By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Senior Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE Progressive Liberal Party blamed Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis yesterday after three tourists accused of violating his COVID-19 emergency orders were discharged.

Ikrame Kanane, 25, Rana Kenawy, and Mariam Mohamed Hassen, 18, made headlines when photos showing them scaling a locked fence at Cabbage Beach on Paradise Island last Friday spread on social media. Yesterday in court they claimed an officer gave them permission to go on a local beach on Independence Day.

People across social media were shocked at the discharge. Some said Bahamians would not have been let off so easily. PLP chairman Fred Mitchell said in a statement: “Needless to say, this trial will attract international attention. Tourists who visited the Bahamas because of its advertised sun, sand and sea tourism product were hauled before the courts for enjoying sun, sand and sea all because of a bad decision by a singular competent authority. This incident will do more harm than good to the country’s tourism product and brand, not to mention our international reputation.

“The PLP again calls on the competent authority to allow expert medical and scientific evidence to drive all of his decisions if he is to expect continued cooperation from an increasingly exasperated and frustrated public.”

Mr Mitchell said the discharge of tourists was an embarrassment for the government and that the matter was a waste of time and resources for police and the courts.

“So nonsensical are some of these emergency orders by the so-called competent authority that the government is challenged and hard pressed to get the law enforcement officers to enforce some of them or to understand what they are,” he said. “We note the decision of the police to place handcuffs on the persons charged. We have made the point before that the use of these and other restraints when there appears to be no violence or record of flight seems over the top and may be unconstitutional. In any event it is a terrible image for tourism in the Bahamas. The tourism ministry must be having a fit.”

Yesterday, Free National Movement Chairman Carl Culmer hit out at the PLP for trying to “gain political points” from a judge’s decision.

“It’s disappointing to see the PLP would try to gain political points on a magistrate making a decision,” Mr Culmer told this newspaper. “The government’s job is to be the legislator. Unlike the PLP, the government can’t control the courts. We allow the courts to work without interference. If the PLP was looking around different countries, they would see that many countries are closing their beaches so we can’t bury our heads in the sand and work in a vacuum and don’t expect consequences. All of the prime minister’s decisions are in the best interest of the Bahamian people.”