SACKED talk-show host Fazeer Mohammed says the Government is known for sending home people it does not like.

"Whether it's a plot or not, it's almost par for the course for governments to try to sideline or remove people who they don't like and that is the unfortunate consequence of having politicians who don't recognise the role of independent thought," Mohammed said yesterday.

Mohammed was commenting on his sudden dismissal from the State-owned media network, Caribbean New Media Group (CNMG), during a radio broadcast yesterday.

In a telephone interview with the Express yesterday, Mohammed said he hopes that journalism and the freedom of the press are not tainted by what has happened to him, but "if anything, the Government is under greater scrutiny".

"What happened to me could have happened to anybody and I think people will see it and judge for what it is," he said.

Mohammed also pointed out that while what happened to him may be seen as something of importance in the eyes of many since he had a profile, he intends to use the opportunity to highlight the ills faced by those in the media because it could have happened to someone else.

"There is attention and I intend to make the most of the situation and demand the adherence of the media.

"At the end of the day, other journalists who are really trying to make ends meet as far as their own living and are struggling to stay with the integrity of their profession ... Thankfully, I don't have to face up to that reality at this stage of my professional life, and if by highlighting this, issuing and making a big song and dance about it, it can make life for my colleagues coming into the profession easier, then again its worth it," he said.

During the radio interview, Mohammed said it was Foreign Affairs Minister Suruj Rambachan who introduced the whole question of religious philosophy, noting he (Mohammed) was asking him whether it was diplomatic for Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar to say Trinidad and Tobago should benefit if they give aid to the islands who suffered damage following Tropical Storm Tomas.

"He (Rambachan) decided to take the angle on whether I like the Prime Minister or don't like the Prime Minister on the basis of my religious philosophy. He was the one who drew that into the discussion. I made it crystal clear that in Islam, in the religious sides of things, women don't lead in Islam. But this is not an Islamic state," he said.

Mohammed also pointed out that he believed "it was a legacy of an exchange" between him and Rambachan from a previous interview a month earlier which led to the most recent scenario, "so basically, he had an axe to grind".

As for the statement by CNMG interim CEO, Ken Ali, that Mohammed's dismissal "was not a spur-of-the-moment decision", Mohammed said, "If that was so, why wait for a Saturday evening when somebody is in his house to call and say something of that nature?"

He also questioned why Ali stated he had such great esteem for former CCN journalist, now Government Information Services Ltd CEO, Andy Johnson, when "Johnson was told to hold on in the position until a replacement was found".

"Why you have him warming up the seat? It just doesn't add up," he said.

Mohammed also said he wanted people to understand that his dismissal had nothing to with religion and was not a "Hindu versus Muslim issue".

Efforts to contact Rambachan, who is in the US with Persad-Bissessar, yesterday were unsuccessful as he failed to respond to e-mails and to messages left on his cellphone.