Professional Protestor back to work

Immigration Minister Monte Solberg was assailed by a bunch of lunatics at a public meeting today (hat tip: Brian Hoskins), and guess which perennial rent-a-mob leader was involved:

A speech by Immigration Minister Monte Solberg was abruptly cancelled Wednesday when a group of hecklers besieged him in an Ottawa church.

About a dozen protesters began shouting as Solberg took the podium during the annual meeting of Citizens for Public Justice, a group that lobbies on behalf of refugees.

The demonstrators, who called for an immediate moratorium on all deportations, surrounded Solberg at the podium, and then blocked his exit from the front door of the Christ Church Cathedral on Sparks Street.

When Solberg managed to slip out through the hall's back door, the protesters followed and circled his car. Police eventually cleared a path for the vehicle.

[...]

Jaggi Singh, a well-known local activist who participated in the protest, dismissed Solberg's unheard speech as a "false dialogue" and defended the move to prevent him from delivering it.

"These are set pieces," Singh said. "They're photo-ops, where a couple of nice innocuous words are said, and there's innocuous applause, and that's it. [emphasis added]

Singh (who lives in Montreal, contrary to CBC Ottawa's description of him as a "local activist") was part of the lynch mob that got Benjamin Natanyahu's speech at Concordia cancelled in 2003. Why is it that so many self-proclaimed "freedom of expression" activists spend their ample free time shutting down speech they don't agree with?

Damian P.

Update: firsthand account here. (via Kathy Shaidle)

Posted by damian at June 2, 2006 03:13 PM