Muslims raise alarm

Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­[email protected]

Mus­lim groups across Trinidad and To­ba­go met in an emer­gency ses­sion yes­ter­day to dis­cuss Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to of­fi­cial­ly des­ig­nate three or­gan­i­sa­tions - Hezbol­lah, Hamas and Iran’s Is­lam­ic Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard Corps (IRGC) - as ter­ror­ist en­ti­ties.

The de­ci­sion has not on­ly trig­gered a ma­jor le­gal and fi­nan­cial re­sponse un­der Trinidad and To­ba­go’s An­ti-Ter­ror­ism Act but al­so placed Mus­lim bod­ies lo­cal­ly in a bind, as it could al­so af­fect fund­ing to their or­gan­i­sa­tions lo­cal­ly.

Guardian Me­dia was told last evening that the groups may ei­ther is­sue a me­dia re­lease or host a joint me­dia con­fer­ence to­day to high­light their con­cerns over the de­ci­sion.

In­di­vid­u­als who were part of the meet­ing re­vealed that the Shia Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go is made up of mul­ti­ple in­de­pen­dent or­gan­i­sa­tions and cen­tres, rather than a sin­gle uni­fied body, hence the rea­son for yes­ter­day’s meet­ing to dis­cuss the de­vel­op­ment. Sources told Guardian Me­dia that dis­cus­sions cen­tred on the im­pli­ca­tions of the Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion on Iran and the des­ig­na­tion of the IRGC and wider geopo­lit­i­cal fall­out.

Of se­ri­ous con­cern was the be­lief that the de­ci­sion seemed un­jus­ti­fied, since there was no ev­i­dence pro­vid­ed to show the three groups had any in­flu­ence in T&T. Mem­bers al­so felt the act was prompt­ed on­ly by an edict from the Unit­ed States, adding it could al­so be con­sid­ered an at­tack on the re­li­gion, since it stig­ma­tised all Mus­lims.

Ac­cord­ing to Gazette no­tices pub­lished on Mon­day, the High Court has or­dered the im­me­di­ate freez­ing of all prop­er­ty and fi­nan­cial as­sets linked to the three or­gan­i­sa­tions pend­ing fur­ther pro­ceed­ings.

The Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit of Trinidad and To­ba­go (FI­UTT) has since di­rect­ed full com­pli­ance across the bank­ing and fi­nan­cial sec­tor, in­struct­ing im­me­di­ate com­pli­ance with the freez­ing mea­sures and re­in­forc­ing oblig­a­tions un­der the coun­try’s an­ti-mon­ey laun­der­ing and counter-ter­ror­ism fi­nanc­ing regime. Af­fect­ed in­sti­tu­tions have been mov­ing to im­ple­ment the court-or­dered re­stric­tions, Guardian Me­dia was told.

The or­ders are sub­ject to on­go­ing over­sight, with six-month ju­di­cial and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al re­views built in­to the le­gal frame­work gov­ern­ing the list­ings.

The gazetted no­tices al­so came days af­ter the Shia Masjid in Port-of-Spain was vis­it­ed by mem­bers of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice.

The move places Trinidad and To­ba­go along­side a grow­ing num­ber of ju­ris­dic­tions in­ter­na­tion­al­ly that have re­cent­ly ex­pand­ed ter­ror­ist des­ig­na­tions tar­get­ing Iran­ian-linked or­gan­i­sa­tions and their re­gion­al al­lies.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Dr David Muham­mad, the Trinidad and East­ern Caribbean rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Louis Far­rakhan and the Na­tion of Is­lam, ac­knowl­edged the pos­si­bil­i­ty that his or­gan­i­sa­tion may run in­to is­sues due to long­stand­ing ide­o­log­i­cal and re­li­gious en­gage­ment with Iran and Shi­ite Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ties, de­scrib­ing it as part of broad­er in­ter­na­tion­al Is­lam­ic sol­i­dar­i­ty and out­reach.

He con­firmed that his or­gan­i­sa­tion main­tains re­li­gious and cul­tur­al con­nec­tions with Shi­ite Mus­lim groups in Trinidad and To­ba­go and glob­al­ly, in­clud­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion in shared events and ex­changes in­volv­ing Iran­ian-linked guests dur­ing Ra­madan 2026 pro­gram­ming at the Kwame Ture Cen­tre in Port-of-Spain.

“There is a re­la­tion­ship and a spir­i­tu­al un­der­stand­ing be­tween our­selves and Shi­ite Mus­lims, and that ex­tends in­to Iran as well,” Muham­mad said, adding that these en­gage­ments are root­ed in re­li­gious fel­low­ship and shared Is­lam­ic iden­ti­ty, rather than po­lit­i­cal struc­tures.

He point­ed to joint if­tar gath­er­ings in­volv­ing Shi­ite Mus­lim par­tic­i­pants and vis­it­ing in­di­vid­u­als con­nect­ed to Iran, de­scrib­ing them as “mo­ments of uni­ty with­in the broad­er Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

“We have host­ed broth­ers and sis­ters from dif­fer­ent parts of the Mus­lim world, in­clud­ing those with ties to Iran and those en­gage­ments are cen­tred on faith, Ra­madan, and com­mu­ni­ty build­ing,” he said.

But Muham­mad stressed that such in­ter­ac­tions should not be in­ter­pret­ed as po­lit­i­cal align­ment with any state or gov­ern­ment.

“Re­li­gious con­nec­tion is not the same as po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion. Our work is about faith, up­lift­ment, and moral re­spon­si­bil­i­ty — not geopo­lit­i­cal po­si­tion­ing,” he said.

