Cheryfa Mccaulay Jamal discovered bullets in her car yesterday. Despite having asked for police protection, her request has been denied.
As posted on Political Prisoners Website:
Since all canadians are the object of a neoconservative agenda it needs to be said that the Toronto 18 are innocent because they haven't been proven guilty; even the arrests appear to be for crimes not actually committed and no crime of violence has occurred; evidence against the detained is tainted by the huge sums of money paid government informants or provocateurs; the arrests may be part of what was initially a u.s. and international covert operation; particularly heavy and illegal pressure to cooperate with authorities is placed on a detainee when his wife and children's lives are being threatened; mrs. macaulay jamal says she has asked for and was refused police protection (wilkes, april 17, 2007, toronto star); this is outrageous; it denies the accused his rights; it denies his wife and children their human rights; it subverts the course of justice; it damages the lives of very young children; it's embarrassing to canadians that this mother and her four young children are effectively being terrorized without recourse.
-=-=-=-=
Below is the story:
Terror Suspect's Wife Claims Vandals Won't Intimidate Her Family
(http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_9848.aspx)
Monday April 16, 2007
CityNews.ca Staff
When Cheryfa MacAulay Jamal's husband was hauled to jail last summer on suspicion of being involved in a series of terrorist plots against Canada, her world was shattered.
Since then, things haven't gotten easier for her family. She remains alone at home with her four children, awaiting word on her spouse's fate.
But after a disturbing series of incidents this month, she now has cause to fear for her own safety.
The latest twist in the story began with an Easter weekend newspaper article about what she felt was unfair conditions regarding her husband's detention.
That's when she started having trouble with her van.
As a mechanic worked to repair the vehicle, she took the family's second car, only to have trouble with that one, too.
It didn't take long to discover the reasons: someone had put a bullet into the radiators of both automobiles.
Jamal believes the article led to the unwanted attention and that someone is trying to send her a message.
But she's refusing to be intimidated, holding a press conference on the driveway of her Mississauga home, vowing she won't let anything happen to her or her kids, innocent victims of a situation she's no had no part of.
"I said I felt that the isolation conditions my husband and his co-accused are being held in for the past ten months is not for reasons of security but for the purposes of pressuring the accused into pleading guilty rather than defending themselves through a lengthy trial while being held in such psychologically compromising conditions," Jamal accuses.
"My concern is primarily for my children. This minivan is the vehicle I use to transport them everywhere I go. This act of terrorism committed against us will not deter me in my pursuit of justice."
She calls those responsible 'bullies' and insists she won't be intimidated by their actions.
And she adds one other pointed warning.
"If I end up dead, then you know where it started."
Police have seized the radiator and the air conditioning unit as evidence, but have little to go on. They admit they're looking into a mischief incident at the Jamal home, but won't confirm whether or not they've found any bullet fragments.
Abdul Qayyum Jamal is one of dozens of suspects accused in the shocking case that made headlines around the world last June.
Canada's spy agency CSIS alleges a group of terrorists was planning to blow up iconic Canadian sites, including the Parliament buildings and the CN Tower.
Jamal's statement
"I called a press conference today so that I can directly communicate my concerns rather than have my words misrepresented or reinterpreted.
"At some time last weekend, someone shot two bullets into the front of my Dodge Caravan, and one shot into the front of my husband's Acura. The police have taken the radiator, the air conditioner of the minivan which contained the two slugs and have removed the Acura as evidence.
"I believe this happened due to a Toronto Star article printed on Tuesday, April the 3rd, in which I said I felt that the isolation conditions my husband and his co-accused are being held in for the past ten months is not for reasons of security but for the purposes of pressuring the accused into pleading guilty rather than defending themselves through a lengthy trial while being held in such psychologically compromising conditions.
"My concern is primarily for my children. This minivan is the vehicle I use to transport them everywhere I go.
"This act of terrorism committed against us will not deter me in my pursuit of justice. I will continue to speak out in defence of my husband during his incarceration and trial proceedings, if I feel his rights have been compromised.
"I have called this press conference so that acts of such as these do not go unnoticed by the citizens of this country. If other acts are ever perpetrated on my family, I will subsequently make them public as well.
