Gail Alexan­der

"NO WAY – NO HOW."

That's how some Mus­lims groups' re­act­ed to Gov­ern­ment's pro­posed tough an­ti-ter­ror­ism leg­is­la­tion re­vealed by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi on Thurs­day.

"You can't in­con­ve­nience 120,000 Mus­lims in T&T–a sec­tor that con­tributed great­ly to lo­cal de­vel­op­ment–be­cause of 130 peo­ple who went to fight in Syr­ia," Is­lam­ic Mis­sion­ar­ies Guild head Im­ti­az Mo­hammed (Mus­lims of T&T) said.

"This pro­pos­es vi­o­la­tion of our rights, free­dom of move­ment and trav­el to wor­ship - it can­not hap­pen in T&T.

"We're not tak­ing it light­ly or ac­cept this dra­con­ian law. We have to halt draft­ing of all kinds of laws against Mus­lims with­out our in­put."

Pro­pos­als tar­get di­rect and in­di­rect sup­port of ter­ror­ist groups and car­ry stiff penal­ties–jail and fines.

Claus­es cap­ture those as­sist­ing in fa­cil­i­tat­ing ter­ror­ist op­er­a­tions– in­clud­ing send­ing mon­ey to groups in­volved in ter­ror­ist ac­tiv­i­ty– and those who go abroad sup­pos­ed­ly to vis­it cer­tain ar­eas and at­tend train­ing/study­ing. Peo­ple risk pros­e­cu­tion if they join ter­ror­ist groups or at­tend/re­ceive such train­ing, or if they threat­en to com­mit/take prepara­to­ry steps to com­mit a ter­ror­ist act. Pro­pos­als al­so crim­i­nalise the move­ment of chil­dren to ter­ror­ist states.

The Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter will al­so be able to des­ig­nate a ge­o­graph­i­cal area of a coun­try, stip­u­lat­ing that trav­el there will con­sti­tute pre­sump­tion that it is to com­mit a ter­ror­ist act. No­tice of the time of trav­el (and re­turn) will have to be giv­en to the Min­is­ter and se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies for pos­si­ble track­ing. Per­mits/ex­emp­tion is al­lowed for gen­uine­ly valid rea­sons.

The sec­ond stage–yet to be ap­proved by Cab­i­net - fo­cus­es on re­turn­ing ter­ror­ist fight­ers.

Al-Rawi had said the frame­work would have been laid in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day–but it wasn't laid in the ear­ly part of the ses­sion.

Mo­hammed added, "We've called a meet­ing of lead­ers of or­gan­i­sa­tions, Ja­maats, key play­ers and lawyers, for to­mor­row (Sun) at IMG's Kel­ly Vil­lage of­fice to de­ter­mine our next di­rec­tion–but we'll fight this to the end."

IMG's Mo­hammed de­tailed how pro­pos­als could af­fect Mus­lims: "It will com­pli­cate the lives of Trinidad Mus­lims lo­cal­ly and abroad, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult and ex­pen­sive to ful­fil re­li­gious du­ties. It's an act of dis­crim­i­na­tion.

"This wouldn't de­ter peo­ple who want to join ISIS. Peo­ple have al­ready gone. They be­lieve in the caliphate and are pre­pared to die. Is­lam teach­es us if you die as mar­tyrs, you au­to­mat­i­cal­ly achieve heav­en. They left in­tend­ing not to re­turn–so what's the need for this law?"

Mo­hammed said the law would af­fect na­tion­als work­ing in the Mid­dle East, in­clud­ing nurs­es and en­gi­neers.

"Some states af­fect­ed by this pro­posed law, you may have to trav­el through to reach your des­ti­na­tion. My son has a Dubai of­fice for his busi­ness that pro­duces Is­lam­ic en­ter­tain­ment, toys and games. He some­times trav­els to cer­tain states that may fall un­der the zones Gov­ern­ment may des­ig­nate for mon­i­tor­ing."

Mo­hammed said at any giv­en time there are about 20 na­tion­als go­ing to school in such places.

"Peo­ple at­tend Is­lam­ic con­fer­ences, do re­li­gious du­ties, some­times the cheap­est route is through ar­eas Gov­ern­ment may have a prob­lem with," Mo­hammed added.

"I vis­it­ed So­ma­lia four times, I went to Pak­istan to build homes when they had floods. I went to Kenyan refugee camps, Haiti. I'd planned to go to Lebanon refugee camps and Jor­dan to as­sist. We'd raised $1.7 mil­lion, but we may have to trav­el through a coun­try that the AG may con­sid­er a ter­ror­ist lo­ca­tion. "

He said Gov­ern­ment and banks must al­so un­der­stand that char­i­ty–Za­kat - is part of Is­lam.

Mo­hammed queried what would oc­cur when Is­lam­ic schol­ars vis­it T&T to lec­ture.

"They may be from one of the state's Gov­ern­ment will list. What about the Mid­dle East­ern gy­ro ven­dors in T&T? How do we know if their fam­i­lies don't have ter­ror­ist back­grounds? Will they be sub­ject to checks?"

Mo­hammed added, "Gov­ern­ment should fo­cus on cut­ting crime. We'd al­so like them to con­sid­er tak­ing 1,000 Syr­i­an refugees in­to T&T."