Working site on citizenship and multiculturalism issues.
2014/10/27 Leave a comment
Pretty shallow reporting and lack of understanding in this German report and experts cited.
Canadian commentary on both left and right more nuanced.
Terror attacks threaten Canada’s multicultural project | World | DW.DE | 24.10.2014.
2014/10/25 1 Comment
Imam Soharwardy being pro-active:
A prominent Muslim cleric says he intends to reach out to other imams to make sure that new converts to Islam are watched closely for signs of radical beliefs.
While authorities have made links to extremism in both the Ottawa and Quebec attacks, Imam Syed Soharwardy of Calgary says he is concerned about media reports that the two perpetrators were recent converts to Islam.Soharwardy, the founder of Muslims Against Terrorism and the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, said imams should look for warning signs, such as a criminal record or drug abuse, before allowing an individual to convert.
“I’m not sure who helped them to convert to Islam. Who was the imam? What kind of relationship did those people have with those people who converted them to Islam? Those very important questions need to be answered,” said Soharwardy.
“They should take on the responsibility of checking backgrounds and staying in touch and make sure this person is not being recruited by any radical organization or terrorist organizations.”
Prominent Muslim cleric urges imams to vet new Islamic converts | CTVNews.
From Quebec, reporting on discussions between the Quebec government and representatives of the Muslim community, on security cooperation (already ongoing) but also raising integration issues for Canadian Muslims:
Mais cette conversation ne doit pas être à sens unique, prévient Salam Elmenyawi, président du Conseil. L’écoute doit être réciproque et d’autres sujets doivent être abordés, dit-il, comme une meilleure intégration des musulmans dans la société.
«S’il s’agit d’une conversation à sens unique, elle sera rejetée», dit-il. Et si cela vise juste à recruter des informateurs, cela ne marchera pas non plus, prévient-il.
Et bien qu’il reconnaisse qu’il y a des problèmes dans la communauté, «il n’est pas question d’une épidémie. Il s’agit de cas isolés», soutient-il. Mais, évidemment, un cas est déjà un cas de trop, ajoute-t-il.
M. Elmenyawi souligne qu’il ne faut pas sauter aux conclusions et que tous les faits de l’attaque de mercredi ne sont pas encore connus.
«Les médias cherchent toujours la mosquée la plus près», déplore-t-il. Mais il fait valoir que les gens peuvent être influencés par des idées radicales ailleurs.
La religion des musulmans n’est pas un problème, c’est la façon dont certains la pratiquent et la détournent qui est en cause, a souligné de son côté Hussein Nehme.
Il affirme ne jamais avoir rencontré de jeunes dans son centre qui auraient évoqué des idées de violence. Il assure que si c’était le cas, il discuterait avec lui pour voir d’où proviennent ces idées, et que s’il découvrait qu’un centre ou un groupe d’ici diffuse de telles idées, il contacterait les autorités.
«C’est notre devoir», dit-il.
Il se dit inquiet lui-même de ce que les extrémistes religieux peuvent faire à sa communauté. Il songe d’ailleurs à demander la protection de la police à quelques jours d’une fête, désapprouvée par certains.
Personnes à risques: des musulmans du Québec prêts à coopérer
Shallow, descriptive commentary by David Frum in the Atlantic, trying to explain Canada to American readers, without saying much in The Allure of Radical Islam in Canada.
2014/10/25 Leave a comment
More good reporting on motivations for radicalization by Tom Blackwell in the Post:
What little evidence exists now indicates terrorists generally are no more likely to suffer from psychological problems than the general population, he [Lorne Dawson] said. As for the homegrown variety, some are second-generation immigrants struggling to find a place between their parents’ culture and Canadian society. Adhering to a dogmatic ideology might give them the direction they seek, said Prof. Dawson, noting that not all young people are craving freedom.
In fact, “there is a whole group to whom that is totally perplexing and frustrating,” he said. “They don’t want that. They want structure and order. They want a clear vision.”
Research that Prof. Bélanger and colleagues have done with Tamil Tigers and extremists in Jordan and the Philippines point to a single, overarching motivation, what the academics call the “quest for personal significance,” leading them to join a community they believe gives their lives meaning, and adopting its ideology in an effort to be accepted.
“When, for instance, [they feel they are] not important, they don’t matter, they are a speck of dust in some kind of uncaring universe, it increases psychological pain,” he said. “One way of assuaging this negative feeling is connecting through a group.”
That connection might occur in person or, in the case of “lone-wolf” radicals, through online correspondence with an extremist overseas, like ISIS members who have posted propaganda videos on the Internet, said Prof. Belanger. Once hooked, the home-grown radical may be willing to sacrifice his own life – as well as take others’ – thinking “they will have more in death than they had in life.”
2014/10/25 Leave a comment
Will be part of the debate next week as the Government introduces its new measures to give CSIS more powers:
Pour Kent Roach, professeur de droit à l’Université de Toronto et expert reconnu des lois antiterrorisme au Canada, les services de sécurité ont déjà tout ce qu’il faut. « Avant d’attribuer les événements de lundi [Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu] et mercredi [Ottawa] à des carences dans la lutte antiterrorisme canadienne, il faut être prudent », dit-il au Devoir. Il suggère d’« éviter d’aller vers des changements législatifs faits dans l’urgence ».