"Bullies are not successful in their acts when their acts are spotlighted; rather only when they are concealed can they have any power over their victims. Thank you."
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Sunday, April 8, 2007
'Inhumane' isolation for terror suspects: Lawyers
Apr 08, 2007 11:24 AM
Colin Perkel Canadian Press
Four Canadian terrorism suspects have been held in extreme isolation for almost a year even though the courts have never ordered their segregation and their trials are months, if not years, away, lawyers close to the case say.
The four are among 18 men and boys in southern Ontario arrested in a blaze of national and international publicity last summer. All were charged with various terrorism-related offences.
In most of the cases, prosecutors asked for and were granted an order that forbids the co-accused from communicating with one another.
That order prompted authorities at the Maplehurst detention centre in Milton, Ont., to lock up a dozen suspects, who did not get bail, in small isolation cells for more than 23 hours a day.
Those conditions are now subject to a legal challenge on the basis they amount to cruel and unusual punishment. In four cases, the non-communication order was never requested, several lawyers told The Canadian Press.
"It's appalling," said lawyer Edward Sapiano.
"It's the non-communication order that is responsible for their isolated segregation."
Sapiano, who represents Yasim Mohamed, 25, who is accused of importing weapons to benefit a terrorist organization, called the conditions of detention "inhumane."
The other three accused held in isolation despite the lack of a non-communication order – a situation confirmed in a recent letter to counsel by government lawyer Steve Coroza – are Jamal James, 23, Saad Khalid, 20, and Ali Dirie, 23.
Sapiano said the Crown simply "forgot" to seek the order against the four accused, but it was not immediately clear whether it was in fact an oversight or deliberate.
Some of the lawyers involved were not even aware of the lack of the non-communication order.
Reached by telephone, Coroza said he was discussing the issue with senior Crown counsel and would talk later but then did not return the call.
Conditions of detention for all the accused – most of whom have no criminal record – have become the focus of a legal challenge in Ontario Superior Court on May 7.
The challenge is based in part on the Charter of Rights.
Defence lawyer David Kolinsky, whose client Zakaria Amara, 21, was denied bail, called the segregation cruel and a violation of religious freedoms because the inmates cannot pray together.
The accused are not a threat to one another and could, if needed, be kept apart from the general inmate population without being held in segregation, he said.
William Naylor, acting for co-accused Shareef Abdelhaleen, called the segregation "psychological torture."
"They're locked up in a metal cage with metal walls 23 1/2 hours a day," Naylor said.
"Given the length of time that these men and boys are going to be there, by the time they come out, I don't know if they'll be basket cases if they don't do something about that."
Several defence lawyers called the implementation of the non-communication order a farce.
For example, the accused are transported to court in a single vehicle, housed in a holding cell together at the courthouse in Brampton, Ont., and sit shoulder to shoulder in the prisoner box.
The lack of orders against four of the accused who are nevertheless being held in isolation is
"reflective of the silliness of the whole thing," said Sapiano.
"A court order shouldn't be made silly."
Lawyer Anser Farooq said the non-communication order itself is not at issue, given that it's common when there are co-accused.
It's how it's being enforced, he said.
"It's an impractical order (that) doesn't really serve any purpose," Farooq said.
"It's causing tremendous hardship," said Farooq, noting the families of the accused are not allowed any direct contact with them.
Colin Perkel Canadian Press
Four Canadian terrorism suspects have been held in extreme isolation for almost a year even though the courts have never ordered their segregation and their trials are months, if not years, away, lawyers close to the case say.
The four are among 18 men and boys in southern Ontario arrested in a blaze of national and international publicity last summer. All were charged with various terrorism-related offences.
In most of the cases, prosecutors asked for and were granted an order that forbids the co-accused from communicating with one another.
That order prompted authorities at the Maplehurst detention centre in Milton, Ont., to lock up a dozen suspects, who did not get bail, in small isolation cells for more than 23 hours a day.
Those conditions are now subject to a legal challenge on the basis they amount to cruel and unusual punishment. In four cases, the non-communication order was never requested, several lawyers told The Canadian Press.
"It's appalling," said lawyer Edward Sapiano.
"It's the non-communication order that is responsible for their isolated segregation."
Sapiano, who represents Yasim Mohamed, 25, who is accused of importing weapons to benefit a terrorist organization, called the conditions of detention "inhumane."
The other three accused held in isolation despite the lack of a non-communication order – a situation confirmed in a recent letter to counsel by government lawyer Steve Coroza – are Jamal James, 23, Saad Khalid, 20, and Ali Dirie, 23.
Sapiano said the Crown simply "forgot" to seek the order against the four accused, but it was not immediately clear whether it was in fact an oversight or deliberate.
Some of the lawyers involved were not even aware of the lack of the non-communication order.
Reached by telephone, Coroza said he was discussing the issue with senior Crown counsel and would talk later but then did not return the call.
Conditions of detention for all the accused – most of whom have no criminal record – have become the focus of a legal challenge in Ontario Superior Court on May 7.
The challenge is based in part on the Charter of Rights.
Defence lawyer David Kolinsky, whose client Zakaria Amara, 21, was denied bail, called the segregation cruel and a violation of religious freedoms because the inmates cannot pray together.
The accused are not a threat to one another and could, if needed, be kept apart from the general inmate population without being held in segregation, he said.
William Naylor, acting for co-accused Shareef Abdelhaleen, called the segregation "psychological torture."
"They're locked up in a metal cage with metal walls 23 1/2 hours a day," Naylor said.
"Given the length of time that these men and boys are going to be there, by the time they come out, I don't know if they'll be basket cases if they don't do something about that."
Several defence lawyers called the implementation of the non-communication order a farce.
For example, the accused are transported to court in a single vehicle, housed in a holding cell together at the courthouse in Brampton, Ont., and sit shoulder to shoulder in the prisoner box.
The lack of orders against four of the accused who are nevertheless being held in isolation is
"reflective of the silliness of the whole thing," said Sapiano.
"A court order shouldn't be made silly."
Lawyer Anser Farooq said the non-communication order itself is not at issue, given that it's common when there are co-accused.
It's how it's being enforced, he said.
"It's an impractical order (that) doesn't really serve any purpose," Farooq said.
"It's causing tremendous hardship," said Farooq, noting the families of the accused are not allowed any direct contact with them.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Surviving an Ordeal by Isolation
Lawyers in domestic-terrorism case start constitutional challenge for 12 men kept in segregation at Milton detention centre
Apr 03, 2007 04:30 AM (http://www.thestar.com/News/article/198797)
Michelle Shephard, Isabel Teotonio. staff reporters.
It's known as the "special unit" at Maplehurst's detention centre and at least one of the guards there is fond of greeting callers with feigned ignorance.
"Special? But all our prisoners are special," the guard tells the wife of one of those in the "special unit."
The inmates housed there now, however, are unlike any the guards have dealt with before at this detention centre in Milton.
This is home to 12 of the adult suspects of an alleged homegrown terrorism cell arrested last summer and accused of plotting bombing attacks destined for targets in Toronto and southern Ontario.
They've been in segregation for 10 months since their June 2 arrests – allowed out for 20 minutes a day, their lawyers say.
With their trial still months, if not years, away – one defence lawyer suggests it may be up to four years before the trial begins – the detention conditions are starting to raise concerns.
Lawyers for the men are slated to go before Brampton's Superior Court next week to launch a constitutional challenge, arguing that the terror suspects should live in the general population of the prison and take advantage of programs available to other prisoners awaiting trial.
Edward Sapiano, who represents one of the accused, says officials at Maplehurst have given various reasons for the suspects' segregation.
"... those officials have refused to discuss their excuses and reasons on any record, and they have declined to put them in writing," Sapiano wrote in his submission to the court.
One of the reasons cited is that due to a court-imposed "non-communication order," the suspects are forbidden from interacting with each other.
But the suspects do interact each time they're brought to court – during transport, in the holding cells and then, sitting side by side in the prisoners' dock. Their lawyers are now asking that this provision be dismissed, which would remove one obstacle cited by the prison.
Even if the lawyers are successful, Sapiano says officials have also cited security concerns as a reason for segregating them.
Government officials would not comment. Doug Dalgleish, superintendent of the Maplehurst Correctional Complex, said he could not discuss the centre's conditions. Stewart McGetrick, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services, also refused comment since the matter is before the court.
However, Cheryfa MacAulay Jamal, the wife of one of the accused, has been very vocal.
"This is not a security concern," says MacAulay Jamal, married to Abdul Qayyum Jamal, 44, eldest of the accused.
"This is about putting a mental strain on them so that they'll give up and say, `Fine, I don't want to be here years. ... Let me plead guilty.'"
MacAulay Jamal believes her persistent questioning of the prison's rules is what led to her two-week ban from attending the facility last month. A letter from the prison states that because of her behaviour, visiting privileges were suspended to "ensure the safety of employees and inmates and the security of the institution." She denies doing anything to warrant the ban.
Although MacAulay Jamal has never spoken publicly before, she broke her silence after her husband spoke of the deep strain the communication ban is having on the men housed in 1K, dubbed the Special Unit.
"It's killing everyone in there, that's what's causing the stress," says MacAulay Jamal, recounting conversations with her husband about his co-accused. "He's seen their personalities change and has seen them lose their tempers, curse and swear. He's seen them fight with each other and scream at the guards, even though they'll get punished for it."
But, she says, they find solace in the Qur'an: "It teaches them to be patient and to know that their suffering has a purpose. ... The rewards they'll get after Judgment Day is worth the suffering."
MacAulay Jamal says she has repeatedly spoken with jail officials about the situation. She says prison officials have told her that keeping them in isolation is the only way to abide by the court order and keep them safe.
This isn't the first time the detention of terrorism suspects has been the focus of court actions.
Three Toronto men the government is trying to deport as security risks were held for more than five years in Toronto's West Detention Centre, much of it in segregation.
Eventually the men were able to live communally in a special portable at a Kingston-area prison. Two have since been ordered released on strict bail conditions that amount to house arrest.
-=-=-=-=-=-
RICHARD LAUTENS/TORONTO STAR
Cheryfa MacAulay Jamal struggles to raise her four children as her husband remains in the isolation unit at Maplehurst Correctional Complex in Milton. Yusuf 1.5, is in her arms, while Abdullah, 2.5, is at her feet, and Tayyab, 8 (top left), and Tashy, 6, are at rear.
Apr 03, 2007 04:30 AM (http://www.thestar.com/News/article/198797)
Michelle Shephard, Isabel Teotonio. staff reporters.
It's known as the "special unit" at Maplehurst's detention centre and at least one of the guards there is fond of greeting callers with feigned ignorance.
"Special? But all our prisoners are special," the guard tells the wife of one of those in the "special unit."
The inmates housed there now, however, are unlike any the guards have dealt with before at this detention centre in Milton.
This is home to 12 of the adult suspects of an alleged homegrown terrorism cell arrested last summer and accused of plotting bombing attacks destined for targets in Toronto and southern Ontario.
They've been in segregation for 10 months since their June 2 arrests – allowed out for 20 minutes a day, their lawyers say.
With their trial still months, if not years, away – one defence lawyer suggests it may be up to four years before the trial begins – the detention conditions are starting to raise concerns.
Lawyers for the men are slated to go before Brampton's Superior Court next week to launch a constitutional challenge, arguing that the terror suspects should live in the general population of the prison and take advantage of programs available to other prisoners awaiting trial.
Edward Sapiano, who represents one of the accused, says officials at Maplehurst have given various reasons for the suspects' segregation.
"... those officials have refused to discuss their excuses and reasons on any record, and they have declined to put them in writing," Sapiano wrote in his submission to the court.
One of the reasons cited is that due to a court-imposed "non-communication order," the suspects are forbidden from interacting with each other.
But the suspects do interact each time they're brought to court – during transport, in the holding cells and then, sitting side by side in the prisoners' dock. Their lawyers are now asking that this provision be dismissed, which would remove one obstacle cited by the prison.
Even if the lawyers are successful, Sapiano says officials have also cited security concerns as a reason for segregating them.
Government officials would not comment. Doug Dalgleish, superintendent of the Maplehurst Correctional Complex, said he could not discuss the centre's conditions. Stewart McGetrick, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services, also refused comment since the matter is before the court.
However, Cheryfa MacAulay Jamal, the wife of one of the accused, has been very vocal.
"This is not a security concern," says MacAulay Jamal, married to Abdul Qayyum Jamal, 44, eldest of the accused.
"This is about putting a mental strain on them so that they'll give up and say, `Fine, I don't want to be here years. ... Let me plead guilty.'"
MacAulay Jamal believes her persistent questioning of the prison's rules is what led to her two-week ban from attending the facility last month. A letter from the prison states that because of her behaviour, visiting privileges were suspended to "ensure the safety of employees and inmates and the security of the institution." She denies doing anything to warrant the ban.
Although MacAulay Jamal has never spoken publicly before, she broke her silence after her husband spoke of the deep strain the communication ban is having on the men housed in 1K, dubbed the Special Unit.
"It's killing everyone in there, that's what's causing the stress," says MacAulay Jamal, recounting conversations with her husband about his co-accused. "He's seen their personalities change and has seen them lose their tempers, curse and swear. He's seen them fight with each other and scream at the guards, even though they'll get punished for it."
But, she says, they find solace in the Qur'an: "It teaches them to be patient and to know that their suffering has a purpose. ... The rewards they'll get after Judgment Day is worth the suffering."
MacAulay Jamal says she has repeatedly spoken with jail officials about the situation. She says prison officials have told her that keeping them in isolation is the only way to abide by the court order and keep them safe.
This isn't the first time the detention of terrorism suspects has been the focus of court actions.
Three Toronto men the government is trying to deport as security risks were held for more than five years in Toronto's West Detention Centre, much of it in segregation.
Eventually the men were able to live communally in a special portable at a Kingston-area prison. Two have since been ordered released on strict bail conditions that amount to house arrest.
-=-=-=-=-=-
RICHARD LAUTENS/TORONTO STAR
Cheryfa MacAulay Jamal struggles to raise her four children as her husband remains in the isolation unit at Maplehurst Correctional Complex in Milton. Yusuf 1.5, is in her arms, while Abdullah, 2.5, is at her feet, and Tayyab, 8 (top left), and Tashy, 6, are at rear.
Sunday, April 1, 2007
How racism invaded Canada - What is the term 'brown-skinned' doing on the front page of a major Canadian daily?
How racism has invaded Canada
What is the term 'brown-skinned' doing on the front page of a major Canadian daily?
By Robert Fisk - 10 June 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article754394.ece
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13575.htm
This has been a good week to be in Canada — or an awful week, depending on your point of view - to understand just how irretrievably biased and potentially racist the Canadian press has become. For, after the arrest of 17 Canadian Muslims on “terrorism” charges, the Toronto Globe and Mail and, to a slightly lesser extent, the National Post, have indulged in an orgy of finger-pointing that must reduce the chances of any fair trial and, at the same time, sow fear in the hearts of the country’s more than 700,000 Muslims. In fact, if I were a Canadian Muslim right now, I’d already be checking the airline timetables for a flight out of town. Or is that the purpose of this press campaign?
First, the charges. Even a lawyer for one of the accused has talked of a plot to storm the Parliament in Ottawa, hold MPs hostage and chop off the head of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Without challenging the “facts” or casting any doubt on their sources — primarily the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or Canada’s leak-dripping Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) — reporters have told their readers that the 17 were variously planning to blow up Parliament, CSIS’s headquarters, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and sundry other targets. Every veiled and chadored Muslim woman relative of the accused has been photographed and their pictures printed, often on front pages. “Home-grown terrorists” has become theme of the month — even though the “terrorists” have yet to stand trial.
They were in receipt of “fertilizers”, we were told, which could be turned into explosives. When it emerged that Canadian police officers had already switched the “fertilizers” for a less harmful substance, nobody followed up the implications of this apparent “sting”. A Buffalo radio station down in the US even announced that the accused had actually received “explosives”. Bingo: Guilty before trial.
Of course, the Muslim-bashers have laced this nonsense with the usual pious concern for the rights of the accused. “Before I go on, one disclaimer,” purred the Globe and Mail’s Margaret Wente. “Nothing has been proved and nobody should rush to judgment.” Which, needless to say, Wente then went on to do in the same paragraph. “The exposure of our very own home-grown terrorists, if that’s what the men aspired to be, was both predictably shocking and shockingly predictable.” And just in case we missed the point of this hypocrisy, Wente ended her column by announcing that “Canada is not exempt from home-grown terrorism”. Angry young men are the tinderbox and Islamism is the match.
The country will probably have better luck than most at “putting out the fire”, she adds. But who, I wonder, is really lighting the match? For a very unpleasant — albeit initially innocuous — phrase has now found its way into the papers. The accused 17 — and, indeed their families and sometimes the country’s entire Muslim community — are now referred to as “Canadian-born”. Well, yes, they are Canadian-born. But there’s a subtle difference between this and being described as a “Canadian” — as other citizens of this vast country are in every other context. And the implications are obvious; there are now two types of Canadian citizen: The Canadian-born variety (Muslims) and Canadians (the rest).
If this seems finicky, try the following sentence from the Globe and Mail’s front page on Tuesday, supposedly an eyewitness account of the police arrest operation: “Parked directly outside his ... office was a large, gray, cube-shaped truck and, on the ground nearby, he recognized one of the two brown-skinned young men who had taken possession of the next door rented unit...” Come again? Brown-skinned? What in God’s name is this outrageous piece of racism doing on the front page of a major Canadian daily? What is “brown-skinned” supposed to mean — if it is not just a revolting attempt to isolate Muslims as the “other” in Canada’s highly multicultural society? I notice, for example, that when the paper obsequiously refers to Toronto’s police chief and his reportedly brilliant cops, he is not referred to as “white-skinned” (which he most assuredly is). Amid this swamp, Canada’s journalists are managing to soften the realities of their country’s new military involvement in Afghanistan.
More than 2,000 troops are deployed around Kandahar in active military operations against Taleban insurgents. They are taking the place of US troops, who will be transferred to fight even more Muslims insurgents in Iraq.
Canada is thus now involved in the Afghan war — those who doubt this should note the country has already shelled out $1.8bn in “defense spending” in Afghanistan and only $500m in “additional expenditures”, including humanitarian assistance and democratic renewal (sic) — and, by extension, in Iraq. In other words, Canada has gone to war in the Middle East.
None of this, according to the Canadian foreign minister, could be the cause of Muslim anger at home, although Jack Hooper — the CSIS chief who has a lot to learn about the Middle East but talks far too much — said a few days ago that “we had a high threat profile (in Canada) before Afghanistan. In any event, the presence of Canadians and Canadian forces there has elevated that threat somewhat.” I read all this on a flight from Calgary to Ottawa this week, sitting just a row behind Tim Goddard, his wife Sally and daughter Victoria, who were chatting gently and smiling bravely to the crew and fellow passengers. In the cargo hold of our aircraft lay the coffin of Goddard’s other daughter, Nichola, the first Canadian woman soldier to be killed in action in Afghanistan.
The next day, he scattered sand on Nichola’s coffin at Canada’s national military cemetery. A heartrending photograph of him appeared in the Post — but buried away on Page 6. And on the front page? A picture of British policemen standing outside the Bradford home of a Muslim “who may have links to Canada”. Allegedly, of course.
What is the term 'brown-skinned' doing on the front page of a major Canadian daily?
By Robert Fisk - 10 June 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article754394.ece
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13575.htm
This has been a good week to be in Canada — or an awful week, depending on your point of view - to understand just how irretrievably biased and potentially racist the Canadian press has become. For, after the arrest of 17 Canadian Muslims on “terrorism” charges, the Toronto Globe and Mail and, to a slightly lesser extent, the National Post, have indulged in an orgy of finger-pointing that must reduce the chances of any fair trial and, at the same time, sow fear in the hearts of the country’s more than 700,000 Muslims. In fact, if I were a Canadian Muslim right now, I’d already be checking the airline timetables for a flight out of town. Or is that the purpose of this press campaign?
First, the charges. Even a lawyer for one of the accused has talked of a plot to storm the Parliament in Ottawa, hold MPs hostage and chop off the head of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Without challenging the “facts” or casting any doubt on their sources — primarily the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or Canada’s leak-dripping Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) — reporters have told their readers that the 17 were variously planning to blow up Parliament, CSIS’s headquarters, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and sundry other targets. Every veiled and chadored Muslim woman relative of the accused has been photographed and their pictures printed, often on front pages. “Home-grown terrorists” has become theme of the month — even though the “terrorists” have yet to stand trial.
They were in receipt of “fertilizers”, we were told, which could be turned into explosives. When it emerged that Canadian police officers had already switched the “fertilizers” for a less harmful substance, nobody followed up the implications of this apparent “sting”. A Buffalo radio station down in the US even announced that the accused had actually received “explosives”. Bingo: Guilty before trial.
Of course, the Muslim-bashers have laced this nonsense with the usual pious concern for the rights of the accused. “Before I go on, one disclaimer,” purred the Globe and Mail’s Margaret Wente. “Nothing has been proved and nobody should rush to judgment.” Which, needless to say, Wente then went on to do in the same paragraph. “The exposure of our very own home-grown terrorists, if that’s what the men aspired to be, was both predictably shocking and shockingly predictable.” And just in case we missed the point of this hypocrisy, Wente ended her column by announcing that “Canada is not exempt from home-grown terrorism”. Angry young men are the tinderbox and Islamism is the match.
The country will probably have better luck than most at “putting out the fire”, she adds. But who, I wonder, is really lighting the match? For a very unpleasant — albeit initially innocuous — phrase has now found its way into the papers. The accused 17 — and, indeed their families and sometimes the country’s entire Muslim community — are now referred to as “Canadian-born”. Well, yes, they are Canadian-born. But there’s a subtle difference between this and being described as a “Canadian” — as other citizens of this vast country are in every other context. And the implications are obvious; there are now two types of Canadian citizen: The Canadian-born variety (Muslims) and Canadians (the rest).
If this seems finicky, try the following sentence from the Globe and Mail’s front page on Tuesday, supposedly an eyewitness account of the police arrest operation: “Parked directly outside his ... office was a large, gray, cube-shaped truck and, on the ground nearby, he recognized one of the two brown-skinned young men who had taken possession of the next door rented unit...” Come again? Brown-skinned? What in God’s name is this outrageous piece of racism doing on the front page of a major Canadian daily? What is “brown-skinned” supposed to mean — if it is not just a revolting attempt to isolate Muslims as the “other” in Canada’s highly multicultural society? I notice, for example, that when the paper obsequiously refers to Toronto’s police chief and his reportedly brilliant cops, he is not referred to as “white-skinned” (which he most assuredly is). Amid this swamp, Canada’s journalists are managing to soften the realities of their country’s new military involvement in Afghanistan.
More than 2,000 troops are deployed around Kandahar in active military operations against Taleban insurgents. They are taking the place of US troops, who will be transferred to fight even more Muslims insurgents in Iraq.
Canada is thus now involved in the Afghan war — those who doubt this should note the country has already shelled out $1.8bn in “defense spending” in Afghanistan and only $500m in “additional expenditures”, including humanitarian assistance and democratic renewal (sic) — and, by extension, in Iraq. In other words, Canada has gone to war in the Middle East.
None of this, according to the Canadian foreign minister, could be the cause of Muslim anger at home, although Jack Hooper — the CSIS chief who has a lot to learn about the Middle East but talks far too much — said a few days ago that “we had a high threat profile (in Canada) before Afghanistan. In any event, the presence of Canadians and Canadian forces there has elevated that threat somewhat.” I read all this on a flight from Calgary to Ottawa this week, sitting just a row behind Tim Goddard, his wife Sally and daughter Victoria, who were chatting gently and smiling bravely to the crew and fellow passengers. In the cargo hold of our aircraft lay the coffin of Goddard’s other daughter, Nichola, the first Canadian woman soldier to be killed in action in Afghanistan.
The next day, he scattered sand on Nichola’s coffin at Canada’s national military cemetery. A heartrending photograph of him appeared in the Post — but buried away on Page 6. And on the front page? A picture of British policemen standing outside the Bradford home of a Muslim “who may have links to Canada”. Allegedly, of course.
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