A group of international media advocacy organizations are expressing outrage over recent tactics of intimidation against journalists in Trinidad and Tobago and are calling on the oil-rich Caribbean nation’s top cop to work with media houses to obtain information.

The International Press Institute, National Association of Black Journalists and Unity Journalists of Color have jointly written and published an open letter to Police Commissioner Dwayne Gibbs condemning last week’s newsroom raid at Newsday, a Trinidad daily, and a search of the home of one of its reporters, Andre Bagoo. After raiding the newsroom, nine police officers from the Anti-Corruption Investigations Bureau entered Bagoo’s home and confiscated his cell phone, computers and flash drive to obtain the name of a confidential source.

Bagoo, one of the country’s political reporters, had written an article about a dispute between the chairman of the Integrity Commission, which oversees ethical practices of public officials, and his deputy. He was later ordered by police in a letter to reveal his source. He refused.

Both the invasion and confiscation of Bagoo’s property was “not only a violation of press freedom, but horrific, shocking and wholly unacceptable. And, last weekend’s act of police force unfortunately shows a pattern in recent months,” the groups said in the letter to Gibbs.

In December, police also raided local TV 6 to obtain the tape of the rape of a minor that was aired on the station’s crime show.

“The police are emboldened to behave in this particular way,” said Wesley Gibbings, president of the Association of Caribbean Media Workers, who lives in Trinidad. He blames the country’s recent State of Emergency law, which gave police extraordinary powers in the fight against crime, for the raids. The law expired late last year. Gibbs has said that the police actions were legal.

Gibbings said Trinidad and Tobago has been a model for other Caribbean nations with its freedom of the press guarantees, but the press and political establishment have always had “a bittersweet relationship.”

“Overall, there is a high level of intolerance for freedom of the press,” he said. “Freedom of the press is a guaranteed constitutional right which suggests there are standards that ought to apply to how the press is treated.”

Gibbings said Trinidad is not the only country in the Caribbean that his association is monitoring. Guyana, Haiti and Guyana are also being followed. In Guyana, a columnist who is a university lecturer, was recently fired from his university post after a series of highly critical articles about the government. Also media houses are complaining that the government is using advertising and radio licenses to try and dictate coverage. Those critical of the government have often seen their advertising pulled for months, and few radio licenses are awarded, Gibbings said.

On Thursday, Guyana media owners formed a new organization to respond to the tactics.

Also on Thursday in Trinidad, members of the Media Association of Trinidad and Tobago (MATT) met with lawyers to get advise on how to proceed. Earlier in the week, they demanded an apology from Gibbs. It has not come.

Reporters Without Borders, the media rights organization, has also condemned the Trinidad raid saying it was “a clear violation of the confidentiality of sources, a fundamental principle of journalism.”