By: Staff Writer
August 6, 2021
Video emerging out of St Vincent and the Grenadines shows Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves being hurriedly rushed away from a mob of people after he was struck in the head with a rock as citizens protested the amendments to the Public Health Bill and mandatory COVID-19 vaccination.
Prime Minister Gonsalves is said to be ok despite having received a large gash slightly above his right temple area that may require stitches to say the very least.
Approximately 200 demonstrators, responding to a call to action from the Leader of the Opposition, picketed the Parliament and blocked the entrance to the building, when the crowd prevented the vehicle carrying the Honourable Prime Minister from driving through the gate of the Parliament, he alighted the vehicle and attempted to enter on foot.
He was greeting anti COVID-19 vaccination protestors in the nation’s capital of Kingstown on Thursday afternoon when a protestor hurled a rock in his direction and hit him on the side of head. Prime Minister Gonsalves was rushed to the Milton Cato Hospital where he was seen up and talking to persons around him and was kept overnight for observation.
Lawmakers were on Thursday presented with a third revision of proposed changes to the Public Health Act, which Parliament is expected to debate later in the evening.
The revision came in the face of the largest crowd that has turned out to protests in Kingstown during meetings of Parliament over the last few weeks.
The government is proposing to remove the word voluntary from a section of the law that speaks to vaccination against an illness that has triggered the declaration of a public health emergency, such as COVID-19.
A statement to the press from the Office of the Prime Minister after the attack said: “The Prime Minister strongly reiterated his belief in the solemnity of the vote as a cornerstone of parliamentary democracy and a basis of governmental legitimacy. In spite of his injuries, the Prime Minister welcomed all peaceful demonstrations as a fundamental right enshrined in our Constitution but cautioned that legitimate peaceful demonstration should in no way impede parliamentarians’ rights of entrance and egress from the House of Assembly.
“Moreover, the use of violence in pursuit of political purposes is entirely unacceptable. We expect that the perpetrator of the actual act of violence will be brought to justice.”