Trinidad masquerader gets apology from former Health Minister

(Trinidad Guardian) For­mer Health Min­is­ter Dr Fuad Khan has apol­o­gised to mas­quer­ad­er Can­dice San­tana for his of­fen­sive tone and com­ments, but she is not ac­cept­ing it.

San­tana, who played mas in The Lost Tribe this year, shot in­to the spot­light af­ter she was body-shamed in pub­lic and on­line af­ter she post­ed pic­tures of her­self in cos­tume.

But Khan took is­sue with her weight and fat-shamed her on­line. He took is­sue with San­tana’s weight and ac­cused her of pro­mot­ing obe­si­ty, even re­fer­ring to her as a “tub.”

Af­ter much back­lash, crit­i­cism and calls for his res­ig­na­tion as an MP, how­ev­er, Khan, al­though still ad­mit­ting he felt strong­ly about the is­sue, yes­ter­day said he was sor­ry.

“I apol­o­gise to Miss Can­dice San­tana for my in­sen­si­tive re­mark of re­fer­ring her to a “TUB.” I was harsh and very in­sen­si­tive and I apol­o­gise to all those I have of­fend­ed with that name call­ing. Please for­give me Can­dice, if I hurt you. How­ev­er, should you wish to hear my ex­pe­ri­ence with the weight loss, please call me. I can al­so as­sist with any med­ical prob­lem.”

He added, “To­geth­er we have placed Trinidad and To­ba­go on a dis­cus­sion path of a healthy lifestyle. It may have been in­di­rect but it hap­pened. I should have used a dif­fer­ent ap­proach. Kind­ly for­give me for the TUB name call­ing. To all those over­weight peo­ple who felt of­fend­ed. SOR­RY.”

But San­tana is not ap­par­ent­ly ac­cept­ing Khan’s over­ture.

In an on­line post, she wrote: “The on­ly au­then­tic apol­o­gy is changed be­hav­iour and a com­mit­ment to such would mean much more. In my ear­li­er state­ment, I said that I had for­giv­en Dr Fuad Khan, though great dam­age is al­ready done and con­tin­ue to my­self and over­weight per­sons.

“As an of­fice hold­er, Dr Khan and all of­fi­cials are held to a high­er stan­dard of op­er­a­tion so even when pas­sion­ate about an is­sue, the use of dis­re­spect, em­bar­rass­ment and per­son­al at­tack to a cit­i­zen should nev­er hap­pen. As a so­ci­ety, body-sham­ing and ma­li­cious name-call­ing re­gard­less of size, shape or shade should nev­er be en­cour­aged. Of­fice hold­ers are ex­pect­ed to set a bet­ter ex­am­ple for us, es­pe­cial­ly the youth and chil­dren of the na­tion.”

She added, “I humbly and re­spect­ful­ly de­cline the of­fer to meet Dr Khan or his as­sis­tance at this time be­cause of the ex­tent of dam­age done to me as a per­son.

“As we all go about our dai­ly lives, let’s make an ex­tra ef­fort to treat each oth­er as we would want to be treat­ed, with kind­ness and re­spect. Let us show love for peo­ple and for coun­try. Let us move for­ward pos­i­tive­ly. Act just­ly, walk humbly and love un­con­di­tion­al­ly!!!”