Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Ac­tivist Nafeesa Mo­hammed says Is­lam­o­pho­bia is hin­der­ing the repa­tri­a­tion of T&T women and chil­dren stuck in Syr­i­an camps.

Her com­ment fol­lowed calls by Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly for the Gov­ern­ment to repa­tri­ate cit­i­zens and to bring leg­is­la­tion to Par­lia­ment to ex­pe­dite the process. Ram­bal­ly said with the oust­ing of Pres­i­dent Bashar al-As­sad, the sit­u­a­tion in Syr­ia is more volatile and repa­tri­a­tion needs to be ex­pe­dit­ed.
Mo­hammed blamed the de­lay with repa­tri­a­tions on the Gov­ern­ment’s in­ac­tion and said there is no need for leg­is­la­tion. She said col­lab­o­ra­tion with rel­a­tives of the women and chil­dren strand­ed in Syr­ia is all that is need­ed, along with Gov­ern­ment in­ter­ven­tion to start the process.

“They are our cit­i­zens. What­ev­er views we may have of why they went, those days are gone. These are vic­tims who need pro­tec­tion, not per­se­cu­tion,” she said.

Mo­hammed said since 2019 there has been talk about repa­tri­at­ing the fam­i­lies. She called for a meet­ing with At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour to dis­cuss the best way for­ward.

She said all that is need­ed is for the rel­e­vant of­fi­cial to reach out to their coun­ter­parts in Turkey to ini­ti­ate the process. She said Team Nightin­gale, a com­mit­tee set up un­der the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty in 2018 by then-min­is­ter Stu­art Young, is filled with mil­i­tary per­son­nel who are not in­tent on re­turn­ing the na­tion­als.

Team Nightin­gale in­clud­ed the TTPS; Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit; Child Pro­tec­tion Unit; the An­ti-Ter­ror­ism Desk of the Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Le­gal Af­fairs; Counter-Traf­fick­ing Unit; An­ti-Mon­ey Laun­der­ing/Com­bat­ing the Fi­nanc­ing of Ter­ror­ism Com­pli­ance Unit In­tel­li­gence Ser­vices; Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty and the TTPS’ Ter­ror­ist In­ter­dic­tion Unit.

A Jan­u­ary re­port stat­ed that in Ju­ly last year, UN ex­pert Fion­nu­ala Ní Aoláin vis­it­ed the al-Hol, al-Hawl and al-Roj camps and oth­er de­ten­tion cen­tres.

At the time, there was an es­ti­mat­ed 90 Trinida­di­ans, in­clud­ing at least 21 women and 56 chil­dren who have been im­pris­oned since 2019.

Mo­hammed won­dered what in­for­ma­tion the Gov­ern­ment might have on the de­tainees, par­tic­u­lar­ly the women and chil­dren, some born in Iraq and Syr­ia, that sug­gests they are crim­i­nals or crim­i­nal­ly in­clined.

“This is the week of hu­man rights. All the old talk you will hear com­ing out of the Hu­man Rights Unit of the AG’s of­fice is a set of hypocrisy go­ing on. They keep turn­ing a blind eye to the plight of these peo­ple,” she said.

Mo­hammed ap­pealed to the au­thor­i­ties to en­sure that when­ev­er the de­tainees are repa­tri­at­ed, they are al­lowed to rein­te­grate with so­ci­ety and with their fam­i­lies. She said this mod­el of rein­te­gra­tion has been used in oth­er coun­tries and has had suc­cess­es.

Last month, three broth­ers re­turned home af­ter spend­ing eight years strand­ed in Turkey. The men, Khalid, 26, Faisal, 22, and Say­eed Ab­dul-Haqq, 24, who left the coun­try in 2016, re­port­ed to T&T au­thor­i­ties that they lost their trav­el doc­u­ments in 2018 and had spent the last six years try­ing to get home.

Their broth­er Tariq Ab­dul-Haqq, who joined ISIS af­ter leav­ing the coun­try in 2014, was killed in a fight with op­pos­ing forces. His wife and sis­ter are de­tained at a camp in Syr­ia.