Selon lui, « l’enjeu est beaucoup plus de mettre en application les lois existantes que d’en adopter de nouvelles », même si le cas de Martin Couture-Rouleau qui a tué un militaire à Saint-Jean montre qu’il peut être difficile d’accumuler une preuve suffisante permettant d’arrêter une personne que l’on sait potentiellement dangereuse. « Mais dans ce cas, nous ne savons pas pourquoi son passeport a été confisqué sans que d’autres actions soient prises », dit-il prudemment.
L’avocat criminaliste Jean-Claude Hébert pense sensiblement la même chose que M. Roach. « Il est faux de prétendre que les lois ne prévoient pas les outils juridiques nécessaires, au contraire », dit-il. M. Hébert estime que les forces policières et de renseignement ont le « fardeau de la preuve de démontrer qu’ils manquent de pouvoirs et que cela empêche les agents de faire leur travail correctement ».
Les lois existantes suffisent, disent des experts | Le Devoir.
2014/10/25 Leave a comment
Stronger message than revocation in this criminal conviction and sentencing:
“That carries with it an utterly deplorable stigma that is likely impossible to erase,” he said. “He has brought untold shame upon his family, his community, and peace-loving Muslims throughout this country.”
Turning to Ahmed, he added: “You will now have ample time to reflect on the fact that you enjoy the immense privilege of living in one of the great democracies in the free world. Whether you know it or not, you are a lucky man.”
Misbahuddin Ahmed sentenced to 12 years for terrorism crimes | Ottawa Citizen.
2014/10/23 Leave a comment
With the two killings this week of Canadian soldiers, one by Martin Couture-Rouleau’s running over soldiers in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, the other by Michael Zehaf-Bibeau and his the attack on the War Memorial and Parliament Hill.
Surreal morning for me as I was downtown for meetings, about 8 blocks away from the Hill, learning about the shootings from TV monitors, along with others glued to TV monitors following developments. Felt very much, albeit on a much smaller scale, when I was in LA during the 911 attacks.
Some common points in recent commentary.
A note of caution on over-reacting and the need to maintain balance between freedom, access, and security. John Ivison: In response to Quebec terror attack we must remember a healthy balance between security and freedom, a point echoed by Andrew Coyne in Andrew Coyne: We can’t stop every little terror attack, so let’s brace ourselves and adapt where he recommends, not “a panicky search for false assurances, nor even defiance, but a collective insouciance.” Martin Regg Cohn praises the Ontario political leaders for keeping to the normal Parliamentary schedule in The democratic show must go on: Cohn.
While there was universal praise, and deservedly so, for Parliament’s Sergeant-at-Arms, Kevin Vickers, both for his quick and efficient handling of the attack as well as his philosophy of keeping Parliament a public space, Michael Den Tandt savages the overall handling of the attack in Michael Den Tandt: Ottawa shooting shows Canadian capital’s utter lack of readiness, and how information was not communicated. Haroon Siddiqui makes similar, but less well argued points, in Killings of two soldiers raise troubling questions: Siddiqui.
Margaret Wente takes the opposite tack, in an almost boosterish tone, contrary to much of the reporting, argues that Canadians will not change and that the attack was handled calmly and without hysteria in Terrorists don’t have a chance in this country. Joe Warmington of The Toronto Sun takes the opposite tack in Canada will never be the same, as does Ian MacLeod in The Ottawa Citizen, in Analysis: Effects on Ottawa will be lasting and far-reaching (with video).
Also in the Post, which generally has some of the strongest reporting in this area, Tom Blackwell, their health reporter, reports on the “lone wolf” phenomenon and some of the factors that may result in some being open to radicalization in ‘Rhetoric and bluster’: Was attack on soldiers really terrorism, or just the violent act of a disturbed man? The Globe has a good profile on Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, the War Memorial and Parliament Hill in Suspected killer in Ottawa shootings had a disturbing side, that reinforces some of these points.
From La Presse, a report on the local mosque in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu and what appears to be a very conservative Imam in terms of social teachings but no indication that he preached violence, or whether Couture-Rouleau went to the mosque regularly (seems he was most active on social media) in Un imam controversé à Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu.
Listening to the RCMP outline what they did and what they could do, particularly in the case of Couture-Rouleau (as of writing not as fulsome an account for Zehaf-Bibeau) hard to see that any of the Government’s recent or planned initiatives would have made a difference. The RCMP monitored him, spoke to friends and families who shared their well-founded worries, confiscated his passport but as the RCMP officer at the press conference said, “We couldn’t arrest someone for having radical thoughts, it’s not a crime in Canada.”
Couture-Rouleau, like Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, were both born in Canada. Couture-Rouleau was not a dual-national and would not be subject, had he lived, for citizenship revocation. It is unclear whether Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, given his father was Libyan in origin, would be entitled to Libyan citizenship and thus theoretically subject to revocation.
