(Trinidad Guardian) “I will not sleep until my son is returned,” said a mother of one of the eight T&T Muslims being detained in Venezuela under anti-terror laws, at a protest outside the Venezuelan Embassy in Port-of-Spain yesterday. Visibly shaking, Gloria Charles-John was in tears at the protest organised by Inshan Ishmael’s Muslim Social and Cultural Foundation which called on the T&T government to secure their prompt release from a prison in Caracas where the men are sharing the same cell.
Around 50 people from across T&T’s Muslim community gathered on Victoria Avenue as TV cameras and reporters scrambled to the scene. During the protest, Ishmael received a telephone call from Charles-John’s son Wade Charles, one of those detained, who is allowed a one-minute phone call at the discretion of prison staff. Hearing her son, Charles-John came to the front of the crowd to talk to him.
She then pleaded with the government to take action: “The government have to bring our children back home. I’m calling on the ministers to take them out of that country. My son is not a criminal.” Charles was travelling to Venezuela with his wife and three of his children (aged five, eight and 11) when they were all detained. All the women and children taken from the Plaza Hotel in Caracas on March 19 were deported and flown home last Friday after being incarcerated for nine days.
His mother said Charles’s large family in T&T were going hungry while he was away. “Don’t stop,” said Charles on the telephone, which was held up on speakerphone for the crowd to hear. “We would like to say thank you, we appreciate your support and we hope the government supports us as much as you all are. Keep us in your prayers, we need all the support we can get.” Officials at the Venezuelan Embassy in T&T were asked to comment on the protest taking place outside but declined to do so.
The state of emergency in the Venezuelan capital has added to the confusion. The Muslim men appeared in court alongside Venezuelans who had been arrested on charges of attempting to overthrow the government. Amidst heightened tensions caused by violent protests in Caracas, hotel staff became suspicious of the group of Muslims staying at the hotel and called the police who raided the hotel.
