direct all law enforcement to refrain from the harassment of the Bahamian people whose action will certainly be more peaceful than the most grave crime against humanity. We call on the Prime Minister to affirm the people’s right and obligation—to generations of the past and future—to turn the insult of this visit into an opportunity to continue the call for reparations.

Ms. Wallace said, “There was a time that the Progressive Liberal Party knew “how to behave” too. There was a time that it at least pretended to stand with the people, against oppressors and for freedom and justice.” She added, “We call on the Government of The Bahamas to “show the world how we mark the manner of our bearing” through its return to a focus on the people and collective liberation.”

Equality Bahamas is a feminist organization that promotes women’s and LGBTQI+ people’s rights as human rights through advocacy, public education, and community engagement.