Islamists, Iran, and the RCMP’s “cultural diversity”
by Michael Petrou on Tuesday, October 26, 2010 3:06pm — 3 Comments
An RCMP “ethnic liaison officer” is urging his colleagues to attend a conference on a “ Just and Sustainable Peace “ that was organized in part by a Green Party of Canada candidate who believes the 9/11 attacks were an “inside job,” and whose participants include the director general of an NGO that endorses hate-filled stereotypes about Jews. Three academics from Iran are flying in for the event.
Among speakers scheduled to speak at the conference, which will take place in Ottawa on Oct. 28, is Davood Ameri, director general of the Iran-based “ Islamic World Peace Forum,” an organization whose website includes cartoons of Israeli soldiers murdering babies, and one of a hook-nosed Jew wearing a top hat full of tiny skulls.
Saied Ameli, identified by conference organizers as dean of the faculty of global studies at Tehran University, is scheduled to attend, as is Elham Aminzadeh, reportedly of Tehran University’s faculty of law, who has praised Iran for what she describes as its efforts to protect women’s rights since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. She was formerly an Iranian parliamentarian and in 2006 claimed stoning sentences were no longer handed down in Iran. They are. A third Iranian academic scheduled to participate is Hassan Hosseini.
Nasir Islam, a professor at the University of Ottawa, is on the program; as is Vern Neufeld Redekop of Saint Paul’s University in Ottawa; Ottawa lawyer Ernest Tannis; and Zijad Delic, head of the Canadian Islamic Congress.
The conference has been organized by Green Party members who call themselves the “ Ottawa Group of Four.” They include Qais Ghanem, a doctor whose posting on the “Medical Professionals for 9/11 Truth” reads: “I have, from the outset, believed that the 9/11 horrendous massacre of thousands of innocent civilians could not possibly be the work of a dozen amateur Saudis. Close watching of video clips and reading of lots of expert opinions convinced me further that this is an inside job, or that it was at the very least done with inside help.”
Other members of the group are Paul Maillet, a retired air force colonel; Sylvie Lemieux, who retired from the Canadian Forces as a lieutenant-colonel and then worked in the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade; and Akbar Manoussi, who was recently hired as chair of “clean energy education” at the Willis College of Business, Health, and Technology in Ottawa.
Manoussi’s Green Party online profile for the 2007 provincial election in Ontario says he is “secretary general” of the “Iranian Scholars Association of Canada” — which appears to exist only in Manoussi’s imagination. His claim prompted nine Iranian-Canadian journalists and academics to write Green Party leader Elizabeth May in 2008 and inform her that they had never heard of the organization.
Manoussi has also identified himself as “director general” of the “Iranian Cultural Centre” in Ottawa, which shares the same address as the Iranian embassy. At least once in the last year he has attended a conference in Iran hosted by the government there and geared toward burnishing the country’s image and attracting foreign investment.
Manoussi is also member of the RCMP’s “cultural diversity committee” in the National Capital Region. According to Sgt. Mark Ménard, a spokesperson for the RCMP, the committee tries to reach out to ethnic communities and build ties between them and the national police force. “It’s about sharing information and helping people, nothing more than that,” he says.
Ménard often sits in on committee meetings and says he was there when Manoussi told RCMP officers involved about the conference he was planning. Manoussi then sent an email to Cpl. Wayne Russett, an RCMP “Aboriginal and Ethnic Liaison Officer,” who is in charge of the committee. Maclean’s has obtained a copy of that email:
“Hello Wayne; Here is an International Peace Conference that I would like to invite you, your colleagues and members of our Cultural Diversity Consultative Committee. Please le me know how many people are attending. I can provide you with a complementary table of six. I can provide the complementary tickets to our group as well.”
Russett forwarded Manoussi’s email to his RCMP colleagues on the committee with the following personal message included:
“Here is an invite to an important conference from Akbar Manoussi. I am already attending this event as a guest of another Community member. Hope to see some of you there.”
In an interview with Maclean’s, organizer Paul Maillet said the conference, which will feature a panel discussion among all participants, will strive to “change the language from one of conflict to one of peace,” and to “create a safe space to bring some people together to start a dialogue.”
Maillet said he didn’t know anything about the Iranian participants, as Akbar Manoussi had chosen and invited them. He said the Iranians were paying their own expenses. He hoped to eliminate the costs of renting a government conference centre in downtown Ottawa by involving a senator or MP. He says Bloc Québécois MP Richard Nadeau was originally booked as a sponsor but canceled due to a scheduling conflict. Nadeau’s office did not respond to an email request for comment from Maclean’s.
