Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

As Trinidad and To­ba­go joined the world in mark­ing 25 years since the Sep­tem­ber 11 ter­ror­ist at­tacks, a lead­ing Mus­lim or­gan­i­sa­tion re­newed its call for the Gov­ern­ment to re­verse its des­ig­na­tion of Hamas, Hezbol­lah and Iran’s Is­lam­ic Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard Corps (IRGC) as ter­ror­ist en­ti­ties.

At the same time, UWI crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Mal­isa Nep­tune-Fi­garo warned that the coun­try can­not af­ford to be­come com­pla­cent about the con­tin­u­ing threat of rad­i­cal­i­sa­tion.

Pres­i­dent of the Is­lam­ic Mis­sion­ar­ies Guild and Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer of Con­cerned Mus­lims of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Im­ti­az Mo­hammed, told Guardian Me­dia that al­most five months af­ter the des­ig­na­tions, he was un­aware of any­one in the lo­cal Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty hav­ing their as­sets frozen, bank ac­counts af­fect­ed or be­ing sub­ject­ed to ad­di­tion­al scruti­ny as a con­se­quence of the mea­sures.

“Up to to­day, I haven’t heard any­one in the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty com­plain­ing of be­ing af­fect­ed in any way, whether it be frozen as­sets or the bank, whether it be ad­di­tion­al scruti­ny or rep­u­ta­tion­al con­se­quences,” Mo­hammed said.

How­ev­er, he main­tained that the ab­sence of such re­ports did not set­tle what his or­gan­i­sa­tion con­sid­ers the cen­tral is­sue—the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for plac­ing the three or­gan­i­sa­tions on Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ter­ror­ist list.

“We are call­ing on the Prime Min­is­ter to re­voke the an­nounce­ment con­cern­ing the des­ig­na­tion of Hamas, Hezbol­lah and the oth­ers as ter­ror­ist groups,” Mo­hammed said.

He ar­gued that the Gov­ern­ment should demon­strate how the or­gan­i­sa­tions threat­en Trinidad and To­ba­go’s na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

“We see this as not fair­ness and not jus­tice,” he said.

Mo­hammed said Con­cerned Mus­lims of Trinidad and To­ba­go had pre­vi­ous­ly writ­ten to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on the is­sue but had re­ceived no re­sponse.

Nep­tune-Fi­garo, whose re­search has ex­am­ined vi­o­lent ex­trem­ism and ter­ror­ism in Trinidad and To­ba­go, said the coun­try’s ter­ror­ism risk can­not be treat­ed as a closed chap­ter.

“We al­ways have to be on guard be­cause it’s a dy­nam­ic thing and it’s some­thing that nev­er re­al­ly ends when it comes to peo­ple sup­port­ing... cer­tain types of be­hav­iours glob­al­ly,” she said.

She point­ed to the im­pact ISIS pre­vi­ous­ly had in Trinidad and To­ba­go, af­ter na­tion­als trav­elled to con­flict zones in Syr­ia and Iraq.

“ISIS was one of those or­gan­i­sa­tions able to pen­e­trate our pop­u­la­tion at vast lev­els,” Nep­tune-Fi­garo said.

“Be­cause of that, we still have to con­tin­ue to de­vel­op poli­cies and just be on guard for any type of re­sponse or any type of par­tic­i­pa­tion in ter­ror­ist or­gan­i­sa­tions.”

Nep­tune-Fi­garo said she was un­aware of sig­nif­i­cant pol­i­cy or leg­isla­tive changes over the past year and did not know of any cur­rent in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­volv­ing ter­ror­ist or­gan­i­sa­tions and pos­si­ble lo­cal af­fil­i­a­tions.

How­ev­er, she stressed that se­cu­ri­ty au­thor­i­ties re­main con­scious that such a threat could emerge.

“They are aware that they still have to be on guard, but I don’t think any changes have been made since last year when I did my re­search,” she said.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der for an as­sess­ment of the coun­try’s cur­rent ter­ror­ism readi­ness and threat en­vi­ron­ment. Mes­sages sent to the min­is­ter re­mained unan­swered up to press time.

Guardian Me­dia al­so sought clar­i­fi­ca­tion from At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie SC on what ac­tion has fol­lowed the ter­ror­ist des­ig­na­tions.

The An­ti-Ter­ror­ism Unit (ATU), which op­er­ates with­in the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, deals with ap­pli­ca­tions for ter­ror­ist des­ig­na­tions and tar­get­ed fi­nan­cial sanc­tions.

Je­re­mie was asked how many in­di­vid­u­als and en­ti­ties are cur­rent­ly des­ig­nat­ed, what ac­tion has oc­curred since the April des­ig­na­tions, whether any as­sets have been iden­ti­fied or frozen, and whether there have been in­ves­ti­ga­tions, re­fer­rals or delist­ings.

“The ATU is re­quired to pub­lish des­ig­na­tions, delist­ings and frozen as­sets. It is up to date in its pub­li­ca­tions,” Je­re­mie told Guardian Me­dia.

The April des­ig­na­tions fol­lowed ap­pli­ca­tions un­der Trinidad and To­ba­go’s An­ti-Ter­ror­ism Act and re­sult­ed in Hamas, Hezbol­lah and the IRGC be­ing de­clared ter­ror­ist en­ti­ties. The or­ders al­so pro­vid­ed for the im­me­di­ate freez­ing of prop­er­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go owned or con­trolled, di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly, by the des­ig­nat­ed or­gan­i­sa­tions.

Mo­hammed main­tained that the Gov­ern­ment has not demon­strat­ed to the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty that the or­gan­i­sa­tions have desta­bilised Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“Un­til there’s ev­i­dence that these groups have af­fect­ed the lives of Trinidad and To­ba­go in this neg­a­tive and vi­o­lent way, we don’t be­lieve this is fair,” he said.

He al­so claimed the des­ig­na­tions were in­flu­enced by the Unit­ed States but pro­vid­ed no ev­i­dence to Guardian Me­dia to sub­stan­ti­ate that al­le­ga­tion.

The re­newed de­bate comes as Trinidad and To­ba­go marked 25 years since the Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001, at­tacks in the Unit­ed States. Four­teen Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als were among those killed when hi­jacked air­craft struck the World Trade Cen­ter in New York.

The at­tacks killed near­ly 3,000 peo­ple and trans­formed the in­ter­na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty land­scape, prompt­ing gov­ern­ments around the world, in­clud­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go, to strength­en laws deal­ing with ter­ror­ism and ter­ror­ist fi­nanc­ing.

Twen­ty-five years lat­er, the chal­lenge in­cludes rad­i­cal­i­sa­tion, on­line re­cruit­ment, ter­ror­ist fi­nanc­ing and in­ter­na­tion­al ex­trem­ist net­works.

For Mo­hammed, the State must dis­tin­guish be­tween na­tion­al-se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures and for­eign-pol­i­cy de­ci­sions where no di­rect lo­cal threat has been demon­strat­ed.

For Nep­tune-Fi­garo, how­ev­er, Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ex­pe­ri­ence with ISIS demon­strates the need for con­tin­ued vig­i­lance, even when no im­me­di­ate threat is pub­licly ap­par­ent.