Galloway blocked from entering Canada?

[major.tom]

source

Updated Thu. Mar. 26 2009 8:00 AM ET

The Canadian Press

OTTAWA -- The Jewish Defence League of Canada is taking credit for lighting the spark that ultimately burned a British politician's plans to enter the country.

The organization advised the federal government early last week about the impending speaking tour of George Galloway, the controversial British MP who has been a bitter critic of Israel.

A letter - sent March 16 to Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, his cabinet colleague Peter Kent and opposition MPs - asked the government to keep that "hater" out of Canada.

"We asked that he not be allowed in," said Meir Weinstein, national director of the Jewish Defence League of Canada.

"Whether or not that had an effect on anyone - well, he's not in."

Weinstein said the letter "lit a fire" under other Jewish community leaders to protest the visit, to contact Canadian politicians, and write to newspapers about Galloway.

Four days later, Kenney's office confirmed the British MP would not be allowed into the country.

The government's opponents have accused it of political interference and launched two cases in Federal Court over a ban they say has no legal justification.

Kenney's office swatted away suggestions it was directly involved.

A spokesman said he first heard about Galloway's visit from the Defence League letter, and contacted departmental communications staff at Citizenship and Immigration to prepare media lines.

Kenney stressed that his political staff never contacted the Canada Border Services Agency - which made the call that the veteran politician was inadmissible under national-security grounds.

"Neither I nor my office have been in direct touch with CBSA officials about it," Kenney said in an interview.

"But the public servants in both ministries do correspond on a daily basis - on hundreds of files like this."

Officials in various departments did liaise with each other over the course of the week.

Kenney was informed March 17 of the CBSA decision. He decided he wouldn't use his extraordinary powers to overturn the ban. Finally, Canadian diplomats in London sent the five-time MP a letter late March 20 declaring him inadmissible.

British media were already on to the story. The previous day, Galloway's office had received a verbal warning of the Canadian government's decision.

Kenney spokesman Alykhan Velshi - who had begun preparing media lines on Galloway with departmental staff several days earlier - was suddenly fielding phone calls from the British press.

He sent them scurrying to their dictionaries with a memorable slag on Galloway as an "infandous street-corner Cromwell."

Galloway's supporters say the ban has no legal justification and is a politically motivated attack on free speech.

They say the Conservative government concocted an allegation that Galloway supports terrorism simply because they disagree with his pro-Palestinian views.

Lawyers for the Scottish-born MP are filing two separate motions in Federal Court: a request for a judicial review of the government's decision; and a demand for an immediate injunction overturning it.

They say the full judicial review could take months, while the injunction would allow Galloway to enter Canada next week for a four-day speaking tour in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal.

One of his lawyers told a Parliament Hill news conference that the government has distorted the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to suit its political purposes.

"The act is being interpreted to restrict certain opinions and voices," said Jamie Liew. "This is a dangerous precedent in terms of how we grant access.

"The decision by the government is rare and unprecedented. It's stretching the interpretation to include humanitarian aid - or activities including humanitarian aid - being described as terrorist activity.

"The legal team is challenging that notion."

The government says Galloway supported the terrorist group Hamas when he led a convoy to help Palestinians following the recent Israeli bombing of Gaza.

Galloway's supporters say the convoy included clothing, diapers, medical supplies, and $45,000 in relief money that he handed to the elected Hamas government.

Hamas is listed as a terrorist organization in Canada.

The Canadian government says the move to bar Galloway was based on the law - not politics.

Velshi said the CBSA informed Kenney's office that - according to Section 34.1 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act - Galloway's material support for Hamas rendered him inadmissible.

That legislation bars entry to anyone "engaging in terrorism," or "being a member of a (terrorist) organization"

Galloway's supporters call that absurd.

One of the organizers of his speaking tour said Galloway has never expressed support for terrorism and merely wanted to help Gaza's suffering civilians.

"He was very clear that this is not about supporting Hamas," said James Clark, who has been planning Galloway's visit.

"This is about providing humanitarian relief to the people of Gaza. Canada . . . remains the only country in the world that is interpreting this gesture as a terrorist act.

"There are grounds for us to challenge this legally and politically."

Kenney said he occasionally uses his power to overrule CBSA security assessments but will not do so in this case.

Galloway is currently on a speaking tour in the U.S. and has suggested he'll still try entering Canada. His supporters plan to meet him at the border.

Amazingly, the final decision in a case that has involved several government offices, two national Parliaments, and drawn media attention on both sides of the Atlantic, will belong to one person.

A uniformed border guard.

"(People trying to enter) have an interview with a CBSA officer," Kenney said.

