Bakr 1990 video part of bigger project

Jamaat Al Muslimeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr and his followers outside the Hall of Justice Port of Spain on April 12, 2018. FILE PHOTO
Jamaat Al Muslimeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr and his followers outside the Hall of Justice Port of Spain on April 12, 2018. FILE PHOTO

IF you were anticipating the release of a video from Imam Yasin Abu Bakr, the man behind the 1990 failed coup, you will have to wait a bit longer as the video, part of a larger project has been pushed back to another date.

Bakr's son Fuad, the spokesman for the project, said his father did not decide to revise the release from yesterday’s 29th anniversary of the coup attempt to another day because of any negative public sentiments.

Fuad Abu Bakr

“The imam is not someone faint at heart or fickle, he is 77-years-old and has been through the test of time and the test of society in TT. He is not fazed or directed by negative sentiments... It is part of a bigger project that the imam has embarked upon to tell his life story which is beyond the event of July 27. We just thought it would have been nice at that point since we are in production to give the public a snippet of their history from a different perspective,” Fuad said.

Fuad said of his father’s public perception: “Quite a while there were negative comments not just towards the imam but the event so I can understand why there is a lot of negative sentiment. For sure that is not the total sentiment. That did not influence the decision whatsoever.”

SNAPSHOT OF HISTORY: Imam Yasin Abu Bakr addresses a stunned nation on July 27, 1990, 'live' on TTT, announcing that the Jamaat al Muslimeen was in control of the country.

He added: “A lot of people are uninformed and they go with whatever is trending and fashion is something that changes and even opinions and ideas are subjected to fashion nowadays. One day you will hear an idea is trending in a certain way and everybody, what we call everybody, which is hard to measure but a lot of people saying one thing and tomorrow based on the change in fashion the pervading and popular view becomes something different.

Bakr had told LoopTT last week saying he wanted his side of the story told. During a commission of enquiry into the attempted coup in 2013, Abu Bakr refused to testify stating that he should be paid to testify since he was the architect of the insurrection. He also stated he had other cases pending and wished not to prejudice those cases by testifying in the commission of enquiry.

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"Bakr 1990 video part of bigger project"

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