OT­TO CAR­RING­TON

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

Mem­bers of the Con­cerned Mus­lims of Trinidad and To­ba­go are call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to cease all busi­ness deal­ings with Is­rael and de­port any Is­raelis work­ing in the coun­try. The group said yes­ter­day it al­so in­tends to pen let­ters to this coun­try’s Gov­ern­ment, the US and the UN on the plight of Pales­tini­ans.

Dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence at the Nur E Is­lam Masjid in El So­cor­ro, San Juan, the group, which rep­re­sents at least 25 of the 32 dif­fer­ent Is­lam­ic or­gan­i­sa­tions and Ja­maats in Trinidad and To­ba­go, made the ap­peal.

Pres­i­dent of the group, Im­ti­az Mo­hammed, said he un­der­stood that the Gov­ern­ment pur­chas­es na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty equip­ment from Is­rael and in­sist­ed that if any Is­raeli per­son­nel are in Trinidad and To­ba­go, they should ei­ther leave or be de­port­ed im­me­di­ate­ly.

The group al­so plans to send a let­ter to US Pres­i­dent Joe Biden and the Gov­ern­ment on Mon­day, urg­ing them to take ac­tion to stop the war in Pales­tine.

Mo­hammed said the let­ter has al­ready been pre­pared and will be de­liv­ered to the Unit­ed States Em­bassy in Trinidad and the Unit­ed Na­tions.

“I am call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go, the Unit­ed Na­tions, and the world to stand up for jus­tice in favour of the Pales­tini­ans by hav­ing the Is­raelis abide by UN Res­o­lu­tion 242 of No­vem­ber 1967, which re­quires Is­rael to with­draw from the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza. As a re­sult of en­forc­ing UN Res­o­lu­tion 242, Pales­tine will achieve its own State and gov­ern­ment,” Mo­hammed said.

He called on this coun­try’s Gov­ern­ment to cease do­ing busi­ness with Is­rael, claim­ing that most of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty’s ap­pa­ra­tus is pro­cured from Is­rael.

He al­so called for Is­raeli work­ers to be sent out of the coun­try.

“If ‘de­port’ is too strong a word, they should at least be asked to leave,” he said.

Con­cerned Mus­lims al­so called on the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court and Hu­man Rights In­ter­na­tion­al to in­ves­ti­gate what it called the war crimes com­mit­ted by the Is­raelis against the Pales­tini­ans in the past and present.

“In the last 14 days, Is­rael has com­mit­ted many war crimes by vi­o­lat­ing in­ter­na­tion­al laws un­der the Gene­va Con­ven­tions of 1949 and the Hague Con­ven­tion of 1899 and 1907. They are strong­ly sup­port­ed by the US and the UK, and both Is­rael and the USA are not mem­bers of the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court, so they com­mit these crimes with im­puni­ty,” Mo­hammed claimed.

Imam Hafeez Khan head of the San­ta Cruz Ja­maat, said he had vis­it­ed Pales­tine and wit­nessed first­hand the ef­fects of the Is­raeli oc­cu­pa­tion on the Pales­tini­ans and what he de­scribed as the op­pres­sion they are fac­ing. He vowed nev­er to re­turn af­ter see­ing the atroc­i­ties of the last 15 days.

Con­cerned Mus­lims al­so urged mem­bers of the Is­lam­ic faith and oth­er cit­i­zens to as­sist in gath­er­ing aid for the peo­ple of Pales­tine.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion is al­ready col­lab­o­rat­ing with in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man­i­tar­i­an groups, par­tic­u­lar­ly UK Mus­lim Hands and Is­lam­ic Re­lief World­wide, which are op­er­at­ing in Gaza.

The group has al­ready re­ceived fi­nan­cial do­na­tions since launch­ing the ap­peal.