Camille McEach­nie

To­ba­go busi­ness­woman Di­ane Hadad is warn­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) that its con­tin­ued us­age of a video clip with her dis­cussing To­ba­go is­sues will re­sult in le­gal ac­tion against the par­ty.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, Hadad said she finds it “rep­re­hen­si­ble” that a po­lit­i­cal par­ty can use her name and im­age to “score cheap po­lit­i­cal points.”

“I take this op­por­tu­ni­ty to dis­tance and dis­as­so­ci­ate my­self from any po­lit­i­cal ad­ver­tise­ments on the var­i­ous print, elec­tron­ic and so­cial me­dia plat­forms, us­ing clips of any in­ter­views that I would have con­duct­ed in the past,” Hadad said.

The busi­ness­woman, who is al­so the chair­man of the To­ba­go Chap­ter of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, ap­pears at the end of the 1:53-minute UNC po­lit­i­cal ad for three sec­onds.

Com­ment­ing on it, Hadad said, “That sound­bite is now be­ing used out of con­text and link­ing my­self with a po­lit­i­cal par­ty in an at­tack ad on its po­lit­i­cal ri­val. It is rep­re­hen­si­ble for any po­lit­i­cal par­ty to use Di­ane Hadad’s name and im­age to score cheap po­lit­i­cal points. I am a busi­ness­woman and as a cit­i­zen of this coun­try, I serve my coun­try with dig­ni­ty and pride. I am not in any way in­volved in par­ty pol­i­tics. Even more im­por­tant­ly, I was nev­er no­ti­fied that my good name, voice, and im­age were to be used in such a man­ner.”

Be­fore she ap­pears, oth­er video clips of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Health Min­is­ter Ter­rance Deyals­ingh dis­cussing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic form most of the video.

How­ev­er, dis­as­so­ci­at­ing her­self from the elec­tron­ic pro­duc­tion, which has the tag ‘Let’s un­do this,’ Hadad added that while she had views, they were in­de­pen­dent ones.

“I re­main apo­lit­i­cal and in­de­pen­dent in those views and opin­ions. Con­se­quent­ly, in the first in­stance, I am re­quest­ing that with im­me­di­ate ef­fect, all po­lit­i­cal ad­ver­tise­ments us­ing Di­ane Hadad’s name, im­age, like­ness or voice be­ing aired on any me­dia, be it on so­cial me­dia, print or elec­tron­ic me­dia be im­me­di­ate­ly re­moved and all pub­li­ca­tion cease; and that no oth­er video, quote, im­age or pho­to of me be used by any po­lit­i­cal par­ty or any of its af­fil­i­ates or sup­port­ers or any­one what­so­ev­er or whoso­ev­er in sup­port of or against any po­lit­i­cal par­ty or can­di­date in the up­com­ing elec­tion.”

She fur­ther warned, “I am in con­sul­ta­tion with my le­gal team, and I wish to in­form all that I will be tak­ing le­gal ac­tion in de­fence of my good name and char­ac­ter.”