RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar plans to or­ga­nize a se­ries of meet­ings with Mus­lims to dis­cuss a “dan­ger­ous in­crease in dis­crim­i­na­tion and per­se­cu­tions of Mus­lims.”

Speak­ing at an If­tar gath­er­ing at the Ch­agua­nas Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she ad­mired Mus­lims who ob­serve Ra­madan in the face of nu­mer­ous chal­lenges. She said there is in­creas­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion against Mus­lims in T&T when it comes to ac­cess­ing trav­el visas and their treat­ment at air­ports.

“The sad fact is that Mus­lims are be­ing re­ject­ed for visas sim­ply be­cause of their faith. This is se­vere­ly af­fect­ing their busi­ness­es, ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties, fam­i­ly re­la­tion­ships and men­tal well-be­ing. Some Mus­lims who had visas have been turned back from the air­port af­ter hav­ing their visas can­celled un­know­ing­ly to them,” she said

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the mat­ter can­not be treat­ed light­ly and she will be bring­ing it to the at­ten­tion of Par­lia­ment and em­bassies lo­cat­ed here.

“The Is­lam­o­pho­bia seen in many west­ern coun­tries can­not be al­lowed to take root here. I give the com­mit­ment that we will take up this is­sue,” she vowed.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader, who al­so pledged to as­sist T&T na­tion­als strand­ed in Syr­ia and Iraq, added: “These are our cit­i­zens and we must bring them home. These are women and chil­dren and they should not be left to suf­fer in un­live­able con­di­tions.

She de­scribed it as hypocrisy that Mus­lims are per­se­cut­ed and con­demned be­cause they went to Syr­ia while at the same time, peo­ple are be­ing cel­e­brat­ed and en­cour­aged to go to Ukraine to fight.

“Since 18th May 2021, I spoke about the hor­rif­ic treat­ment of the Pales­tin­ian peo­ple and I call on Mus­lims to let their voic­es be heard, that Pales­tine must be freed from il­le­gal oc­cu­pa­tion,” she said.

On the is­sue of repa­tri­a­tion of cit­i­zens from Syr­ia and Iraq, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: “My next gov­ern­ment will bring them home.”

She al­so said she was against the “in­creas­ing mis­use of an­ti-ter­ror­ism and fi­nan­cial leg­is­la­tion to tar­get Mus­lims.”

“When these pieces of leg­is­la­tion were passed they were in­tend­ed to go af­ter crim­i­nal con­duct. How­ev­er, these pieces of leg­is­la­tion are be­ing se­lec­tive­ly en­forced and mis­used to tar­get Mus­lims and Mus­lim or­ga­ni­za­tions who are seek­ing to send aid and as­sis­tance to fam­i­lies and aid groups abroad,” she said.

“The tar­get­ing of Mus­lims with these laws must be con­demned and stopped.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she will be meet­ing with all stake­hold­ers in the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty who are will­ing to ad­dress these is­sues.

“I have asked Deputy Po­lit­i­cal Leader Jear­lean John to be­gin this process and as soon as Ra­madan is over we will be­gin these meet­ings,” she said.