Maybe supporting terrorism in Canada is no big deal

There sure doesn't seem to be much real media (sensitivity to diversity?) or political (votes?) interest in these sorts of things. Both stories are from the National Post.

First the Sikhs:

On World Press Freedom Day, May 3, we usually think about journalists in far-away conflict zones under attack -- or those living under repressive totalitarian regimes struggling to practice their crafts.

But increasingly, journalists here in Canada, and the subjects we interview, are also under threat. We face death threats and hate-filled rhetoric spewed at us online, over unlicensed radio airwaves and in ethnic newspapers.

In the last year, myself, my colleague Terry Milewski of CBC, and several people we have interviewed condemning the glorification of violence by a tiny minority of Sikh separatists in Canada have received threats to our lives.

Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh, a Canadian of Sikh extraction, was called a "blood traitor" who should be killed after he was interviewed in both The Vancouver Sun and in a CBC documentary about violent imagery in the 2007 Vaisakhi parade in Surrey, B.C. [They did the glorification in a tent this year - MC.]

Other critics advocated online and in a Punjabi newspaper that Dosanjh should be beaten again, just like he was in February, 1985 after he publicly warned about Sikh extremists who would be linked to the Air India bombing just a few months later.

A young North Delta high school student recently urged on a Facebook page portraying Milewski as a Nazi with "Sikh" blood dripping from his lips: "Let's find out were he lives and put hiz (sic) head on a stick."

Hostile comments on some radio stations have also been levelled regularly against Liberal MLA Dave Hayer for his tireless commentary against the same small group of extremists that he believes were behind the assassination 10 years ago of his journalist father Tara Singh Hayer...

[...]

Other threats have a much more ominous tone, and have led to complaints being filed with the RCMP, though no charges have yet been laid in any of the cases.

[...]

Dosanjh [good on him - MC] is alarmed at what he is hearing said about critics of extremism in Canada like himself. But he is more alarmed at the seeming acceptance of violent rhetoric and what it could mean to the future of freedom of expression in this country.

"If we don't pay attention, then the kind of Canada that would continue to evolve wouldn't be the kind of Canada that we had today or we had yesterday. It would be far worse, far more dangerous."

Then the Tamils:

Sri Lanka's terrorist Tamil Tigers control the Montreal-based World Tamil Movement as one of their "foreign branches," in charge of raising funds for the war effort and spreading propaganda, according to documents seized by the RCMP.

In a 184-page affidavit unsealed by the Federal Court yesterday, RCMP Corporal Shirley Davermann details how the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam give instructions to Tamil activists in Canada, and how money is collected in Canada for the Tiger cause.

"The WTM is a foreign branch of the LTTE in Canada," she said, and its members follow written directives from the Tigers' leadership.

"In 2003, the LTTE issued a document called the 'Re-organization of foreign branches of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam' in which they dictate precisely how they want their foreign branches to be structured and operated. The Quebec branch of the WTM has been structured and operates as per the above-noted document."

[...]

The WTM is a non-profit organization run by Canadians of ethnic Tamil heritage, but the group's Quebec and Ontario branches are under police investigation for allegedly raising money for Sri Lanka's Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam guerrillas. No charges have been laid...

Note the "no charges" in both stories. Tarek Fatah (good on him) wrote an revealing piece dealing with Tamils, Sikhs and the federal Liberal leadership race.

Mark C.

Posted by markc at May 4, 2008 10:26 AM