And while tragedies for the families and friends of the soldiers killed, and (another) reminder that we have extremists among us, both reassuring and worrying that both of these appear to be “lone wolf” attacks rather than groups and more “sophisticated” plans and conspiracies that could result in significantly more casualities.
I tend to be between Wente and Warmington: no, not everything has changed but neither has everything remained the same. Our political leaders, of all stripes, as well as the media and others, will play a role in ensuring, or not, that we retain perspective and balance.
2014/10/23 Leave a comment
Good analysis of the challenges in knowing the numbers and the nature of radicalized Canadians:
“When we’re talking about 80 returnees, we’re not talking about 80 people who have fought in Iraq and Syria, and we’re not necessarily talking about people who were directly involved in planning terrorist activities,” Coulombe told the committee. “We have Canadians in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in Yemen, in Lebanon, in the Sahel, in the Maghreb, who are involved in terrorist-related activities. But it could be fundraising, could be propaganda, so I don’t want people to believe that we have 80 returnees who are hard fighters in Iraq and Syria, because that is not the picture we have at the moment.”
CSIS has tabs on radicalized Canadians who have fought abroad.
2014/10/22 1 Comment
Another approach:
In Denmark, not one returned fighter has been locked up. Instead, taking the view that discrimination at home is as criminal as Islamic State recruiting, officials here are providing free psychological counseling while finding returnees jobs and spots in schools and universities. Officials credit a new effort to reach out to a radical mosque with stanching the flow of recruits.
Some progressives say Aarhus should become a model for other communities in the United States and Europe that are trying to cope with the question of what to do when the jihad generation comes back to town.
For better or worse, this city’s answer has left the likes of Talha wandering freely on the streets. The son of moderate Muslim immigrants from the Middle East, he became radicalized and fought with an Islamist brigade in Syria for nine months before returning home last October. Back on Danish soil, he still dreams of one day living in a Middle Eastern caliphate. He rejects the Islamic State’s beheading of foreign hostages but defends their summary executions of Iraqi and Syrian soldiers.
“I know how some people think. They are afraid of us, the ones coming back,” says Talha, a name he adopted to protect his identity because he never told his father he went to fight. “Look, we are really not dangerous.”
Yet critics call this city’s soft-handed approach just that — dangerous. And the effort here is fast becoming a pawn in the much larger debate raging across Europe over Islam and the nature of extremism. More and louder voices here are clamoring for new laws that could not only charge returnees with treason but also set curbs on immigration from Muslim countries and on Islamic traditions such as religious circumcision.
In a country that vividly remembers the violent backlash in the Muslim world after a Danish newspaper published cartoon images of the prophet Muhammad in 2006, many here want Aarhus to crack down on — not cajole — extremists.
“They are being much too soft [in Aarhus], and they fail to see the problem,” said Marie Krarup, an influential member of Parliament from the Danish People’s Party, the country’s third-largest political force. “The problem is Islam. Islam itself is radical. You cannot integrate a great number of Muslims into a Christian country.”
Aarhus is treating its returning religious fighters like wayward youths rather than terrorism suspects because that’s the way most of them started out.
The majority were young men like Talha, between 16 and 28, including several former criminals and gang members who had recently found what they began to call “true Islam.” Most of them came from moderate Muslim homes and, quite often, were the children of divorced parents. And most lived in the Gellerupparken ghetto.
A densely packed warren of mid-rise public housing blocks, Gellerupparken is home to immigrants and their families who arrived in the waves of Muslim migration that began in the 1960s. Unemployment — especially among youths — is far higher than the city average. At one point, crime was so bad that even ambulances needed police escorts. It made a perfect breeding ground for angry young men at risk of becoming militants.
On a quest to change that, the city is in the midst of a major overhaul of the ghetto. Better housing could improve conditions and lure more ethnic Danes, contributing to integration. New thoroughfares and roads, meanwhile, would link it more closely to the rest of the city.
Context in Canada is different with many radicalized coming from middle class backgrounds and appearing relatively well-integrated in their early adulthood but programs for re-integration of returning fighters, when there is not sufficient evidence to prosecute, should be part of the “toolkit.”
2014/10/20 1 Comment
Paul Wells takes down Garrett Graff’s supposedly serious piece on the risk of terrorism from Canada:
Well … yeah. Look, one day maybe some terrorists will tire of travelling from Miami to Boston to Dearborn to the suburbs of Minneapolis as easily as anyone else travels in a free country, and they’ll decide to live dangerously by adding an international border to their itinerary. Flying from the Middle East to O’Hare is so boring. I think I’ll fly into Toronto, rent a car with traceable ID, sit on my ass in traffic at the Bluewater Bridge for an hour, then hand my passport to armed guys while my escape routes forward and back are blocked. Allahu akbar! And until that day happens, Homeland Security assets will be far more rationally allocated along the Mexican border than against returning weekenders from Minnesota, because in the real world there are a thousand ways and reasons to die, even if that harshes Garrett M. Graff’s weekend thinkpiece buzz.
Somebody clean up this mess. If you’re interested, here’s Luiza interviewing somebody with something intelligent to say about border security.
Of course, one of the recurring nightmares for the Canadian government and security officials is just that, hence all the measures being taken to reduce the risk.
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