As an immigrant to America, I adopted my new homeland’s chauvinism. I don’t care much about Canada, our overlooked freezing sister to the north. My friend Idris in Toronto gives me a hard time about this. However, thanks to him I now understand that the same Islamist challenges in the US play out in Canada too. And with their own Canadian twist, eh.
The Big Story In Canada
Idris has been following the whole Siraj Wahhaj brouhaha we’ve been covering on the blog. It’s not as big a story in Canada. instead, people are buzzing about the Canadian government’s decision to revoke the charitable status the Ottawa Islamic Centre. To my surprise, the decision was based on hate speech by guest speakers hosted by the mosque.
The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) took action against the Ottawa Islamic Centre and Assalam Mosque following audits that raised concerns about its roster of guest speakers.
“Many of the views expressed by the organization’s speakers are misogynistic, homophobic, racist and/or promote violence,” the CRA Charities Branch wrote in a letter sent to the mosque president.
The CRA was also concerned that “radicalized individuals” had attended the mosque, one of whom, Ashton Larmond, is now imprisoned for attempting to join the so-called Islamic State.
The CRA documents singled out Abu Usamah At-thahabi, Bilal Philips, Hakkeem Quick and Saed Rageah — all of whom had spoken at the Ottawa mosque one or more times.
According to the CRA, At-thahabi has called women deficient, said Christians and Jews were enemies, spoke about throwing homosexuals off a mountain and said those who left the Islamic faith should be killed.
A First In Canada
Idris says this is the first time he can remember where mosques are held accountable for hate speech by the government. One theory going around is that this is the Canadia’s pushback against the Saudis, part of their larger diplomatic dispute.
Double Standard?
Idris also points out that the many of the mosques in Canada host these speakers. They go on speaking tours all over Canada. Saed Rageah, one of the flagged speakers, runs his own Islamic center in Toronto. Strangely, the one mosque targeted by the Canadian government is the Somali one serving a poor community. The government spared Ottawa’s bigger and wealthier Salafi mosque (which has hosted many of the same speakers) . They probably have better political connections.
The Sirah Wahhaj Connection
” Siraj Wahhaj helped start the ‘revoked’ mosque in Ottawa” said Idris. This was news to me — a bombshell in fact. It’s the same Siraj Wahhaj featured on the news here in the US for the past two weeks.
“He came from Brooklyn to headline a fundraiser for the mosque back in the early 2000s” added Idris. “Since, he’s been back to Canada a bunch to ‘raise funds’ for various local charities.”
Was Wahhaj’s appearance at the mosque fundraisers what raised the attention of Canadian authorities? If so, it’s a remarkable connection between two seemingly separate stories out of New Mexico and Ottawa.