I’ll stand strong for Muslims

COREY CONNELLY

On International Women’s Day, Nafeesa Mohammed scrolled through the lyrics of the George Benson classic, The Greatest Love of All, on her cell phone, posted it online and pondered her future.

She’s partial to the lyrics, ‘learning to love yourself;’ and ‘they can’t take away my dignity,’ saying the words have taken on greater importance since her abrupt dismissal as senior legal adviser to Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, almost three weeks ago.

Mohammed, who has openly condemned what she considers to be the broad-brushing of local Muslims as extremists, presumed she was dismissed because of her outspoken stance in the aftermath of the detainment of her cousin, Tariq Mohammed and others, on Carnival weekend, at their El Socorro homes.

She has since sought to rebuild her private law practice, joking that she only received her first client on Thursday.

“I got my first client because I have been so overwhelmed with this thing. There have been all of these discussions going on with (anti-terrorism) legislation and I have been engaged with a lot of meetings with different groups within the Muslim community who have been trying to get their views together for the Joint Select Committee.”

The JSC is expected to report to the Parliament on March 31.

In a Sunday Newsday interview, Mohammed recounted the events which she felt, contributed to her removal from the post.

“What I understand it to be is that the morning after the heavy-handed use of force came down to Mohammedville, when the officers left and I visited my cousin’s place and saw the blood and the damage that was done to his family and to the property, I came back home, sat in my gallery and on my facebook page, I just put a comment, ‘This is such a grave injustice, the cabal seems to be at it again.’

Mohammed said the ‘cabal’ to which she referred, was the group of people whom she claimed, wanted to see local Muslims stuck in Caracas, Venezuela, in 2014.

The Muslims’ detention in the South-American country, four years ago, had received intense media attention in TT.

Mohammed said the manner in which her cousin’s house was broken into, during the early hours of the morning, was tantamount to sacrilege.

She said: “The manner of the entering was contrary to all constitutional safeguards and principles that we know of, using the heavy hand of force, where they brutalised one of the boys in the home.They cuffed him, kicked him, tied him up.

“All of us in the street were fast asleep in the wee hours of the morning when this exercise was being carried out by, it would seem, different law enforcement units, using the heavy hand of law and force in a very peaceful, quiet, tranquil community.”

Mohammed said people in the community were very respectful.

“In our community, if you knock on the door and you say you are the police we will open the door for you. But that never happened. They broke down the door. They broke into the premises and after the tied up and did all these things, long after they indicated they had a search warrant.”

Mohammed insisted such acts must never be encouraged.

“Whenever law enforcement has to do their job, they must give due cognisance to the constitutional rights of citizens.

Mohammed reasoned that someone possibly saw the post about the incident on her facebook page and took offence.

She recalled that around the time of the incident, there also was talk that Planning and Development Minister Camille Robinson-Regis wanted her to assist in the ministry.

“This meant I would have had to be re-assigned. But no one sat with me to discuss it in any detail.”

Mohammed said she had arranged to meet with Robinson-Regis, who, in turn, asked her to meet with the ministry’s permanent secretary on Ash Wednesday (February 14).

She said: “I went there and nobody was there and then a day or two after that I was told there was a letter for me. When I collected it, it was a letter of termination.”

Mohammed, niece of late PNM government minister Kamaluddin Mohammed, said she started the job, on a three-year contract, in December 2017.

Asked how she felt about the dismissal, Mohammed shrugged her shoulders, saying: “It stumped me–that post I had put about the contravention of the fundamental rights and freedoms of my relative.”

She reasoned, though, that given the “sensitive position” she held, the post was deemed to be inappropriate.

“But then it was also inappropriate that nobody saw it fit to talk to me.”

As president of the San Juan Muslim Ladies Organisation and a senior legal adviser, the former PNM deputy leader said the authorities did not have to give her details about the raid in Mohammedville.

In fact, she said she would have been more than willing to provide assistance “if they had issues of concern.”

“Look at how this thing has turned out. People were detained in an unconstitutional way and where is the evidence? What was the reason for this?”

Asked if the PM spoke to her about the issue during his meeting with Muslim leaders at the Diplomatic Centre on Wednesday, she said: “We just had a pleasant exchange but nothing was discussed.”

Mohammed added: “I would have liked to have a one to one conversation with him about the treatment of Muslims because I have sound views about this whole situation and I think that some approaches that have been taken are not the very best but maybe one day it would come. I hope I get an opening. I just leave it in the hands of Almighty God.”

However, she was glad that Rowley had agreed to meet with the group.

“A conversation has started. It was a cordial meeting and it gave the Muslim community an opportunity to express its concerns and to rectify some of the misconceptions that is compounding the problem instead of dealing with the issues.”

Returning to her short-lived appointment, Mohammed said the plan to redeploy her to the planning ministry never materialised.

“Nobody ever spoke to me. That is why I am back here,” she said, alluding to her law practice.

“I have to start building back a law practice. I am unemployed. I guess I am not worthy of a second chance like some people.”

Mohammed was referring to the recent reappointment of Port-of-Spain South MP Marlene Mc Donald to the post of Minister in the Ministry of Public Administration.

“Ms Mc Donald got more than a second chance. It does not augur well for the party that I have always belonged to and subscribed to,” she said, pointing to the flourishing balisier (PNM symbol) plant at the front of her Mohammedville home.

Mohammed said she has since tried to numb herself to the pain she now feels but contended that “one has to pick up oneself and move on.

“I have no entitlement to anything. But I can’t even express myself now. I just have have to take it as it comes, one day at a time.”

The former chairman of the San Juan/Laventille Regional Corporation said the PNM, today, was a far cry from the one which she knew and loved in her youth.

“I have become like stranger to people in the party. That hurts because all my life I have been so deeply embedded inside of that organisation and I still believe in what the party stands for.

“But things like these (dismissal), when it happens, people prefer to shun you and that hurts. In politics, everybody see about themselves, that is how it is.”