Jumoke Castro Receives Backlash After Threatening Shasta Wade

Jumoke Castro

Fire and brimstone are pouring down on Jumoke Castro tonight. He is the son of U.D.P. Minister Edmond Castro and tonight he is feeling the wrath of not only the general public, but of powerful unions, political parties, elected parliamentarians and of Prime Minister Dean Barrow himself. Great Belize Productions Channel Five has issued a statement saying, “We have seen and read ugly comments on social media. The most recent by the son of a minister are vile and reprehensible. It is targeted at a woman and at a journalist; it should be condemned in the strongest terms by all Belizeans. Those in office who swore to uphold the law must take action to protect Pastor Wade and his wife and ensure that those who made the threats are made to face the law.” Castro, in trying to offend Pastor Wade, targeted his wife, Shasta on Facebook with threats of sexual assault.  The vile comment posted by Castro comes after Sixteen Days of Activism and is widely viewed as promoting gender-based violence.  In response, Shasta wrote on her Facebook page, “I have listened to libelous and slanderous statements by U.D.P. morning show hosts against my family and my children.  I understand.  It comes with the territory.  However, I think this is the first time I have been threatened with gang rape by a Minister’s son and I refuse to believe that this can be justified away by another entitled brat’s Cabinet Daddy!” Castro, on the other hand, has said that he never said anything about rape and did not threaten anyone. However, the party he so vehemently defends on social media issued a release expressing “grave concern over a despicable and outrageous post made on social media in which the wife of a media personality was threatened with sexual assault.”   The U.D.P. says that it expects that the police will look urgently into this matter and will provide the required support if and when the family chooses to pursue the matter in the courts. The party says that there should be no place in the country for this kind of reprehensible behavior to find succor and there certainly is no place within the U.D.P. for this type of conduct. The matter was brought up in the House today.

Laura Tucker-Longsworth

Laura Tucker-Longsworth, Speaker of the House

“More recently a woman was attacked with a threat of rape on social media which is terrible. It tells us though what is happening in our society and we have to come together to regulate social media. We cannot continue to have these kinds of attacks on us.”

John Briceño

John Briceño, Leader of the Opposition

“We find it outrageous, despicable, nasty and intolerable. It should be condemned by all of us in this house and by the society on a whole. Who does this young man believes that he is? That he is entitled to be able to write such nastiness against the wife of Pastor Louis and that he can get away with it.  We just ended sixteen days of activism and now here we have this young who works for the Belize Tax Services, who is paid by tax payers. That he feels that he has every right to be able to write this type of nastiness on Facebook. We are paying his salary Madam Speaker, we the tax payers.”

Dean Barrow

Prime Minister Dean Barrow

“I want to say to the Leader of the Opposition that we on this side of the House entirely share his sense of outrage, disgust and revulsion. Our party has issued a statement this morning condemning that post out of hand. I am happy to put on record in this house the fact that the members of government, the members of this administration joined with the larger party in saying that that kind of post is disgusting, entirely out of order, cannot be countenance and I repeat must absolutely and in the most unqualified and unresolved terms be condemned.”