"Someone who has been flagged with a preliminary assessment of inadmissibility is obviously going to get bigger scrutiny.

"But that border officer . . . makes what's called a fresh decision. That border officer looks at all the information and makes a decision on admissibility."

[faceless]

I've been thinking about this, if they did have any effect on the decision then surely it shows that the CBSA is basically clueless?

[faceless]

Pictures from last night's appearance at PSU.

photos by http://shawnduffy.com/

[faceless]

[nekokate]

Interesting that GG speaks of the guy on Channel 4 news as a supporter of vicious thugs, etc, but he didn't think to mention that at the time, to his face. Did he find this out later, from research? Or is it an unqualified statement?

[luke]

according to the fbi;

In its report, Terrorism 2000/2001, the FBI referred to the JDL as a "violent extremist Jewish organization" and stated that the FBI was responsible for thwarting at least one of its terrorist acts.[4] The National Consortium for the Study of Terror and Responses to Terrorism states that, during the JDL's first two decades of activity, it was an "active terrorist organization."[2]

Mary Doran, an FBI agent, described the JDL in a 2004 Congressional testimony as "a proscribed terrorist group".[21] According to the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs,

In a 1986 study of domestic terrorism, the Department of Energy concluded: "For more than a decade, the Jewish Defense League (JDL) has been one of the most active terrorist groups in the United States....Since 1968, JDL operations have killed 7 persons and wounded at least 22. (Department of Energy, Terrorism in the United States and the Potential Threat to Nuclear Facilities, R-3351-DOE, January 1986, pp. 11-16)[7]

[major.tom]

source

Updated Thu. Mar. 26 2009 7:11 PM ET

The Canadian Press

OTTAWA -- A British MP barred from Canada is considering suing the federal government for having branded him a terrorist.

Lawyers for George Galloway say he has contacted civil litigation attorneys and been advised that he could win financial damages in a defamation suit.

The Harper government says the five-time MP is inadmissible to Canada because he engaged in terrorism and was a member of a group that engaged in terrorism.

That charge is apparently based on the fact that Galloway delivered humanitarian goods to war-torn Gaza and gave $45,000 to the Hamas government.

Hamas is a banned terrorist organization in Canada.

Galloway's lawyers are already challenging the entry ban in Federal Court, and they say he has also spoken with other attorneys about a civil suit.

"I know for a fact that he had consulted with lawyers and they told him he has grounds," said Hadayt Nazami, a Toronto lawyer on Galloway's legal team.

Galloway has won at least two defamation suits in the past.

A spokesman for Galloway said lawyers are "absolutely" working on a defamation case, and now trying to establish whether the government could defend itself by invoking privilege.

The federal government advised Galloway in a letter last week that he could not enter Canada because he violated provisions 34.1 (c) and 34.1 (f) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

That first provision says someone can be barred from Canada for "engaging in terrorism." The second says someone can be barred for "being a member of an organization" that engages in terrorism.

Galloway says he not only doesn't belong to Hamas, but he wouldn't even support its political faction if he could vote in Palestinian elections.

However, his opponents have pointed to his repeated, virulent criticisms of the Israeli state and cast him as anti-Jewish.

The Jewish Defamation League of Canada sent two cabinet ministers a letter last week declaring Galloway a "hater" and urging that he be kept out.

The next day, the Canada Border Services Agency declared Galloway would be inadmissible.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced the decision later in the week and said he would not use his ministerial power to overturn it. Kenney said he did not ask the CBSA to rule the way it did.

Galloway bristles at the accusation of anti-Semitism and last year successfully sued a London radio station for making the charge, forcing the station to shut down.

He also successfully sued -- and was awarded over $350,000 Cdn in damages from -- a London newspaper that accused him of profiting from the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq.

In policy debates, Galloway has frequently sided with Israel's most bitter enemies. But he says he's not anti-Jewish and, on his radio phone-in show, has chastised callers for making anti-Semitic remarks.

He was to visit Canada for a three-city speaking tour organized by anti-war activists. He is currently in the United States on a similar tour.

Galloway's supporters say he will still attempt to cross the border, likely on Monday.

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Yee haw! Let the lawsuits fly.

On its face, it may appear he's only challenging the Canadian government's ability to bar him. But a more fundamental question to which this speaks is whether governments can brand elected groups "terrorists" and then paint with the same brush anyone who refuses to play ball. This could produce some positive results.

And as a final pair of fingers to the cons in Ottawa, he could funnel the proceeds of any lawsuit back to Viva Palestina. Cheeky, but GG is not immune from such gestures.

