Shia leader urges Government to reconsider terrorist blacklist

Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton

A se­nior Shia Is­lam­ic leader is call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to ur­gent­ly re­assess its de­ci­sion to des­ig­nate sev­er­al in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions as ter­ror­ist en­ti­ties, warn­ing that the move risks im­port­ing for­eign geopo­lit­i­cal con­flicts in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s do­mes­tic le­gal and po­lit­i­cal space.

Imam Jaf­fari Saleem, of the Ahlul Baye Is­lam­ic As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T, said yes­ter­day that the move was a “se­ri­ous and un­nec­es­sary es­ca­la­tion” that could car­ry diplo­mat­ic and so­cial con­se­quences for the coun­try.

In gazetted no­tices pub­lished on Mon­day, the Gov­ern­ment list­ed Hezbol­lah, Hamas and Iran’s Is­lam­ic Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard Corps (IRGC) as ter­ror­ist en­ti­ties. The des­ig­na­tions were is­sued un­der the coun­try’s counter-ter­ror­ism frame­work and ac­com­pa­nied by High Court or­ders freez­ing as­sets linked to the list­ed en­ti­ties pend­ing fur­ther le­gal pro­ceed­ings. The de­ci­sion has not on­ly trig­gered a ma­jor le­gal and fi­nan­cial re­sponse un­der T&T’s An­ti-Ter­ror­ism Act but al­so placed Mus­lim bod­ies lo­cal­ly in a bind, as it could al­so af­fect fund­ing to their or­gan­i­sa­tions lo­cal­ly.

The or­ders ef­fec­tive­ly re­strict the move­ment of any prop­er­ty or fi­nan­cial hold­ings as­so­ci­at­ed with the des­ig­nat­ed or­gan­i­sa­tions, as part of mea­sures aligned with an­ti-ter­ror fi­nanc­ing oblig­a­tions lo­cal­ly.

Saleem ar­gued that while T&T has a le­git­i­mate right to pro­tect its na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and com­ply with in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial reg­u­la­tions, the cur­rent ap­proach risks over­reach by ap­ply­ing ex­ter­nal geopo­lit­i­cal clas­si­fi­ca­tions with­out suf­fi­cient lo­cal con­text or ev­i­dence of do­mes­tic op­er­a­tional ac­tiv­i­ty.

He said there is no pub­licly avail­able in­tel­li­gence in­di­cat­ing that any of the list­ed or­gan­i­sa­tions main­tain a pres­ence, in­fra­struc­ture or op­er­a­tional net­work with­in T&T, warn­ing the mea­sures could in­stead cre­ate “po­lit­i­cal and diplo­mat­ic spillover ef­fects” un­re­lat­ed to lo­cal se­cu­ri­ty re­al­i­ties.

He al­so con­tend­ed that the de­ci­sion ef­fec­tive­ly mir­rors po­si­tions tak­en in broad­er in­ter­na­tion­al dis­putes, par­tic­u­lar­ly in re­la­tion to ten­sions in­volv­ing Iran, Gaza and Lebanon, and cau­tioned that T&T must avoid be­ing drawn in­to con­flicts orig­i­nat­ing out­side the re­gion.

He urged Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to re­con­sid­er the pol­i­cy frame­work guid­ing the des­ig­na­tions, ar­gu­ing that counter-ter­ror­ism laws should be ap­plied with strict ev­i­den­tiary thresh­olds and in­de­pen­dent as­sess­ment rather than ex­ter­nal po­lit­i­cal align­ment.

Saleem al­so re­it­er­at­ed that in­ter­na­tion­al law, in­clud­ing prin­ci­ples set out by the Unit­ed Na­tions, re­quires states to act in ac­cor­dance with sov­er­eign­ty, pro­por­tion­al­i­ty and non-in­ter­fer­ence, warn­ing that fail­ure to do so could un­der­mine T&T’s cred­i­bil­i­ty in mul­ti­lat­er­al fo­rums.

The Gov­ern­ment has main­tained that the mea­sures form part of its oblig­a­tions to strength­en counter-ter­ror­ism fi­nanc­ing con­trols and align with glob­al se­cu­ri­ty stan­dards, but the de­ci­sion has sparked grow­ing pub­lic de­bate over the bal­ance be­tween na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty en­force­ment and for­eign pol­i­cy in­de­pen­dence.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der, Min­is­ter of De­fence Wayne Sturge and For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers for com­ment but has so far re­ceived no re­spons­es.