By NAN Staff Writer
News Americas, NY, NY, Fri. Sept. 25, 2026: Members and supporters of the Guyana opposition We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) party’s New York chapter gathered outside the United Nations Thursday to protest the country’s President, Irfaan Ali, during his address to the UN General Assembly’s 81st session, demanding he apply to Guyana the same principles he invoked before world leaders.
ALI AT THE UN
Speaking from the UN podium, Ali told the Assembly that “there can be no enduring prosperity where inequality deepens” and called for a world “where law restrains power, cooperation overcomes division, and every human being can look to the future with hope.” He added that “development must not merely make our economies richer; it must make our societies better.”
“Development must not merely make our economies richer; it must make our societies better. We must not allow further slippage in our pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals. We must renew our commitment to them —not as an inventory of promises, but as a covenant with our peoples and a practical blueprint for ensuring that development reaches every citizen, protects generations yet unborn and creates lasting, inclusive prosperity,” he said. “One way to arrest this slippage is, as Guyana is doing, to mainstream the Goals into our national development strategies, public policies and budgets, so that they become embedded in the priorities we set and the resources we commit, rather than remaining aspirations. The SDGs must not only guide our ambitions; they must shape our choices and our national priorities. In Guyana, we have made significant advances including universal health care, free education, modern infrastructure, accelerated access to affordable housing, opportunities for full employment, acceleration of financing for small and medium-sized enterprises, and digitising service delivery.”
Demonstrators, holding signs reading “Let the Courts Do Their Jobs, No to Victimization” and “More Democracy, No to Dictatorship,” argued those principles are not being upheld at home. The WIN New York Chapter laid out seven specific grievances in a statement accompanying the protest. They include: escalating political persecution of Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed, opposition MPs, staff, and their associates; entrenched poverty, citing an Inter-American Development Bank finding that 58% of Guyanese live in poverty despite the country’s oil-driven economic growth; erosion of democratic and human rights protections; threats to judicial independence; political interference in policing; corruption and lack of government accountability; and unresolved accountability for the MV Barima ferry tragedy, which killed dozens of Guyanese in July.
“We demand accountability, equal treatment, independent institutions, judicial independence, respect for human rights, an end to political victimisation, and justice for the families of the MV Barima,” the WIN statement said, calling for the vessel to be recovered, the full truth established, evidence preserved, and affected families compensated.
Some demonstrators carried signs making more pointed personal accusations against Ali and Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo over the ferry disaster and other incidents, reflecting the intensity of grievance among protesters, though those specific claims have not been independently verified.
The protest is the latest flashpoint in an increasingly public standoff between Guyana’s government and Mohamed, whose WIN party won 16 seats in last year’s elections and who is currently fighting a US extradition request that his legal team has characterized as politically motivated – an argument this demonstration was explicitly designed to reinforce on the world stage.
The group also protested outside a Diaspora meet-up with the President later in the evening outside a presidential meet-and-greet event on Jamaica Avenue in Queens Village, NY.
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