I find it so amaz­ing that there is so much ar­gu­ment about the le­gal in­ter­pre­ta­tions what is “pri­vate” and “pub­lic” in the wake of the Bayshore and oth­er par­ties. Even the AG has said that these de­ter­mi­na­tions are very com­plex. It seems we have lost our way try­ing to make laws and en­forc­ing them, we have for­got­ten the pur­pose of for­mu­lat­ing the laws to pre­vent COVID-19 spread.

Every­where we go there are re­minders of how to pre­vent COVID-19; so­cial dis­tanc­ing, wash your hands and sani­tise, wear your mask, no pub­lic gath­er­ing of more than five and so on. The ob­ject of these pro­to­cols and laws is to pre­vent the spread of this virus which is cur­rent­ly rav­aging our small coun­try.

Peo­ple who are or­gan­is­ing and at­tend­ing such par­ties are be­ing reck­less, ir­re­spon­si­ble and in­hu­mane be­cause though they may have the par­ty in a pri­vate set­ting, these pa­trons would even­tu­al­ly go back in­to so­ci­ety and be­come pos­si­ble spread­ers. Worse yet, when law en­force­ment vis­its such par­ties, they say they need a clar­i­fi­ca­tion of what is “pri­vate” and “pub­lic.”

That is not the is­sue. The is­sue is whether these peo­ple’s be­hav­iour is cal­cu­lat­ed to en­dan­ger the life of oth­er cit­i­zens present­ly and in the fu­ture.

It does not mat­ter whether they are pay­ing or non-pay­ing pa­trons. From what I saw on so­cial me­dia of the Bayshore fi­as­co, such a gath­er­ing and be­hav­iour would risk the lives of oth­er cit­i­zens and law en­force­ment should have tak­en de­ci­sive ac­tion.

Dur­ing the pe­ri­od when we were al­lowed to go back to Mosque, we were vis­it­ed by peo­ple from the Min­istry of Health, to wit­ness our pro­to­cols in place for COVID-19 pre­ven­tion. We were even asked to doc­u­ment these prac­tices and send it to the Min­istry of Health. We were hap­py to co­op­er­ate, and I thought that these peo­ple are re­al­ly work­ing.

We are liv­ing in times when law en­force­ment must use judge­ment, if any­one or group’s be­hav­iour is cal­cu­lat­ed to en­dan­ger the lives of oth­er cit­i­zens, by be­ing a pos­si­ble spread­er, then they must act de­ci­sive­ly.

I am not one call­ing for the right to go back to mosque for con­gre­ga­tion be­cause oth­ers are al­lowed to have their pri­vate/pub­lic par­ties. That de­feats the ob­jec­tive of this fight. But law en­force­ment must be just.

The re­cent be­hav­iour of law en­force­ment leaves me with the sad feel­ing of those lines from George Or­well’s, “An­i­mal Farm,” “All an­i­mals are equal but some an­i­mals are more equal than oth­ers.”

Shaf­fi­at Ho­sein

St Au­gus­tine