[faceless]

If they really did call him a terrorist directly then they will be ripped to shreds by any fair jury, and considering the support I've seen for Galloway on Canadian sites over this whole affair (I'd say it's about 8:1 in favour of him), any court case would be a walkover.

[major.tom]

source

Prime Minister Stephen Harper holds a prayer book given to him by Rabbi Mendel Kaplan, left, during the grand opening of the Ernest Manson Lubavitch Centre in Thornhill, Ontario on Thursday, March 26, 2009.

Updated Thu. Mar. 26 2009 9:23 PM ET

The Canadian Press

THORNHILL, Ont -- Prime Minister Stephen Harper is urging all Canadians to confront what he calls a "rising tide of anti-Semitism" around the world.

Harper passionately reaffirmed his government's support for the state of Israel in a speech to hundreds of members of the Jewish community in the Toronto suburb of Thornhill.

Harper was interrupted by several standing ovations -- at the grand opening ceremony for a community centre.

Harper, who was joined by Conservative MP Peter Kent, who represents the area, urged all Canadians to "confront" anti-Semitism as a "moral evil."

He said the Conservatives have been taking continual leadership on that issue, including when Kent spoke out against recent anti-Semitic incidents on some university campuses.

The speech comes amid the government's refusal to allow British MP George Galloway from entering Canada, apparently because of links to Hamas.

The federal government says Galloway is inadmissible because he engaged in terrorism and was a member of a group that engaged in terrorism.

That charge is apparently based on the fact that Galloway delivered humanitarian goods to war-torn Gaza and gave $45,000 to the Hamas government.

Hamas is a banned terrorist organization in Canada.

Galloway's lawyers are challenging the entry ban and are considering a civil action.

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Sorry to spam this thread. But this article popped up below the earlier report.

It wouldn't be the 1st time a Canadian politician was sued for slander (or is it libel?) and lost. Several years back another member of the Conservative (formerly Reform) party Stockwell Day quipped that lawyers who defend those accused of child abuse were as bad as child abusers. He was sued and lost. Luckily for him, the Alberta government footed the bill because he was "acting in his capacity as an elected official."

[luke]

Terrorist organization advised Canadian government to ban MP George Galloway

An organization the FBI, the U.S. State Department and U.S. courts have branded a 'terrorist organization' has given advice to the Harper government that led Immigration Minister Jason Kenney to barring a British MP from Canada. The request from the Jewish Defense League (JDL) was positively received by the Conservative government.

A spokesman said Kenney first heard about British MP George Galloway's visit from a Jewish Defense League letter, and contacted departmental communications staff at Citizenship and Immigration to prepare media lines.

The Jewish Defense League, categorized by the FBI as a “right-wing Jewish terrorist group”, was founded by US ultra-Zionist Rabbi Meir Kahane in 1968. The Jewish Defense League (JDL) wrote to the Canadian government March 16 asking it to ban Galloway. Mr. Galloway is scheduled to speak in four Canadian cities from March 30 to April 2 on "Resisting War from Gaza to Kandahar".

In the late 1960s, Kahane also founded the Kach political party in Israel, which along with Kahane Chai (Kahane Lives) were declared terrorist organizations in 1994 by the Israeli Cabinet. Kahane was shot dead in a New York City hotel in 1990.

The US State Department designated the JDL’s Israeli affiliates, the Kahane Chai and the Kach as “foreign terrorist organizations” – a decision upheld by a US Appeals Court.

Kach member Baruch Goldstein massacred 29 Palestinians praying in the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron. The JDL is still active with Hebron’s Jewish settlers, most visibly remarkable for its hate graffiti such as: “Arabs to the Gas Chambers”.

In a 1986 study of domestic terrorism, the US Department of Energy concluded: “For more than a decade, the Jewish Defense League (JDL) has been one of the most active terrorist groups in the United States....Since 1968, JDL operations have killed 7 persons and wounded at least 22.”

In 2001, the JDL’s leader, Canadian Irv Rubin and member Earl Krugel were convicted of planning a terror attack in California against an Arab American congressman. Rubin was also accused of planning bombing attacks on Concordia University and California mosques. Krugel was murdered in prison, and Rubin died in prison allegedly by suicide. This appeared to spell the end of the JDL in North America.

According to The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs there exists a network of radical Zionist leaders in North America who currently serve as primary fundraisers for the outlawed Israeli terrorist group Kahane Chai. Some tried unsuccessfully to revive the JDL in the US.

The JDL resurfaces in fertile Canada

It is significant that the Conservative government for “national security” reasons bans outspoken anti-war critic and Palestinian supporter British MP George Galloway, while giving a known terrorist organization a free pass to operate in Canada and advise their policies. The Harper government is too connected to the security apparatus to be unaware of the Jewish Defense League’s terrorism designation. Perhaps the Conservative government is testing whether Canadians still care about their rights, or Canada’s policies in Afghanistan, the Middle East and inside Canadian boarders.

Canadian Jewish critics of Israel have noted the Harper government’s numerous unholy alliances to contain opponents of its Israel and Afghanistan policies. Certainly, the Conservatives' attacks on Muslims, Arabs and Palestinian supporters have provided a political terrain that is now fertile for the JDL to operate.

The Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) and its Canadian Jewish News (CJN) has positively received the JDL and reports on some of its activities. The CJN wrote March 20, 2009 “CJC commends government for denying George Galloway entry to Canada”. Last year CJC leader Bernie Farber’s opinion on the JDL was “they have the right to exist.”

The right wing Jewish organization the B’nai Brith and the JDL both targeted the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation (OSSTF) in 2007 to prevent them from debating a motion critical of Israel. The Canada Union of Public Employees (CUPE) is a currently a target by the JDL and other pro-Israel organizations for it's resolutions critical of Israel. Liberal aide Warren Kinsella appeared this week at a meeting organized by the JDL as a surprise guest. Other major news media fail to note the Jewish Defense League’s terrorist designation in their reports, but that is more likely due to ignorance.

In an interview this week on British Channel 4 TV with George Galloway, JDL leader Meir Weinstein threatened any Canadian who attended or supported Galloway’s presentation would be “monitored” by the Canadian government.

Scott Weinstein is a member of Independent Jewish Voices Canada.

from http://www.activistmagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=997&Itemid=143

[faceless]

Conrad Black: The magnificent absurdity of George Galloway
March 28, 2009

Jason Kenney is an excellent minister and MP. And I fully share his view that Canadians would happily be spared a visit from the egregious George Galloway. Yet I urge Jason Kenney not to deny Canadians the entertainment a Galloway visit would give them.

The gigantic and stentorian Scot, now an MP from East London — after the very indulgent Tony Blair expelled him from the British Labour Party for cavorting with and championing Saddam Hussein, and other exaltations of good judgment — is a Marxist (apart from when his own money is involved). In foreign affairs, he may never have seen a dictator he didn’t like, nor witnessed an action of a post-war Western government he approved of. Prior to being banned from entering Canada by government officials, Galloway had intended to speak about the “crime” of the Afghan War, and is already revelling in his martyrdom. He wrote in Britain’s Guardian newspaper on March 21 that being banned from Canada by such a “last-ditch, dead-ender of Bushism” as Citizenship Minister Jason Kenney is like being “told to sit up straight by the Hunchback of Notre Dame or lectured on due diligence by Conrad Black.” (In the same article, he shyly compared himself favourably to the great vocalist and actor Paul Robeson. Galloway is as loud, but not as sonorous. I have replied to him in the Guardian — in my informal capacity as its Florida correspondent.)

Flawed due diligence was (along with pedophilia, violating the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and complicity in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln) one of the few charges that lawless U.S. prosecutors have not unsuccessfully thrown at me. Given George Galloway’s frequent frenzied attacks on almost all aspects of U.S. official life, I was disappointed that he took any of the U.S. legal vendetta against me seriously. But it is an honour to be banished to the spires of Notre Dame in George Galloway’s chin-irrigating demonization, with Jason Kenney, Victor Hugo, and Charles Laughton (the Hunchback’s creator and most memorable simulator).

Galloway’s raving nonsense, of which the above is but a small sample, would quickly remind his listeners of why Canada is correct to be among those trying to reclaim Afghanistan from barbarous primitive despotism in what is already more the war of that “last ditch, dead-ender of Bushism,” President Obama, than it ever was his predecessor’s. George Galloway is magnificently absurd; a visit from him would long be remembered as an anthropological event, and banning him would be seen as weakness rather than strength. Mr. Kenney should reconsider his understandable first take on this.

Self-firing arquebuses such as George Galloway noisily come and go, but people of clear and reliable foresight in these days of upheaval are rare. One aspect of the current economic problems that has appalled me is how terribly and completely let down the United States has been by its leadership elites, corporate, political, regulatory, professional and academic economists and the financial media. Persevering readers will recall some of my 2008-era philippics about the US$800-billion current-account deficit, the trade imbalance with China and the potential black hole of hedge funds. I will admit that I knew nothing of the trillions of dollars of vulnerable real estate assets.

Paul Volcker, though he expressed some general concerns, and Larry Summers, weren’t warning anyone of this either. Nor was Warren Buffett, now such a ubiquitous media pundit one wonders if he is starting to drink his own bathwater. (No one disputes that Warren Buffett has had a brilliant career as an investor, financial strategist and manager and business personality, but in the last 15 months, he has probably lost more money than any other individual in the world. Doubtless he will recoup, but not by talking.)

It has been a little like Britain and France in the 1930s. The leaderships of those countries made terrible mistakes that imperilled civilization, but at least they had Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle, who led their countries through the crisis and back to greatness. When the U.S. northeastern establishment lost its nerve after the Vietnam debacle, Californians Ronald Reagan, George Shultz, Caspar Weinberger and others were there to pick up the torch and win the Cold War. Now there is no one.

But that is not quite true in Canada. Almost six years ago, I invited the redoubtable Anthony Smithson (Tony) Fell, long-time head of RBC Dominion Securities, to a Bilderberg meeting at Versailles, of about 140 prominent public and business figures, senior journalists and public policy intellectuals from North America and Europe. He said nothing at the general sessions for the first two days and then intervened to predict almost everything that has since afflicted the world’s economy: too little saving, a glut of housing and questionable mortgage debt in the United States, severe imbalances of money flows, inaction on oil imports, the torpor of Europe and serious uncertainties in Russia and China. He predicted a severe reversal, of the proportions that has occurred, culminating in deflation (which still seems unlikely because of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s wise inundation of the monetary base, an activity now sheltering under the splendid jargonistic parasol of “quantitative easing,” i.e. an expanded money supply).

Tony Fell is a pretty sober and businesslike man to have his name bandied about in such company and circumstances, and his remarks were received at Versailles with incredulity and a little bemusement. But in an eminent international forum with several central bankers, prominent lending bankers, finance ministers and senior politicians, including Stephen Harper (then the leader of the Opposition), Tony Fell was the only person who predicted the greatest international economic crisis in seventy years.

Not all prophets look and sound like casting-studio choices for the role, and Canadians tend not to be flamboyant when there are a lot of powerful Americans and Europeans around. I have known Tony Fell for 55 years and he has never been a scene-stealer. When I sent him an e-mail a couple of months ago reminding him of his prescience, he graciously replied, taking no credit for himself. But in the last 30 years, his economic and commercial opinions have almost always been proved accurate. Tony Fell almost always deserves, but has almost never sought, an audience.
National Post
cbletters@gmail.com

-----------------------

[faceless]

Government attempts to ban pro-Galloway submissions from court
Canwest News Service
March 28, 2009

TORONTO -- Supporters of British MP and outspoken antiwar crusader George Galloway say federal lawyers are now attempting to have their submissions in his case excluded from a federal court hearing in Toronto Sunday.

"The government's legal approach represents yet another attack on free speech in Canada," James Clark, one of the organizers of Galloway's speaking tour, said Saturday in a news release. "First, Mr. Kenney bans Mr. Galloway from Canada, restricting the rights of Canadians to hear his views. And now they're telling us we have no right to challenge the ban in the courts. What will Mr. Kenney try to ban next?"

The release said lawyers representing the ministries of Public Safety and Citizenship and Immigration have filed a 13-page motion to bar Canadian citizens who have submitted affidavits opposing Galloway's ban. "Trade union and student union leaders, professionals, and peace campaigners were among those who submitted affidavits," the release said.

The hearing is scheduled for Sunday at 11 a.m. at the Federal Court in Toronto. Galloway's lawyers are seeking an injunction to allow the British MP to enter Canada until a judicial review is heard. "We should all be alarmed by government attempts to block Canadian citizens from the legal challenge," Denis Lemelin, President of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, said in the news release. Next week, some of Galloway's supporters are also planning to lead a "solidarity caravan" to the Canada-U.S. border to protest the Canadian government's decision to deny Galloway entry to the country.

Under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, foreign nationals can be denied entry to Canada on national-security grounds for "engaging in terrorism." Galloway, an antiwar crusader and supporter of the Palestinian movement, recently led a humanitarian convoy to the Gaza Strip, where he donated money and supplies to the Hamas-led government. Hamas is on Canada's official list of terrorist organizations, making it an offence to "contribute" to Hamas activities, even indirectly.

-----------------

The Canadian government might well win the case, but at what cost to their reputation? Barring people from attending the case in this way is very damaging - they must simply not care about justice but about how they can manipulate the law, and if that's the case they shouldn't be allowed in government.

[modern]

Looks like this is stirring up so much animosity against the Canadian government, it could be enough to bring them down in the next elections. Galloway what did it!!!

As for Conrad - who cares what a crook has to say???

[faceless]

[faceless]

If you check THIS blog you can read the legal details of the court case.