Hero or extremist?: Tables turn on man who helped Canadian government with would-be jihadists

More on the Government’s removal of Hussein Hamdani from the Cross Cultural Roundtable on Security and the limited background information of the organization, Point de Bascule, that made the accusations (see earlier Hussein Hamdani says federal election politics behind his suspension):

Hamdani has also helped CSIS and the RCMP approach sometimes reluctant groups, while intervening with youths showing signs of radicalization on behalf of their parents.

“I’ve probably done more than anyone else in Canada,” Hamdani says. “And because we’re exposed to certain information that’s not public and we work with the RCMP and CSIS, I have security clearance and my background has been vetted. There are no links to anything of concern.”

That was until a Quebec blog, Point de Bascule, re-published some of his student writings in April and alleged he was linked, through his charitable donations, to organizations like IRFAN-Canada, designated a terrorist group by the federal government in 2014 for its links to Hamas.

Point de Bascule, which has been active since 2006, describes itself as an “an independent and non-partisan website describing the means and methods used by Islamist organizations and leaders in order to further their program in Canada.” It is run by Marc Lebuis.

Point de Bascule highlighted the fact that Hamdani urged Muslims to vote against same-sex marriage, for example.

What is curious, Hamdani says, is that none of this information is new. “Islamicization” meant something different in the pre-9/11 world, he explains. Besides, he says, his views on same-sex marriage have evolved.

‘We work with the RCMP and CSIS, I have security clearance and my background has been vetted. There are no links to anything of concern’

The federal government knew about his student activism, as well as his role in organizing a World Muslim Summit in Toronto in 2003, another point raised by Point de Bascule as evidence of his radical nature (and listed on his roundtable bio).

In 2004, Hamdani also wrote openly about studying Islamic movements in the occupied West Bank, where he met with Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin, an article published the year after Yassin was killed in an Israeli air strike, and the year before Hamdani was named to the Roundtable.

Blaney had Hamdani suspended from the roundtable the day the story appeared on TVA, “pending a review of the facts.”

…. So who is Marc Lebuis [and his Point de Bascule website] , and who is behind his website?

Efforts to reach Lebuis through the website, by phone, or through his Twitter account over the last week have been unsuccessful.

Adam Thompson, the clerk for the Senate’s Committee on National Security and Defence, said the committee had no CV or other form of biography on file for Lebuis. Lebuis was presented by the chair of the committee, Conservative Senator Daniel Lang, as the “founding director of the Montreal-based independent research organization Point de Bascule,” but no further qualifications were given.

There is no business or charity listed as Point de Bascule, or under Lebuis’s name, although the website does accept donations.

Seigfried Mathelet, a post-doctoral researcher at the Université du Québec à Montréal, said he knows of Lebuis as a “pseudo-expert” who has worked for years to gain influence with political decision-makers and the mainstream media, even though he has no links to academic research.

His modus operandi, like that of numerous anti-Islam bloggers and organizations based in the U.S., Mathelet explained, is to take anything problematic associated with Islam – like the Boko Haram or ISIS attacks – and link them to people in Canada.

Unlike the U.S. websites, where many are registered charities or funded by foundations that have to declare their donations, it is not known who, if anyone, is funding Lebuis or Point de Bascule, which is said to employ 10 researchers.

Hero or extremist?: Tables turn on man who helped Canadian government with would-be jihadists