CSIS SNOOPS SNIFFING AROUND CAFE

Written by Paul Fromm

Friday, 31 July 2009 08:03

*CSIS Snoops Sniffing Around CAFE* Dear Free Speech Supporter: I'm furious! Today Margaret, a long-time free speech supporter and friend in Winnipeg, received a call from "Karen", a CSIS agent. "Karen" had seen Margaret's name in the *Winnipeg Free Press* as a spokesman for CAFE during a protest held June 23 outside Family Court in support efforts of a 26-year old Winnipeg mother trying to regain custody of her children. The children -- a girl 8 and a boy 3 -- were seized by Manitoba Child and Family Services in March of 2008 after the girl came to school with a swastika painted in magic marker on her wrist. Manitoba Family Services is seeking permanent custody of the children alleging that the political views of their parents may cause them emotional harm. "Karen" wanted to know if Margaret was a member of CAFE. What did CAFE stand for? Had she been to other CAFE meetings, etc.? Margaret was outraged. She's a middle aged mother and grandmother, angry at the intrusive arm of the state trying to take away a woman's children as punishment for her political views. Most people would be scared or intimidated by a visit from Canada's spooks, but not her. The CSIS visit is pure political intimidation by an agency that now acts as Ottawa's "political police." Yes, there are threats to national security and CSIS should investigate them. That's their mandate. The *CSIS Act of 1984* clearly defines what is and is not a threat to national security. A government statement captures the thrust of the *CSIS Act*. "National security", unlike its meaning in many banana republics, does not mean opposition to government policies. Indeed, *"the CSIS Act prohibits the Service from investigating acts of advocacy, protest or dissent that are conducted lawfully*." CAFE is a lawful advocacy group with a long track record. Founded in 1981, we publish newsletters, hold meetings, and support the victims of Canada's various anti-free speech laws. We have intervened and advocated at numerous human rights hearings. We are dedicated to non-violence. The protest for the Winnipeg mom was lawful and non-violent. CSIS, by its own mandate, had absolutely no right to investigate CAFE or to question Margaret. It's important to note what does constitute a threat to national security, as the *Canadian Security Intelligence Service Backgrounder*(February, 2005) below makes clear: 1) Espionage -- spying for a foreign power. [CSIS, we hope, keeps an eye on the numerous agents and techno-thieves working for Red China and the shadowy Mossad network in Canada.] 2) Sabotage. 3) Foreign Influenced Activities. -- Um, what about the strident and well-organized Israeli lobby in Canada, or the Israeli funded visits of politicians, Supreme Court judges and Indian chiefs to Israel, clearly to influence their opinions ? 4) Political violence and terrorism. This especially covers the advocacy or practice of serious acts of violence (bombing, murder, assassination) in order to advance one's political or religious views. *None of these applies to CAFE. Therefore, CAFE's activities should be of absolutely no concern to CSIS*. The questioning of Margaret, sadly, is no aberration. Movement activists have been paid visits for years by CSIS agents. Some have been offered money to spy on others conducting perfectly legal advocacy. CSIS paid Grant Bristow a fortune in the early '90s to infiltrate the Heritage Front, a White nationalist group. His actions provoked and encouraged low level violence and conflict with the ARA (a government agent promoting the very behaviours it's supposed to be trying to stop.) He was the one who drew up and shopped around the notorious "hit list" of prominent Jews. More recently, CSIS provided secret testimony at the Ernst Zundel "security certificate" hearings, 2003-2004. CSIS deemed the German-born pacifist and publisher a "terrorist" and threat to national security, despite being unable to provide a single scrap of evidence from his much surveilled and very public life where he ever advocated, practised or facilitated violence. It seems that, once again, with the questioning of Margaret, CSIS cannot distinguish between non-violent dissent and threats to national security. Maybe they should keep a closer eye on the tens of thousands of Tamil activists who keep pictures of the non defunct Tamil Tiger leader in shrines in their homes and who, on command from this violent foreign and now banned in Canada terrorist group, illegally blocked streets and highways in Toronto in May. Paul Fromm Director The Canadian way of life is founded upon a recognition of the rights and freedoms of the individual. CSIS carries out its role of protecting that way of life with respect for those values. To ensure this balanced approach, the *CSIS Act* strictly limits the type of activity that may be investigated, the ways that information can be collected and who may view the information. The *Act* provides many controls to ensure adherence to these conditions. *Information may be gathered, primarily under the authority of section 12 of the CSIS Act, only about those individuals or organizations suspected of engaging in one of the following types of activity that threaten the security of Canada, as cited in section 2:* Top of Page<http://www.csis-scrs.gc.ca/nwsrm/bckgrndrs/bckgrndr01-eng.asp#top> 1. Espionage and Sabotage *Espionage*: Activities conducted for the purpose of acquiring by unlawful or unauthorized means information or assets relating to sensitive political, economic, scientific or military matters, or for the purpose of their unauthorized communication to a foreign state or foreign political organization. *Sabotage*: Activities conducted for the purpose of endangering the safety, security or defence of vital public or private property, such as installations, structures, equipment or systems. Top of Page<http://www.csis-scrs.gc.ca/nwsrm/bckgrndrs/bckgrndr01-eng.asp#top> 2. Foreign-influenced Activities *Foreign-influenced activities*: Activities detrimental to the interests of Canada, and which are directed, controlled, financed or otherwise significantly affected by a foreign state or organization, their agents or others working on their behalf. *For example*: Foreign governments or groups which interfere with or direct the affairs of ethnic communities within Canada by pressuring members of those communities. Threats may also be made against relatives living abroad. Top of Page<http://www.csis-scrs.gc.ca/nwsrm/bckgrndrs/bckgrndr01-eng.asp#top> 3. Political Violence and Terrorism Threat or acts of serious violence may constitute attempts at compelling the Canadian government to respond in a certain way. Acts of serious violence cause grave bodily harm or death to persons, or serious damage to or the destruction of public or private property, and are contrary to Canadian law or would be if committed in Canada. Hostage-taking, bomb threats and assassination attempts are examples of acts of serious violence that endanger the lives of Canadians. Such actions have been used in an attempt to force particular political responses and change in this country. Exponents and supporters of political, religious or ideological violence may try to use Canada as a haven or a base from which to plan or facilitate violence in other countries. Such actions compromise the safety of people living in Canada and the capacity of the Canadian government to conduct its domestic and external affairs. Top of Page<http://www.csis-scrs.gc.ca/nwsrm/bckgrndrs/bckgrndr01-eng.asp#top> 4. Subversion *Subversion*: Activities intended to undermine or overthrow Canada's constitutionally established system of government by violence. Subversive activities seek to interfere with or ultimately destroy the electoral, legislative, executive, administrative or judicial processes or institutions of Canada. Lawful Protest and Advocacy The *CSIS Act* prohibits the Service from investigating acts of advocacy, protest or dissent that are conducted lawfully. CSIS may investigate these types of actions only if they are carried out in conjunction with one of the four previously identified types of activity. CSIS is especially sensitive in distinguishing lawful protest and advocacy from potentially subversive actions. Even when an investigation is warranted, it is carried out with careful regard for the civil rights of those whose actions are being investigated. [*Canadian Security Intelligence Service Backgrounder*(February, 2005)]

 

ASHOK'S ASHES & ETHNIC COCOONING THROUGH ALL ETERNITY

Written by Paul Fromm

Wednesday, 29 July 2009 07:39

*Ashok's Ashes & Ethnic Cocooning Through All Eternity* "Two Muslim groups in Toronto say they're having a hard time finding land to build their own cemetery to honour their religious funeral customs. The* Toronto Muslim Cemeteries Corporation* and the* Islamic Society of North America* have spent more than a year shopping for tracts of land on the outskirts of Toronto, where an estimated *300,000 *Muslims live. ...* ISNA* member *Abul Haq Ingar* said 20-acre to 50-acre sites that are available are either prohibitively expensive or don't meet zoning requirements for a cemetery. He told the newspaper as many as 4,000 gravesites are needed around the city each year and that Muslim families have been burying their dead in non-denominational cemeteries. However, those sites don't guarantee adherence to Muslim beliefs. Under Islam, bodies must be buried within 24 hours of death and the head must point toward Mecca. Cremation is forbidden." (*United Press International*, July 15, 2009) On the pro-cremation side, "members of the South Asian community in Mississauga and across Ontario can now scatter the ashes of loved ones on Crown lands and waterways after [the Ontario legislature] unveiled new guidelines dealing with such rituals. But the Province's new rules, the first such guidelines anywhere in Canada, also mandate that those conducting such ceremonies — the practice is popular among Hindus, Sikhs and Tamils in the *GTA* — do so in environmentally responsible fashion. In releasing the cremated remains of loved ones at public parks or near rivers and lakes, some families leave behind environmentally unfriendly items such as plastic bags, metal statues and jewellery. ... Several years ago, residents living along the Credit River in Mississauga and Brampton voiced concerns about debris, including plastic statues, contaminating the river. ... According to a 2006 census, Peel is home to about *300,000 *South Asians, a large number of whom believe in cremation." (*Mississauga** News*, July 16, 2009) But as always, every concession only opens the door to further demands: "A section of the community, while welcoming the move, also urged the authorities to take a speedy decision on the *long-standing request to permit a purpose-built open-air crematorium alongside a waterway* ." (*South Asian Focus*, July 8, 2009) Oh please. No. Emissions from conventional crematoria contain pollutants ranging from particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxides, hydrogen chloride, heavy metals like cadmium, mercury and lead, as well as dioxins and furans. With the increase of cremations of people who've managed to hang onto heavily restored teeth into old age, mercury emissions are on the rise. (In the UK, cremation is reckoned responsible for 18% of total mercury emissions!) And since cremation is a combustion process of organic matter, dioxin and furans may be formed during the process due to incomplete combustion -- and we're speaking of super efficient modern crematoriums here. The amateur sort are so bad they are actually falling out of favour in India. "Nearly 20,000 Hindus die each day in this nation of 1 billion people. Each cremation requires an average of 650 pounds of wood. The result is denuded forests, rivers clogging up with human ashes or even body parts — and a wood trade said to be rife with corruption. ... Varanasi, the holy city on the Ganges 395 miles southeast of New Delhi, attracts hundreds of thousands of people who cremate their dead and pour the ashes into the river to ensure *moksha*, the final liberation of the soul from the endless cycle of reincarnation. The ashes of millions of dead have helped turn the water into a stinking, polluted swirl. Worse, since wood is scarce and expensive, bodies sometimes are thrown into the river half-burned. 'Apart from the ashes, this is an even bigger environmental hazard for the Ganges River,' said Sunita Narain, an activist with the Centre for Science and Environment in New Delhi" (*CBS News*, July 21, 2003) [image: See full size image]<http://www.abc.net.au/rn/intothemusic/galleries/2009/2477216/full/Manikarnika_Burning_Ghat.jpg> * * * * * **And there it is folks -- multiculturalism keeps immigrant communities replicating retrograde behaviours which their own countries are trying to evolve beyond. In the UK, Davender Kumar Ghai has been waging a one man campaign for open air cremation ghats for years. He immigrated to Britain from Uganda in 1958 -- that's 51 years ago, if anyone's interested. "The single-storey council house in Gosforth, a suburb of Newcastle upon Tyne, looks just like any other prefab in the quiet cul-de-sac. [Evidently an adherent of Kali,] Mr Ghai, dressed in simple woollens and sitting on a throne of sculpted skulls, explained .... Many Hindus believe that mechanical cremations lead to akal mrtyu (a bad death), where the soul is forced to mingle with other souls because it has not been able to escape. 'Open-air cremations are our birthright and our religious right,' explained Mr Ghai. 'The soul has to be released from the skull and allowed to go straight up into the air. Muslims and Jews have been given their own graveyards, they have been allowed to deal with their dead according to their religious needs, but Hindus have been ignored.' [In 2007, Mr. Ghai was turned down by Newcastle council and took his cause to the High Court, claiming his human rights had been trampled. Mr. Ghai lost again in May this year when the High Court decided in favour of health and hygiene. Or maybe we're just too hopelessly backward.] Other supporters believe resistance to the open-air cremations is purely conceptual. 'In the Abrahamic faiths fire is something you associate with hell,' said Dr Anand, one of Mr Ghai's followers who recently lost his son and was deeply upset about having to cremate his body in a crematorium. '[Fire] is seen as a punishment and I think that's why many Westerners prefer not to see the actual cremation. But for us fire is something pure; it cleanses and renews…..' One of the difficulties Mr Ghai's followers face is resistance from leaders within their own community. Sikh and Hindu faith groups have been reluctant to show their support for his legal battle. The Hindu Academy has called open-air cremations an 'antiquated practice.'" (The Independent, October 14, 2008)** * ** *This article appears in the July, 2009 issue of the CANADIAN IMMIGRATION HOTLINE. Published monthly, the CANADIAN IMMIGRATION HOTLINE is available by subscription for $30 per year. You can subscribe by sending a cheque or VISA number and expiry date to CANADIAN IMMIGRATION HOTLINE, P.O. Box 332, Rexdale, ON., M9W 5L3.]*

 

THE RISING TOLL OF SHARIA

Written by Paul Fromm

Tuesday, 28 July 2009 08:39

*The Rising Toll Of Sharia* "*Zainab Shafii*, 19, and her two sisters *Sahar*, 17, and *Geeti,*13, were found dead inside a car submerged in three feet of water northeast of Kingston on June 30. *Rona Amir Mohammed*, 52, was also found dead in the car. Police confirmed that Rona Amir Mohammed was married to *Mohammed Shafii*, the girls' father. Shafii is *also married* to *Tooba Mohamad Yahya *, one of the three murder suspects. Both marriages are believed to have taken place in Afghanistan. [The car] was discovered submerged in the *Rideau Canal* on June 30, 2009, at around 9:30 a.m. It was in front of the northernmost lock wall of the *Kingston Mills Locks*. The police learned from the licence plate that the car was from Quebec and was registered to *Mohammad Shafii*. At around 12:30 p.m., the same day Shafii showed up at Kingston police headquarters to report that his *Sentra *was missing,, along with three of his daughters and *Rona Mohammad*, whom he described as *his cousin *. In actuality ,she is his first wife, said Inspector *Brian Begbie*. [Given that consanguineous marriage is the norm within the Islamic world, it is entirely possible she was both wife and cousin.] When he reported the disappearance, Shafii was accompanied by his second wife and their oldest son *Hamed Mohammad-Shafii*. [Police would subsequently discover that son Hamed had driven the second car home to Montreal on some unspecified errand sometime during the night and returned next morning to deliver the apparently distraught parents to the police.] While they were at police headquarters, all three were informed of the discovery that had been made at the locks. It was then that the three began to claim that Zainab often liked to take the car out for a drive without permission. [It must have seemed like an odd time for all three to stress how 'disobedient' the eldest daughter was in all things.] Begbie said investigators now have evidence that places both the Sentra and another family car [a *Lexus*, if you please] at the locks before the Sentra was reported as missing. They also have evidence that all three murder suspects were at the locks as well. The Kingston police refused to divulge how the four victims were killed. All three suspects were arrested in Montreal on Wednesday. The police denied rumours that all three were arrested as they were heading to the *Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport*. They did say however that one of the suspects appeared to be preparing to flee to another country." (*Montreal Gazette*, July 23, 2009) The car "would have had to traverse numerous obstacles, including a locked gate and stone moorings, to make it into the water. However, witnesses said there were no skid marks. ... One relative said that during the funeral about a week after the incident, the father, Mohammed, was overcome and fell down. An ambulance was called." (*Toronto Star*, July 23, 2009) Yes. Poor Daddy. The family, Afghani by way of Dubai, entered Canada two years and are described as "not particularly conservative." The police have refused to use the term honour killing, nor will they specify cause of death. "*Jamal Kakar*, executive director of the *Afghan Association of Ontario*, said arrests in the Shafia case have 'shocked' Canada's approximately 120,000 strong Afghan community. 'It's really unbelievable to me,' he said Thursday, noting colleagues are 'very disappointed and very saddened' by what's happened. *He said culture shock is a very real problem for new immigrants and that it's not altogether uncommon for situations to become violent*. Organizations like his assist families with the transition, provide mediation and help newcomers understand the rules of their adopted country. He's calling on the government to invest more into services and resources for new immigrants so that things like honour killings won't happen." (*Canadian Press*, July 23, 2009) Oh right, it's *our* fault