JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Sunday, July 20, 2025

Ex-Muslim detainees plea: Release our passports

by

20140825

A group of cit­i­zens who is seek­ing to vis­it Mec­ca, Sau­di Ara­bia, for the an­nu­al Ha­jj pil­grim­age, wants the gov­ern­ment to in­ter­vene to re­cov­er pass­ports and oth­er of­fi­cial doc­u­ments from Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties.Speak­ing to the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day, Imam Hamzah Mo­hammed, one of the three imans who was re­leased from Venezue­lan cus­tody in June, said the group had been promised by the Gov­ern­ment to as­sist it in get­ting back the pass­ports.

Mo­hammed was de­tained last March in Venezuela with 15 oth­er na­tion­als, in­clud­ing women and chil­dren. Five men re­main in cus­tody. A hear­ing be­fore a Venezue­lan tri­bunal is sched­uled for Sep­tem­ber 2.The group of 15 had gone to Cara­cas to get visas to vis­it Sau­di Ara­bia."When we were re­leased in June, we were promised by the gov­ern­ment, who said the orig­i­nal doc­u­ments –our pass­ports, mar­riage cer­tifi­cates and birth cer­tifi­cates–were prop­er­ties of the Gov­ern­ment of T&T and that they would help us to get them back."

Mo­hammed said Ha­jj groups were prepar­ing to leave T&T in two weeks time."Yet, for an­oth­er time, a group of Mus­lims are be­ing kept back. Ini­tial­ly, I had gone to Venezuela to get visas for Um­rah and was ar­rest­ed there. Now, we are re­leased but peo­ple's pass­ports, in­clud­ing mine, are still in the hands of the Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties."

Mo­hammed said two weeks ago he, along with their spokesper­son at­tor­ney Nafeesa Mo­hammed, met with gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials in­clud­ing Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Gary Grif­fith and Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs Win­ston Dook­er­an. He said at that meet­ing the gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials were re­mind­ed of the pass­port is­sue and how crit­i­cal it was to have the pass­ports re­turned to their own­ers so that they could pro­ceed to per­form Ha­jj, which is a re­li­gious re­quire­ment, ac­cord­ing to the Holy Qur'an.

"We al­ready had to pur­chase the plane tick­ets straight to Jed­dah (Sau­di Ara­bia) which cost US$1,500 a per­son. This is a lot of mon­ey and we can­not af­ford to lose this. Al­ready, for this school va­ca­tion we could not even take our chil­dren and fam­i­ly for a va­ca­tion over­seas."Mo­hammed said he was cur­rent­ly at­tempt­ing to seek a meet­ing with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on the is­sue.He said he al­so sent a plea to the Gov­ern­ment on be­half of the five per­sons still be­ing held in Venezuela on al­le­ga­tions of ter­ror­ism.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored