Why I didn’t endorse the Senate report on terrorism: Senator Mitchell

2015/07/17 Leave a comment

Liberal senator Grant Mitchell’s reasons for not supporting the Senate report, Countering the Terrorist Threat in Canada, countering Senator Lang’s op-ed (Daniel Lang: The Senate did not call for imams to be ‘licensed.’ Nor were we fretting about nothing):

If what the report contains is problematic, what is left out is every bit as worrying.

We heard from police, intelligence and security officials that their budgets were strained, even as they transferred scarce resources from other major criminal investigations to the fight against terrorism. We also heard about the need for community policing and outreach programs in the “pre-criminal” space; the need for additional research to understand the various pathways to radicalization; and the requirement for rigorous review and oversight mechanisms for the 17 intelligence and enforcement agencies that deal with national security.

These are essential measures if we’re going to deal effectively with this issue, but not one of them is discussed in any serious way in the report.

Clearly, it is important that Canadians understand that we face risks from terrorist threats and that those risks are evolving and changing. However, poorly considered ideas can create division that has adverse effects in our society. This can also make it harder for law enforcement agencies to do their job because the communities they work with may feel alienated and targeted. What we need now, more than anything, are balanced ideas, a smart approach to the threats facing Canada, and for all Canadians to work together.

Why I didn’t endorse the Senate report on terrorism | Toronto Star.

Filed under Radicalization Tagged with

Register your imam, senators say – Globe Editorial

2015/07/13 Leave a comment

Globe has it right:

Now that the federal gun registry is no more, Canada is suffering from a large, gaping registry deficit. But be of good cheer, because salvation is at hand! The Senate committee on national security and defence, deftly leaping into the vacuum, has a plan to make Canada a safer place. It is calling for the creation of a Muslim imam registry.

The committee’s majority, all of them Conservatives, think it’s time to get the state in the business of deciding who is allowed to preach and teach which religion, and implicitly what they get to say while preaching and teaching. But just for Muslims.

In true Canadian fashion, the senators want The Department of Imam Approval and Oversight, or whatever a future body doing this important work might be called, to be a joint federal-provincial partnership. The idea is to “investigate the options that are available for the training and certification of imams in Canada.” The timing of the senators’ report, during the holy month of Ramadan, is particularly ideal.

More sweepingly, the committee recommends a protocol with CSIS “to require mandatory screening of citizens involved in public outreach.” On the other hand, Canadians “who are participating in the public discourse” should be “protected from vexatious litigation” – presumably, libel and slander actions by Muslims.

The certification of acceptable, or at least tolerable, Muslim religious teachers would presumably be accompanied by permits. Would clerics have to wear a cresent symbol on their lapel? Would police be empowered to demand a permit from anyone who appeared to be wearing certain types of headgear – defined of course by regulation?

Earlier this year, in Shawinigan, Que., in the same patriotic spirit as the Senate committee’s report, local authorities denied a minor zoning variance, to prevent Muslims from building a mosque in an industrial park. François Legault, Leader of the opposition Coalition Avenir Québec, called for the regulation of mosques in the province, with municipalities empowered to deny operating permits to mosques whose imams have engaged in “consistent denigration of Quebec values,” whatever that means. And now a group of federal Senators in Ottawa are picking up on the idea. Shame.

Register your imam, senators say – The Globe and Mail.

Filed under Multiculturalism, Radicalization Tagged with

Wesley Wark: Information gap about Zehaf-Bibeau threatens security

2015/06/06 Leave a comment

Wesley Wark’s trenchant criticism of the narrowness of Canadian inquiries into the Zehaf-Bibeau and Couture-Rouleau attacks, which focus only on the security dimensions rather than also including the process of radicalization issues:

There is nothing in the forensic analysis of the Zehaf-Bibeau attack that can bear the burden of such a sweeping statement, but it smacks of politics and of an ill-considered willingness to add to public anxiety about Canada’s counter-terrorism capabilities.

The RCMP’s own, separate, after-action review was deliberately limited, by whose decision is not clear, to “the protective actions taken by the RCMP in response to the incident;” it explicitly precluded any examination of the national security context, existing threat levels at the time of the attacks, or any “pre-incident” information about the shooter.

This leaves Canadians with a worrying chasm of information about Zehaf-Bibeau’s development as a jihad-inspired terrorist, and any reflection of what, if anything, could have been done to prevent the attack plot. It may well be that confusion lingers about whether Zehaf-Bibeau even deserves the tag of “terrorist.” This became a highly politicized issue immediately following the attacks, with the prime minister’s immediate labeling of Zehaf-Bibeau as a terrorist.

An even greater chasm exists with regard to the other, and largely forgotten, terrorist attack of October 2014, in which Martin Couture-Rouleau ran down and killed Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent. Where is the inquiry into that attack and the subsequent death of Couture-Rouleau in a confrontation with the Quebec Sûreté? Unlike Zehaf-Bibeau, Couture-Rouleau had been under investigation by the RCMP, had his passport seized and had been prevented from travelling abroad. The RCMP had intervened directly with him and, as they confessed shortly after his attack, had come to a conclusion that he had changed his ways and did not pose an imminent threat. Later media leaks changed the channel on the story to one of an inability of the RCMP to acquire a peace bond against him, a leak that came suspiciously close to the government’s tabling of Bill C-51, the new anti-terrorism act, which included lowered thresholds for the issuance of peace bonds.

As a recent meeting of the Senate Liberal “Open Caucus” heard from several witnesses, including me, Canada suffers from an endemic problem of overweening secrecy that chokes off public debate. That problem has raised its head once more in the failure to constitute a proper public study of the attacks of October 2014. We need only look at how the Australians responded to their Sydney terror siege in December 2014, with an Australian government review issued in February 2015 and an on-going coroner’s inquiry that is expected to extend into 2016, to know that the balance between secrecy and public knowledge is out of kilter here.

Wesley Wark: Information gap about Zehaf-Bibeau threatens security | Ottawa Citizen.

Filed under Radicalization Tagged with

ICYMI: ‘There’s no way back now’: For female ISIL members, Syria is one-way journey

2015/06/05 Leave a comment

More on the recruitment of women by ISIS and how it is a one-way ticket:

In interviews, court documents and public records, the Associated Press has compiled a detailed picture of European girls and young women who join extremists such as ISIL — a decision that is far more final than most may realize.

The girls are married off almost immediately, either in Turkey or just after crossing into Syria. With an estimated 20,000 foreign fighters — among them 5,000 Europeans — in Syria, there is no shortage of men looking for wives. That number is expected to double by the end of the year. Once among the jihadis, the women are not permitted to travel without a male chaperone or a group of other women and must remain fully covered outside, according to material published by ISIL and researchers who follow the group. Otherwise, they risk a lashing or worse.

European women who blog about their lives under ISIL tend to be chipper about the experience, but reading between the lines of an e-book of travel advice shows a life that will be radically circumscribed, with limited electricity, lack of even the most basic medicine, and practically no autonomy. Women do not fight, researchers say, despite the Hunger Games-like promises of recruiters.

“The lives of those teenage girls are very much controlled,” said Sara Khan, a British Muslim whose group Inspire campaigns against the dangers of extremist recruiters. “I don’t think that discussion ever comes up. It’s so romanticized, the idea of this utopia. I don’t even think those young girls have necessarily considered that there’s no way back now.”

‘There’s no way back now’: For female ISIL members, Syria is one-way journey

Filed under Radicalization

Foreign donations to foster extremist ideology fly under Canada’s radar

2015/06/03 2 Comments

More on alleged foreign funding of fundamentalism, and the irony that these are from the same countries that are opposed to ISIS:

It has been widely suspected for years that wealthy Gulf Arabs from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar have been bankrolling conservative Wahhabi and Salafist institutions and teachings in western countries. The strict and puritanical interpretations of Islam have no direct links to terrorism. Still, security experts say the conservative ideologies offer fertile ground for individuals contemplating jihad.

Richard Fadden, the prime minister’s national security adviser, told the committee in April that money is coming into Canada to promote extremist ideology and much of it is going to religious institutions. That followed similar testimony to the committee by an imam who manages 13 mosques across the country.

“I think it’s fair to say, without commenting on the particular country of origin, there are monies coming into this country which are advocating this kind of approach to life,” said Fadden.

“A lot of these funds, I think, are directed to religious institutions or quasi-religious institutions. It’s very difficult in this country to start poking about, if you’ll forgive my English, religious institutions because of the respect that we have for freedom of religion.”

There are no restrictions on non-resident charitable donations coming into Canada, provided they are not from a banned terrorist organization. Most donations arrive by bank wires, which CRA does not have the ability to track because it does not have access to banking transactional records or money services business records.

Instead, non-resident gifts of more than $10,000 must be disclosed by the charities. Beyond that, however, Canada Revenue has no way of knowing how much of that money is directed to Islamic religious and educational programming.

“We know that that’s no ideal and we want to be able to collect better information and we’re looking at that actively now,” Hawara told the committee. (The agency is able to track foreign donations directed for political purposes and routinely audits the appropriateness of all charities’ activities and whether they support the organizations’ charitable objectives, among other things.)

The millions of dollars coming to Canada from wealthy Gulf states are for all sorts of purposes, including to support organizations that may ultimately be determined to be fronts for terrorist organizations, or affiliated with them, said Christine Duhaime, a leading expert on terrorist financing and money-laundering.

“It tends not to be funds directly sent to support overt acts of terrorism in large volumes (here). If we had that happening, terrorist groups in Canada would be more powerful and already causing damage to critical infrastructure. Yet, there is funding for so-called extremist purposes, including for terrorist propaganda.”

Foreign donations to foster extremist ideology fly under Canada’s radar | Ottawa Citizen.

Filed under Radicalization Tagged with ,

Australia: Debacle over terrorism and citizenship is leak-based policy in its purest form | Lenore Taylor | Australia news | The Guardian

2015/05/30 Leave a comment

Lenore Taylor of The Guardian on the leak strategy being used to sell the proposed Australian revocation policy change for convicted terrorists:

One might ask what is to be gained from so many headlines galloping so far ahead of actual decisions, or indeed, actual facts.

Does it help the police and intelligence agencies with their very important task of “keeping Australians safe” either by preventing acts of violence in this country, or preventing dangerous foreign fighters from returning, or the strategy for countering violent extremism aimed at stopping people here from becoming radicalised and dangerous?

Or is it playing to a very different audience – with the much more political aim of keeping security threats at the forefront of the national conversation and, perhaps, goading Labor into disagreement so that they can be portrayed as “weak on terror”?

The prime minister’s most powerful advisor is taking a keen interest in the policy and politics of the issue – his chief of staff, Peta Credlin, told a recent meeting of Coalition staff she was spending at least 40% of her time on the issue.

Another clue might lie in yet more information from the prime minister’s office to the Daily Telegraph, this time in an article entitled “The first cracks in Australia’s bipartisan approach to terrorism could doom Bill Shorten” which revealed that the prime minister received 900 emails in the week after the budget expressing anger at the possibility that “repentant Australian jihadis” might be allowed back into the country.

The article praised the prime minister’s “instinctive” response that “If you go abroad to join a terrorist group and you seek to come back to Australia, you will be arrested, you will be prosecuted and jailed” in comparison with Shorten’s reaction that “There are laws in place, I’m not going to play judge and jury.”

But of course, there are laws in place, and they do have evidentiary requirements. Which means the courts may not in every case implement the prime minister’s “instinct”. Which is presumably where the new policy-thought about citizenship-stripping comes in. And Shorten has been pretty careful to make sure there are no “cracks” in the bipartisanship on these issues, no matter what the government proposes.

There is, of course, an alternative to slap-dash policy in response constituent-email reaction, or policy by cabinet-pre-empting, headline-seeking press leak, and that is that old-fashioned idea of policy developed to address a real problem, thought through and discussed by cabinet, before public announcement.

Debacle over terrorism and citizenship is leak-based policy in its purest form | Lenore Taylor | Australia news | The Guardian.

Filed under Citizenship, Radicalization, Revocation Tagged with

Adil Charkaoui: The angriest man in Montreal

2015/05/29 Leave a comment

Good in-depth piece by Martin Patriquin on Charkaoui:

So: is Quebec’s self-appointed Muslim spokesperson a simple teacher? Or a dangerous enabler of radical Islam?

Charkaoui effectively wears two hats, says scholar Amghar, and is skilled at tailoring his message for whomever is listening. “Charkaoui’s discourse in combatting Islamophobia isn’t dangerous. He isn’t calling for attacks in Quebec or Canada, and he knows he can’t invoke or invite terrorism or jihad, because Canada’s political context wouldn’t allow for it,” Amghar says. “But there is a sort of split in his personality. His point of view is that it’s totally normal and legitimate that there are groups like [Islamic State] and al-Nusra Front in Syria, if only to fight against Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship, and for the creation of an Islamic state.”

This double-edged existence—part conciliation, part outrage—is on display on Charkaoui’s own websites. Following the arrests of the 10 would-be jihadists in Montreal this month, Charkaoui’s east-end Muslim community centre quickly published a concerned news release. “The Islamic Community Centre of East End Montreal would like to remind that it takes the question of radicalization very seriously, and reiterates its commitment to contribute to the harmonious integration of the Muslim community in Quebec and Canada,” it reads.

Related: Maclean’s On The Hill politics podcast on terror arrests

Just a few hours later, Charkaoui’s Collective Against Islamophobia issued its own release. The tone was markedly different. “Ten arrests! It’s an unexplained phenomenon that leaves us skeptical, just as the government is adopting harsh security laws like [anti-terror legislation] C-51!” it reads, in part. “What is sure, this can only benefit one governing political party: the Conservatives!”

Give him this: Denouncing radicalism and the arrest of alleged radicals on the same day takes chutzpah that only Adil Charkaoui, with all his apparent contradictions, could muster.