in failing to give organizations like his more* *funding. How about this? You enter Canada and even before we set you up with health care and other benefits, we make it quite clear -- should you ever feel inclined to rub out surplus female relatives, you go to jail -- after which you are removed to your country of origin regardless what's wrong with it. Well, dream on, Daddy could be looking at a sweet payday. Mohammed "could be compensated for his losses by [Quebec's] no fault insurance programme. So, while he's a father accused of the premeditated murders of his daughters, in the eyes of the province's no fault insurance programme, he's also a victim -- a man who lost his loved ones in a tragic accident. 'Notwithstanding his contribution to these deaths, even if he's finally convicted for the four crimes, for the four deaths, he is allowed to receive this compensation,' former *Justice Minister Marc Bellemare *tells *CJAD News*. Shafia could collect more than 200 thousand dollars in compensation from the *SAAQ* - the Quebec automobile insurance board -- for the deaths of his daughters and first wife." (*CJAD*, July 27, 2009) Mohammed was building a $900,000 house and this fact raises questions about whether there might be a financial motive for the killings. Zainab was is disfavour for being rebellious: 'The parents didn't like that she should marry a Pakistani boy without money or wealth. They didn't want it to be seen by society or other Afghans," Wali Abdali, the first wife's relative who lives in France. [Are there any Afghanis still living in Afghanistan?] ( *Globe and Mail*, July 25, 2009) *Tooba Mohamad Yayha* hated the first wife, but the killing of the other two daughters seems inexplicable. The insurance money may be the motive. What a jolly family! *Christie Blatchford *explains: Rona, "wife No 1 couldn;'t have any children. So, he [Mohammad Shafi] found the yonger Ms Yahya, married her and got her pregnant at least seven times. What a joy it must have been for the barren Ms Mohammad, faced with the offspring of her fertile rival every day -- and to be introduced, at least in Canadian society, as her husband's 'cousin.' And how lovely for Ms Yahya, seeing the old boy sneaking off to have it on with his first love now and then." (*Globe and Mail,* July 24, 2009) Meanwhile, 16 miles down the road, *sharia* would gather in three more Moslem females: "All three members of a Toronto family pulled unconscious from a swimming pool in a Gananoque hotel over the weekend are now dead. *Naila Yasmin*, 43, was found unconscious in the indoor pool on Saturday along with her two daughters who were 11 and 14 years old. Witnesses told police they initially saw the mom on the pool deck, supervising her children. Police say their investigation shows that the three were not strong swimmers. [According to the father, 'they probably didn't even know what a swimming pool was.'] When someone else passed by, they saw the three submerged in the pool's deep end, which has about two metres of water. All three were without vital signs when paramedics arrived at the *Best Western Country Squire Resort*. Paramedics performed *CPR* for about 30 minutes before transporting the family to hospital. Naila died Sunday, with her older daughter *Kinza Kaianad* succumbing on Monday. *Sunaila Kaianad*, the youngest, died Tuesday afternoon. Yasmin's husband and the couple's two sons were having breakfast at the hotel at the time of the accident. Police are investigating [but in this case] foul play is not suspected." (*CTV*, July 21, 2009) Pity *sharia* puts swimming instruction beyond the reach of observant females. The family immigrated from Pakistan seven years ago. ** *[This article appears in the July, 2009 issue of the CANADIAN IMMIGRATION HOTLINE. Published monthly, the CANADIAN IMMIGRATION HOTLINE is available by subscription for $30 per year. You can subscribe by sending a cheque or VISA number and expiry date to CANADIAN IMMIGRATION HOTLINE, P.O. Box 332, Rexdale, ON., M9W 5L3.]*