Tags: RCMP, iran, Akbar Manoussi, Zijad Delic, The Green Party, Just and Sustainable Peace, Group of Four, Paul Maillet, Sylvie Lemieux, Qais Ghanem, Wayne Russett
10-10-26, Michael Petrou, “Islamists, Iran, and the RCMP’s “cultural diversity”,” macleans.ca, 26 October 2010, www2.macleans.ca/2010/10/26/islamists-iran-and-the-rcmps-cultural-diversity/#more-154536 (accessed 26 October 2010).
RCMP linked to controversial conference
By BRIAN LILLEY, Parliamentary Bureau
Last Updated: October 26, 2010 8:25pm
OTTAWA — A Muslim imam deemed too controversial to speak at National Defence headquarters in Ottawa will speak on Thursday at another event promoted by the RCMP.
This event will be held at the Government Conference Centre across from Parliament Hill.
Zijad Delic, the president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, had his speech at military HQ cancelled earlier this month by Defence Minister Peter MacKay. MacKay’s office said Delic and his organization were too controversial.
On Thursday, Delic will moderate a panel on the topic, “Just and Sustainable Peace — A Global Challenge.”
The conference is organized by a group called the Ottawa Group of Four and is scheduled to include Bloc MP Richard Nadeau among its speakers.
The main speakers, however, come from Iran’s Tehran University. Sayeh Hassan, a Toronto criminal lawyer and activist for the Iranian democratic movement, told QMI Agency these professors are not dissidents in the regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
“These are all professors that are closely linked to the regime, they are not dissidents,” Hassan said.
“People like myself that have escaped the regime and the propaganda are concerned that now they’re bringing these professors promoting the regime to Ottawa.”
Another one of the speakers is Dr. Davood Ameri of the Islamic World Peace Forum. The website for that organization features graphic anti-Semitic cartoons including one showing an Israeli soldier shooting a baby next to a sign that reads Gaza. The website’s front page focuses on what it deems human rights abuses in America and labels the U.S. a terrorist state.
The conference has been promoted within the RCMP by the federal police force’s “ethnic liaison officer.”
10-10-26, Brian Lilley, “RCMP linked to controversial conference,” torontosun.com, 26 October 2010, www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2010/10/26/15840736.html (accessed 26 October 2010).
We need security probe after DND invited imam
The Ottawa Citizen October 6, 2010
Re: Politicians on the run, Oct. 5.
Defence Minister MacKay claims the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) is “extremist” and cancelled CIC executive director Zijad Delic’s speech at the National Defence headquarters’ CIC-driven “Islamic Heritage” shindig.
Enter Aisha Sherazi’s misleading defence of Delic and the CIC in her Citizen opinion article. By her telling, right-wing Christian conspiracies explain the turfing. Nonsense.
Delic was the CIC’s national helmsman when its Quebec wing imported British Taliban apologist Yvonne Ridley to speak in Canada. He is part of CIC’s sharia gender-apartheid lobbying. And, days ago, he led the CIC’s support for the international Organization of Islamic Conference’s Islamist “blasphemy” initiative — a frontal assault on free speech and human rights.
Sherazi also ignores the CIC’s “media excellence award” to an Islamic publisher whose newspaper reportedly regards 9/11 as “successful” and advocates Iranian-style theocracy. Why?
Why does she imply that former CIC president Mohamed Elmasry, whom Delic served, was repudiated by CIC for his televised extremism? The record shows an ambiguous “apology” and Elmasry’s remaining in his post until retirement suited him. He’s still affiliated with CIC.
Delic is welcome in respected circles, asserts Sherazi. Like his previous speaking gig at the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA)? That invitation, typical of dangerously-addled government and RCMP “outreach,” came through DFA’s notorious “Muslim Communities Working Group.”
This group exists scandalously to privilege one religion, and famously invited radical speakers into the heart of our foreign ministry. In such ways are hardliners “laundered” by associates in our bureaucracy.
No wonder the moderate Muslim Canadian Congress supports the Delic cancellation and warns that Islamists have “managed to penetrate the highest levels of the Ottawa bureaucracy and the political apparatus of all political parties.”
So Sherazi, indeed, the government, should ask how anyone at DND dared recommend such an invitation when our children are dying in Afghanistan.
