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.