Journalists in Trinidad and Tobago are demanding an urgent amendment to the Special Operations Bill 2026, saying the new law's expanded search and seizure powers threaten press freedom in the country.

A crime bill and a year of emergency powers

The government says the Special Operations Bill 2026, passed on 24 September, is designed to tackle the Caribbean nation's high crime and murder rates. It arrives after more than a year in which Trinidad and Tobago has lived under an almost perpetual state of emergency, with police able to bypass normal constitutional rights on arrest, detention and search and seizure.

The legislation is not a blanket authorisation. Clause 15 already stops police from seizing a tool of a lawful trade or business, or material covered by legal professional privilege.

What the media association wants changed

The Media Association of Trinidad and Tobago (MATT) says the bill does not explicitly recognise journalism as a protected trade and sets no procedure for handling confidential journalistic material found during searches. It wants clause 15 changed to expressly name journalism as a protected lawful trade and to safeguard journalists' devices, materials and confidential sources.

Reporters are asking for explicit exemptions so police cannot search or seize their notebooks, phones and laptops. They say they are deeply worried about whether they can protect whistleblowers and vulnerable sources who share information on the understanding of protection.

MATT president Prior Beharry said the association had called for clause 15 of the bill to be urgently amended:

Beharry added that the search-and-seizure powers are especially worrying in a digital era when a journalist's main tool is usually a mobile phone.

A falling ranking and restricted access

Trinidad and Tobago ranked 19th out of 180 countries in the 2025 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index. In the latest index it fell 13 places to 32nd. Warrants authorising police raids on journalists' homes and offices have been challenged in the past.

Beharry said journalists had not been directly threatened under recent states of emergency, but that other restrictions were getting worse:

• •Access to government and the executive is a problem, he said, because the prime minister has not held an official press conference for more than a year.
• •Ministries use state resources without inviting journalists, while state media is invited, he said.

Surveillance fears and constitutional criticism

Independent journalist Pearce Robinson said surveillance capability, expanded search powers without explicit protection for journalistic practice, and declining access to ministers together create a concrete threat to press freedom, with investigative reporting hit hardest. Investigative journalism, he said, depends on people being able to speak confidentially.

He warned that searches or seizures of phones, laptops and notes with no explicit protection for journalistic material raise serious constitutional concerns. The danger, he said, is not that press freedom has vanished but that several pressures are piling up at once.

• •Robinson raised concerns about phone tapping and surveillance, citing a Trinidad and Tobago Guardian investigation that found judges approved 314 warrants to intercept communications between 2020 and May 2026.
• •Pedro Cárdenas of the press freedom and human rights organisation Article 19 said the clause lets law enforcement officers seize any vehicle, article or document deemed likely to be of substantial value. He called it particularly problematic because its vagueness leaves what counts as substantial value open to dispute, and said it might directly counter existing international human rights laws.
• •Stuart Young, Trinidad and Tobago's former prime minister, called the bill unconstitutional and very dangerous, said it breaches fundamental and entrenched constitutional rights and was passed without a required constitutional majority in highly questionable circumstances. He warned that the government's past use of emergency powers, including detaining citizens without charge, showed a real likelihood of abuse under the new legislation.

The bill stands as passed on 24 September; MATT's demand for an amendment to clause 15 is pending, and the office of the prime minister did not respond to a request for comment.