We need an internal security investigation, not apologism for radicals.
David B. Harris,
Ottawa
INSIGNIS Strategic Research Inc.
(c) Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen
10-10-06, David B. Harris, Ottawa, INSIGNIS Strategic Research Inc., “We need security probe after DND invited imam,” ottawacitizen.com, 6 October 2010, www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/letters/need+security+probe+after+invited+imam/3629603/story.html (accessed 20 October 2010).
RCMP outreach tries to avert radicalizatiom
The Ottawa Citizen October 8, 2010
Re: We need security probe after DND invited imam, Oct. 6.
In his letter about the cancellation of Zijad Delic’s speech at the National Defence Headquarters, David B. Harris referenced the RCMP’s Community Outreach initiative, stating that the invitation is “typical of dangerously-addled government and RCMP outreach.” In the past, Harris has also criticized our national security community outreach efforts through opinion columns in your newspaper.
The RCMP has been leading efforts in the prevention of radicalization-to-violence by engaging communities that are more vulnerable to violent radicalization to help them resist extremist ideology. We accomplish that by reaching out to individuals and groups that are representative of their communities.
We work with all communities from different faiths, ethnicities and backgrounds, and not just the Muslim community. We have initiatives in many locations across the country such as the Junior Police Academy, a day-long event in which members of the British Columbia community outreach section, along with support from detachments, go into elementary schools to demonstrate various police activities.
Another good example of community outreach is our community consultative committees such as the one in the national capital region, which consists of a diverse group that uses dialogue to advance and promote positive relations between the RCMP and the diverse communities, while also assisting and educating RCMP members to understand the customs, religious practices and cultural diversity of various communities. The RCMP also leads other initiatives, such as information sessions for new immigrants in various cities across the country to introduce them to the roles and responsibilities of agencies such as the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, RCMP, Justice Canada and Canada Border Services Agency.
The approach of community outreach has shown to be very successful. Today, many of our courses and initiatives have been developed in partnership with leaders from these communities. Outreach efforts have been further supported by Justice Dennis
O’Connor in his recommendations to further engage Muslim and Arab communities in Canada. We also perform outreach with other stakeholders of national security such as the private sector and critical infrastructure industries that are vulnerable to terrorism.
The RCMP’s community outreach aims to help communities resist attempts to radicalize their young people and builds community resistance to messages and activities that promote hatred and criminality toward others.
I invite David Harris to contact us if he wishes to know about national security community outreach and how it is a vital part of our overall counter-terrorism strategy.
Gilles Michaud,
Ottawa
Assistant Commissioner
National Security Criminal Investigations, RCMP
(c) Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen
Read more: www.ottawacitizen.com/news/RCMP+outreach+tries+avert+radicalizatiom/3641183/story.html#ixzz12uQlEk9A
10-10-08, Gilles Michaud, Ottawa, Assistant Commissioner, National Security Criminal Investigations, RCMP, “RCMP outreach tries to avert radicalizatiom sic,” {text35|ottawacitizen.com}, 8 October 2010, {text36|www.ottawacitizen.com/news/RCMP+outreach+tries+avert+radicalizatiom/3641183/story.html} (accessed 20 October 2010).
A peculiar road
The Ottawa CitizenOctober 15, 2010
Re: RCMP outreach tries to avert radicalization, Oct. 8.
RCMP Assistant Commissioner Gilles Michaud quotes my letter’s concern about “dangerously addled government and RCMP outreach” to incorrigible radicals. He revels in his community outreach unit’s “diverse” cross-Canada consultative committees, and RCMP officers’ lessons in “religious practices and cultural diversity.”
Unfortunately, the outreach unit maintains close connections with affiliates of Muslim Brotherhood and Saudi-oriented groups most intimately associated with hardline Islam and the “Islamphobia” persecution mania. This is a peculiar road to counterradicalization. Radicals trade on RCMP outreach for legitimacy and openings to government, media and society. The Canadian Islamic Congress invoked its RCMP connection when Defence Minister Peter MacKay barred the CIC from National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa.
David B. Harris,
Ottawa
INSIGNIS Strategic Research
(c) Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen
10-10-15, David B. Harris, Ottawa, INSIGNIS Strategic Research, “A peculiar road,” ottawacitizen.com, 15 October 2010, www.ottawacitizen.com/story_print.html?id=3674726&sponsor= (accessed 20 October 2010).
