Gail Alexan­der

Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says they will be act­ing to en­sure that peo­ple are not un­fair­ly dis­crim­i­nat­ed against when the re­port of Par­lia­ment’s Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee on the pro­posed An­ti-Ter­ror­ism Bill amend­ment is de­bat­ed in Par­lia­ment to­mor­row.

She made the an­nounce­ment last night at the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ cam­paign launch for the Barataria and Bel­mont East by-elec­tion, which takes place on Ju­ly 16.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar point­ed out that US Am­bas­sador to T&T des­ig­nate Joseph Mon­del­lo had tes­ti­fied be­fore the US Sen­ate For­eign Af­fairs Com­mit­tee that T&T has the high­est re­cruit­ment rate of ISIS “sol­diers” per capi­ta.

“But when I signed the Unit­ed Na­tions An­ti-ter­ror­ism Con­ven­tion when we were in gov­ern­ment, (Faris) Al-Rawi and (Dr Kei­th) Row­ley com­plained,” she told sup­port­ers at the Don Miguel Hin­du School in San Juan.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the JSC’s re­port on the pro­posed An­ti-Ter­ror­ism Bill amend­ments will be de­bat­ed to­mor­row in Par­lia­ment and while the UNC hasn’t had time to look at it - and she agreed that T&T has to fight ter­ror­ism - she pledged the Op­po­si­tion will work to en­sure that peo­ple are not treat­ed un­fair­ly and that there will be a bal­ance re­gard­ing the rights of the in­no­cent.

Say­ing the UNC will work to en­sure there is no un­due dis­crim­i­na­tion, she added that at­tor­ney Nafeesa Mo­hammed, who spoke with her dur­ing an Eid cel­e­bra­tion last Fri­day, had told her that she (Per­sad-Bisses­sar) has to be the guardian of T&T’s democ­ra­cy.

“She’s a lawyer, we stud­ied to­geth­er and she shared some thoughts with us and we con­sult­ed her; she’s a for­mer deputy leader of the PNM.”

SHe added: “So we as­sure that the UNC MPs will en­sure that it’s a fair bill and it doesn’t dis­crim­i­nate against any­one in T&T and that it will have all the due process claus­es.”

Say­ing that Gov­ern­ment was “tone deaf” to the feel­ings of peo­ple on the ground, she added, “In the height of Ra­madan the Prime Min­is­ter is so in­sen­si­tive in his com­ments on the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty and the Car­ni­val plot. He doesn’t un­der­stand that every creed and race have an equal place.”

Crit­i­cis­ing Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of the crime sit­u­a­tion, she queried the out­come of yes­ter­day’s Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil meet­ing, which she said the PM took four days to call in the height of a crime cri­sis.

Al­so query­ing an al­leged na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty “un­marked car con­tract” is­sue, she al­so an­nounced that the Op­po­si­tion is go­ing to file a mo­tion of no con­fi­dence on Fri­day against Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Ed­mund Dil­lon over his han­dling of crime.

She added, “Prime Min­is­ter, wake up and do your job, T&T is in cri­sis.”

She al­so vowed that the day the UNC forms the next gov­ern­ment they will re­peal the con­tro­ver­sial Prop­er­ty Tax.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so thanked Ma­ha Sab­ha sec­re­tary gen­er­al Sat Ma­haraj for al­low­ing the meet­ing to be kept at the school.