Outspoken Guyanese activist, Melissa Atwell-Holder aka Melly Mel, has promised that she will continue her activism, and she has laid blame for her recent detention in the United States squarely at the feet of the Guyana Government and its hired lobbying firm.
US registration information recently revealed that the Guyana Government has hired the services of a US lobbying firm at a cost of US$50,000 per month.
Atwell-Holder spent two weeks in the custody of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency and appeared in Court last Friday on an immigration matter. She was granted bond in the sum of US$7,500, and has since returned to her New York home.
In a statement on her social media page this afternoon, the actvist said there is no doubt that the Government of Guyana was involved in triggering her detention in the US.
She said the personal information which was revealed through political operatives of the Guyana Government, could not have been known unless there was someone on the inside of the US bureaucracy feeding the information to a lobbying firm, which she believes passed that information on to PPP sources.
Moments after her early morning arrest at her New York home, the information became public locally through social media posts of a number of persons closely linked to the Guyana Government.
She said no one in Guyana could have known so quickly that she was being detained and taken to ICE office at the early morning hour. Additionally, she pointed that her US Identification numbers were leaked and passed on to persons linked to the Guyana Government and later published on social media.
According to Atwell-Holder, the PPP activists who called US Immigration specifically made reference to a two-day overstay in the US before her marriage, using that as a loophole for their complaint.
She said ICE also received more than 25 complaints about her marriage more than two years ago being a “business wedding”, although that turned out to be false and she was arrested at the home she shares with her husband.
The activist accused the Government of Guyana of trying everything and failing until it hired a lobbying firm, which she said was able to use its connections and point out the alleged overstay issue.
She said her detention has destroyed the narrative that she has been tied to criminals or criminal activities. During her Court appearance last Friday, her Attorney pointed out and the US Government agreed, that she has no criminal record and was not a flight risk.
The Judge hearing the case questioned the reason for her arrest and detention, pointing out that her marriage and the approval by the US of the immigration petition by her spouse would have waived the overstay issue.
Today, a combative “Melly Mell” said she will not go silent with her activism, stating that the PPP has made her bigger than before. She said during her detention, she received support from a number of US and International organizations and she will continue to expose acts of corruption within the Guyana Government. She said none of her sources have been compromised and her work as an activist is only now getting started. She also offered thanks to her supporters.
The Government of Guyana has repeatedly denied that it played any role in the activist’s detention. Atwell-Holder has been a fierce critic of the Guyana Government and has highlighted and exposed several reported acts of corruption within the Government.
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