Adil Charkaoui: The angriest man in Montreal – Macleans.ca

Filed under Multiculturalism, Radicalization Tagged with , ,

La déradicalisation doit passer par la religion, selon un rapport

2015/05/29 Leave a comment

More on the Vidino report and the challenge for security and other government agencies to engage on the religious side (see Beware of the Muslim Brotherhood, expert warns):

L’équipe de chercheurs à la source de l’étude s’est penchée sur les activités virtuelles de djihadistes nord-américains afin d’en disséquer le contenu. Et selon l’auteur principal, les conclusions qu’ils en ont tirées pourraient s’appliquer aux 10 jeunes Montréalais arrêtés la fin de semaine dernière à Montréal.

Le document de 74 pages analyse les communications sur les réseaux sociaux de sept djihadistes américains arrêtés ou tués dans les dernières années. Les chercheurs soulignent que la plupart de ces individus vivent une première phase de radicalisation pendant laquelle ils « recherchent avidement des connaissances et de l’information » sur l’islam. Ensuite vient une phase où « les affirmations, souvent débordantes de confiance, prennent le pas sur les questions ».

Les djihadistes étudiés s’intéressent notamment au niveau de crédibilité à accorder à différents érudits de l’islam, ainsi qu’à l’« hijra », un terme utilisé pour désigner l’émigration en terre musulmane.

« Tout effort de déradicalisation devrait, sans négliger d’autres aspects, prendre en considération le fait que les enjeux religieux sont au centre de la réflexion de ceux qui embrassent le djihadisme », indique le document. Au téléphone, son auteur principal a insisté sur cet élément.

« C’est très difficile pour des sociétés séculaires comme le Canada ou les États-Unis, mais ce sont des individus qui ont faim de connaissances religieuses. », explique Lorenzo Vidino, directeur d’un programme sur l’extrémisme à la George Washington University.

L’étude souligne aussi l’importance que prennent les théories du complot dans les discussions virtuelles qu’ont les individus radicalisés. « Ceux qui promeuvent des idéologies extrémistes et y adhèrent réfutent souvent les explications officielles ou communément acceptées relatives aux événements historiques importants », indique le rapport. Selon ses auteurs, les djihadistes allaient jusqu’à douter de l’existence de certains chefs terroristes recherchés par les gouvernements occidentaux.

La déradicalisation doit passer par la religion, selon un rapport | Philippe Teisceira-Lessard | Affaires criminelles.

Filed under Radicalization Tagged with

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

2015/05/28 Leave a comment

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

Filed under Radicalization Tagged with , , ,

Goodbye, citizenship! Australia takes a cynical turn on Muslim radicalisation | Jason Wilson | Comment is free | The Guardian

2015/05/28 Leave a comment

Some of the initial critical commentary on Australian plans for citizenship revocation and approach to radicalization, along with the perennial values debate. Echoes of C-51 Government messaging and issues:

You may notice if you read the transcript of Abbott’s press conference that this is political communication that doesn’t impart any information. Is “radicalisation” the same as “violent extremism”? Does one cause the other?

Are they linked in a causal chain? What should we be looking for? What is acceptable for citizens in a democracy to say, think, or read and what isn’t? What is the distinction between “extremism” and ordinary Muslim belief that the government keeps insisting that they respect? From whence comes the assumption that this is related to an insufficient inculcation of the virtues and responsibilities of citizenship?

Anyone who looks to the attorney general’s department’s materials will find a lack of clarity on all of this that is either chilling or embarrassing, depending on your point of view.

We’re told that “People can become radicalised to violent extremism due to a range of factors.” We’re also informed that people can get grants for combatting it to provide support for a range of activities, including mentoring, counselling, “case management” and sport, “But we are open to a wide range of ideas!” And we’re also told that the list of organisations offering services in this area will be collated without being made public. All in all, it’s bewildering.

To the observer, it may seem that debate without any specific terms is being had about existing schemes without clear public criteria of success, with the promise of further discussion whose terms are murky. There’s no reference to the extant scholarly and professional discussion about why and how people drift to Islamism, which emphasises the role of perceived injustice.

More cynically, you might say that this all works pretty well to keep terms like “radicalisation” and “extremism” as content-free, flexible terms that do little more than gesture towards the Muslims in our midst as a source of potential danger, and authorise governments to protect us from that danger, whatever it is, and empower them to police deviations from an equally imaginary moderate middle. A lot of reporting is not helping to clarify the situation: it’s simply taking all of this as read.

This effort by government to produce a vague sense of insecurity, then offer to protect us from it, can lead us in strange and alarming directions. Last week Christopher Pyne mooted a “jihadi-watch” scheme for schools, where education authorities would move to train students and teachers “to watch for shifts in behaviour such as students drifting away from their friends, running into minor trouble with the law and arguing with those who have different ideological views to their own”.

Goodbye, citizenship! Australia takes a cynical turn on Muslim radicalisation | Jason Wilson | Comment is free | The Guardian.

Filed under Citizenship, Radicalization Tagged with ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →