Yvonne Ba­boolal

A rift with­in the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty over the fir­ing of talk show host, Fazeer Mo­hammed, now seems im­mi­nent. Some Mus­lim groups are in­censed over the dis­missal of Mo­hammed by the Caribbean New Me­dia Group (CN­MG) af­ter an in­ter­view with For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Su­ruj Ram­bachan, charg­ing re­li­gious dis­crim­i­na­tion, and are plan­ning to protest out­side the CN­MG of­fice to­day. Oth­er groups be­lieve, how­ev­er, the whole thing is be­ing blown out of pro­por­tion. Ac­tivist In­shan Ish­mael, CEO of the Is­lam­ic Broad­cast­ing Net­work, said the dis­missal of Mo­hammed and sev­er­al re­spons­es from the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment to the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty since it as­sumed of­fice reeks of "bla­tant re­li­gious dis­crim­i­na­tion."

Ish­mael said it ap­peared there was a great hes­i­ta­tion on the part of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to ac­cept in­vi­ta­tions from Mus­lim groups to func­tions dur­ing the re­cent month of Ra­madan. Ish­mael fur­ther claimed that Mus­lim groups, with the ex­cep­tion of one, re­ceived no fund­ing from the PP Gov­ern­ment for Eid even though over 200 groups of an­oth­er re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tion got mon­ey to cel­e­brate their fes­ti­val. He not­ed that Mus­lims were al­so side­lined by the Gov­ern­ment in state boards and sen­a­to­r­i­al ap­point­ments. "The fir­ing of Mo­hammed put the ic­ing on the cake...It is bla­tant re­li­gious dis­crim­i­na­tion," he said. Ish­mael, who claimed he in­formed the PM of this, re­ject­ed any no­tion, how­ev­er, that the fall­out will cause him to pull away his sup­port from the PP. "I am a sup­port­er and fi­nancier of the PP and will con­tin­ue to sup­port the Gov­ern­ment," he said.

"This is chalk and cheese com­pared to the dis­crim­i­na­tion I suf­fered un­der the for­mer PNM gov­ern­ment... Re­mem­ber I was locked up." Ish­mael said a large num­ber of Mus­lim groups, in a meet­ing at the Is­lam­ic Mis­sion­ar­ies Guild's Kel­ly Vil­lage of­fice on Tues­day night, con­demned the fir­ing of Mo­hammed. He said they are all call­ing for an ex­pla­na­tion by Ram­bachan and the re­in­state­ment of Mo­hammed. Im­ti­az Mo­hammed, head of the Is­lam­ic Mis­sion­ar­ies Guild and Mus­lims of T&T, an um­brel­la body of more than 20 Is­lam­ic or­gan­i­sa­tions, said some six weeks be­fore a Sep­tem­ber 25 Eid din­ner, they sent an in­vi­ta­tion to Per­sad-Bisses­sar to at­tend. "We nev­er even re­ceived an ac­knowl­edge­ment," he said. On the Ram­bachan/Mo­hammed in­ci­dent, he said Ram­bachan's line of ques­tion­ing seemed to tar­get Mo­hammed's re­li­gious be­lief.

He said if Mo­hammed is not re­in­stat­ed, the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty will be con­vinced that the PP is dis­crim­i­nat­ing against them. "Five months now the PP has been in pow­er and we have many rea­sons to com­plain about not be­ing treat­ed in a sat­is­fac­to­ry man­ner," he said. "We need to sit with the PM and work this out." Dr Nass­er Mustapha, pres­i­dent of the Trinidad Mus­lim League, dis­missed the en­tire Ram­bachan/Mo­hammed in­ci­dent as a "mis­un­der­stand­ing." Asked if he felt it was re­li­gious dis­crim­i­na­tion, he replied: "Not at all. "It's be­ing blown out of pro­por­tion by the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty," he said. "The min­is­ter maybe stepped out of line and brought up things that were not rel­e­vant and Fazeer al­so re­spond­ed."

Mustapha, not­ing that good faith should pre­vail on both sides, said there may be a need for di­a­logue and some me­di­a­tion in the mat­ter. "It could es­ca­late in­to a rift in so­ci­ety," Mustapha said cau­tious­ly. Shi­raz Ali, Imam of the Is­lam­ic Masjid of El So­cor­ro and teacher at the T&T Darul Uloom In­sti­tute, said he did not be­lieve the in­ci­dent stemmed from re­li­gious dis­crim­i­na­tion. "There are al­ways el­e­ments that would take is­sues of race and re­li­gion and blow it out of pro­por­tion," he added. Ali said he be­lieved the in­ci­dent was po­lit­i­cal­ly-mo­ti­vat­ed. "The min­is­ter was the one ques­tion­ing Mo­hammed about re­li­gion...Fazeer was per­ceived to be too crit­i­cal of the Gov­ern­ment," he said. "Mo­hammed should be re­in­stat­ed and Gov­ern­ment should look at send­ing a mes­sage that this is not po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed."

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Dook­er­an, Warn­er re­sponds

Act­ing Prime Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an says he is on­ly aware of what he read in the news­pa­pers. "I'm not fa­mil­iar with what is hap­pen­ing at CN­MG at this point in time," he said. "The is­sue that has be­come pub­lic is one that we must not al­low to dis­tract us from our com­mit­ment to en­sure that we build a so­ci­ety in which free­dom of ex­pres­sion should be ad­hered to and in due course en­sure that those who are in­volved in CN­MG would be able to ex­plain ex­act­ly what is hap­pen­ing there in terms of their re­struc­tur­ing process." He said he's now as­cer­tain­ing what is hap­pen­ing and would ap­prise the Prime Min­is­ter when she re­turns. UNC deputy leader Jack Warn­er said he planned to talk to Ram­bachan on the mat­ter.