In fact, he strong­ly em­pha­sised his in­de­pen­dence from par­ty pol­i­tics, say­ing his pub­lic com­men­tary is guid­ed by prin­ci­ple rather than po­lit­i­cal loy­al­ty.

“I am not a mem­ber of any po­lit­i­cal par­ty. I do not sup­port any po­lit­i­cal par­ty, and I have nev­er al­lowed my views to be shaped by par­ti­san con­sid­er­a­tions,” he said.

He added that his po­si­tion as a pub­lic fig­ure and state board chair­man was al­so based on pro­fes­sion­al ex­pe­ri­ence rather than po­lit­i­cal as­so­ci­a­tion. Muham­mad is the chair­man of the board at the Na­tion­al Li­brary (Nalis).

“My work in ed­u­ca­tion, cor­rec­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions and com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment stands on its own. That is where my au­thor­i­ty comes from, not po­lit­i­cal en­dorse­ment,” he said.

In a sharply con­trast­ing po­si­tion, how­ev­er, Is­lam­ic Front rep­re­sen­ta­tive Umar Ab­dul­lah con­demned the Gov­ern­ment’s des­ig­na­tion, ques­tion­ing both its jus­ti­fi­ca­tion and its rel­e­vance to Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“I can­not un­der­stand what na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty threat is be­ing claimed here. These groups have no op­er­a­tional foot­print in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Ab­dul­lah said.

He said he be­lieved the de­ci­sion re­flects ex­ter­nal geopo­lit­i­cal pres­sure rather than do­mes­tic ne­ces­si­ty.

“This looks less like lo­cal pol­i­cy and more like im­port­ed for­eign pol­i­cy. We are be­ing pulled in­to con­flicts that are not ours,” he said.

Ab­dul­lah de­fend­ed the ide­o­log­i­cal ori­gins of the groups, link­ing them to re­gion­al con­flicts.

“These or­gan­i­sa­tions did not emerge in a vac­u­um. They emerged from decades of oc­cu­pa­tion, war and re­sis­tance in the Mid­dle East,” he said.

“These groups were formed as a re­sult of re­sis­tance against Is­raeli ag­gres­sion against Pales­tini­ans and Lebanese peo­ple,” he added, as­sert­ing that their clas­si­fi­ca­tion as ter­ror­ist or­gan­i­sa­tions ig­nores the his­tor­i­cal and po­lit­i­cal con­text of their emer­gence.

He al­so es­ca­lat­ed his crit­i­cism to in­ter­na­tion­al pow­ers, ac­cus­ing the Unit­ed States and Is­rael of war crimes claims wide­ly dis­put­ed in diplo­mat­ic and aca­d­e­m­ic cir­cles.

Ab­dul­lah fur­ther called for the ex­pul­sion from T&T of for­eign diplo­mat­ic mis­sions from both coun­tries, stat­ing that, in his view, they should be held ac­count­able for their ac­tion in the Mid­dle East un­der in­ter­na­tion­al law.

Hezbol­lah

Hezbol­lah is a Shia Is­lamist po­lit­i­cal and mil­i­tary or­gan­i­sa­tion based in Lebanon. It is known for com­bin­ing armed re­sis­tance with po­lit­i­cal par­tic­i­pa­tion in Lebanese gov­er­nance. It emerged in the 1980s with Iran­ian back­ing dur­ing the Lebanese Civ­il War and has since built a pow­er­ful mil­i­tary wing that has fought mul­ti­ple con­flicts with Is­rael. Hezbol­lah is wide­ly known for its role in re­gion­al proxy con­flicts and is des­ig­nat­ed as a ter­ror­ist or­gan­i­sa­tion by sev­er­al West­ern coun­tries, while al­so main­tain­ing sig­nif­i­cant po­lit­i­cal in­flu­ence in­side Lebanon.

Hamas

Hamas is a Pales­tin­ian Sun­ni Is­lamist or­gan­i­sa­tion that gov­erns the Gaza Strip and main­tains an armed wing. It is known for its mil­i­tary con­fronta­tion with Is­rael, in­clud­ing rock­et at­tacks, armed op­er­a­tions and gov­er­nance of Gaza since 2007. Found­ed in 1987 dur­ing the First In­tifa­da, Hamas com­bines po­lit­i­cal ad­min­is­tra­tion with armed re­sis­tance. It is des­ig­nat­ed as a ter­ror­ist or­gan­i­sa­tion by the Unit­ed States, the Eu­ro­pean Union, the Unit­ed King­dom and oth­ers, and is a cen­tral ac­tor in the Is­raeli–Pales­tin­ian con­flict.

Is­lam­ic Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard Corps

Is­lam­ic Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard Corps is an elite branch of Iran’s armed forces cre­at­ed af­ter the 1979 Iran­ian Rev­o­lu­tion. It is known for pro­tect­ing Iran’s po­lit­i­cal sys­tem, over­see­ing key mil­i­tary and in­tel­li­gence op­er­a­tions, and ex­tend­ing Iran’s in­flu­ence abroad. Through its Quds Force, it sup­ports al­lied armed groups across the Mid­dle East. The IRGC is al­so heav­i­ly in­volved in Iran’s econ­o­my and in­ter­nal se­cu­ri­ty struc­ture. It is des­ig­nat­ed as a ter­ror­ist or­gan­i­sa­tion by the Unit­ed States, while oth­er coun­tries do not ap­ply a uni­ver­sal des­ig­na­tion.