Gail Alexan­der

Sev­er­al peo­ple who were de­tained by po­lice con­cern­ing the plot to dis­rupt Car­ni­val 2018 met at the Nur E Is­lam mosque in Aranguez, San Juan, yes­ter­day to dis­cuss the is­sue and air their views on it.

At­ten­dees were in­vit­ed to the meet­ing ear­li­er this week af­ter search­es and 15 de­ten­tions by po­lice pri­or to Car­ni­val con­cern­ing the threat.

Po­lice an­nounced they had cred­i­ble in­for­ma­tion on a plot on Feb­ru­ary 8 and did search­es in sub­se­quent days. The Nur E Is­lam was among masjids and Is­lam­ic ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tutes searched. The 15 de­tained dur­ing the po­lice ex­er­cis­es were all re­leased af­ter Car­ni­val. Of the 15, how­ev­er, a cou­ple was charged with firearm pos­ses­sion. At­tor­neys for sev­er­al de­tainees sub­se­quent­ly said they in­tend to sue for wrong­ful de­ten­tion, dam­age done to prop­er­ty when po­lice searched homes and con­fis­ca­tion of items.

Fol­low­ing the re­lease of de­tainees, a few days ago they and oth­ers af­fect­ed by po­lice ac­tion were in­vit­ed by lead­ers of some in­de­pen­dent and tra­di­tion­al Mus­lim groups to gath­er at Nur E Is­lam af­ter yes­ter­day’s mid­day prayers to dis­cuss the sit­u­a­tion, in­clud­ing on le­gal ac­tion.

One spokesman said peo­ple “had been trau­ma­tised by the de­ten­tions and it would have been an op­por­tu­ni­ty to air feel­ings.”

About half of those who were de­tained at­tend­ed yes­ter­day, they added, but it in­volved main­ly peo­ple from ar­eas close by, in­clud­ing Aranguez. Al­so at­tend­ing was at­tor­ney Nafeesa Mo­hammed, who was fired from the Prime Min­is­ter’s Of­fice on Tues­day. There has been spec­u­la­tion she was fired for speak­ing out on the is­sue on so­cial me­dia. Her nephew Tariq was among those de­tained and re­leased.

No de­ci­sion was tak­en on le­gal ac­tion or class ac­tion law­suits and an­oth­er an­oth­er meet­ing may be held in fu­ture.

Mus­lim of­fi­cials who or­gan­ised the meet­ing said they had par­tic­u­lar­ly want­ed mem­bers of the An­ju­maan Sun­nat Ul Jam­mat (AS­JA) and Mus­lim Round­table - rep­re­sent­ing main­stream Mus­lim bod­ies - to hear the de­tainees’ is­sues. They said an of­fi­cial state­ment on the mat­ter may like­ly come from AS­JA.

One or­gan­is­er said said they want­ed all Mus­lim lead­ers as part of the process and to have the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty ral­ly around it. They said the de­ten­tions had been com­pound­ed by Mo­hammed’s fir­ing.

There had been ini­tial in­ten­tion to dis­cuss Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed an­ti-gang and an­ti-ter­ror­ism bills “and get­ting sup­port to pre­vent them from go­ing to Par­lia­ment,” but it wasn’t con­firmed if this was done.

Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Min­is­ter in the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s Of­fice Fitzger­ald Hinds, re­it­er­at­ed that the threat was “very very re­al” and se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials con­tin­ue to pur­sue in­for­ma­tion they have. He al­so said it was in­cum­bent on cit­i­zens to em­ploy the “see some­thing, say some­thing” ap­proach and bring any­thing of se­cu­ri­ty im­por­tance to law en­force­ment’s at­ten­tion, “for it to be dealt with prop­er­ly.”

“We’re liv­ing in dif­fer­ent times and need to be a lot more fo­cused. We must all be alert. If you see any­thing that makes you feel un­com­fort­able, don’t take it for grant­ed - treat with it. There’s no place in the world ex­empt from the threat of ter­ror­ism,” Hinds said.

Mean­while, the US Em­bassy didn’t re­ply to ques­tions yes­ter­day on whether the US CIA had re­ceived crit­i­cal in­for­ma­tion on the plot from a T&T cou­ple in de­tained Jor­dan in Jan­u­ary. In­stead, Chargé d’Af­faires John McIn­tyre is­sued a state­ment say­ing his gov­ern­ment “stands shoul­der to shoul­der with T&T on se­cu­ri­ty is­sues.”

McIn­tyre’s view echoed the com­ments of British High Com­mis­sion­er Tim Stew on the is­sue. This fol­lowed Wednes­day’s meet­ing of US, UK, Aus­tralian and Cana­di­an rep­re­sen­ta­tives with Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to dis­cuss the re­cent se­cu­ri­ty is­sues.