Robert Fisk, writing in The Independent, rightly questions the Canadian authorities denying British MP George Galloway entry into Canada. Of course, it's a slippery-slope when Governments ban something which they don't want their people to read, hear or see. But Galloway?
"How could the Canadian embassy in London have believed Mr Galloway's food and medicine shipment to Gaza, made with Israel's agreement, and its delivery to the Hamas government was a "terrorist" act, even if Stephen Harper's Canadian government regards Hamas as a "terrorist organisation".
Mr Galloway wasn't shipping guns and is touring the US with his anti-war, pro-Palestinian, non-terrorist speeches. "It's just not credible, Mr Kenney," Mr Galloway shouted, "to call a man touring the United States, playing to packed audiences... a terrorist or a security threat."
Quite so. After all, the US has lost thousands of soldiers in its "war on terror" in the Middle East. Canada's army in Afghanistan comprises barely 2,000 and has suffered fewer than 120 military casualties."
And:
"But there's a bigger issue. Canada helped the US send an innocent Canadian citizen, Mahar Arar, to "rendition" in Syria, where he was savagely tortured. Only a few days ago, another Canadian Muslim told me how he was whipped with steel cables in Damascus as his torturers read out questions from the Canadian embassy. Yet another Canadian Muslim citizen, Abousfian Abdelrazik, has been living in the reception of the US embassy in Khartoum for 10 months after Canadian agents asked the enormously democratic Sudanese government to imprison him for terrorism. Now the government won't let him come home unless he's taken off not a Canadian, but a UN "terrorist" list. Cromwellian isn't the word for it. But the mystery is this: how did so many millions of decent Canadians come to be ruled by such a weird government?"
But perhaps the last laugh is with Galloway - because the publicity of the ban and then harnessing technology [haven't the Canadians "discovered" the internet yet?] allowed Galloway to "broadcast" into Canada from New York.
Go, here, to Information Clearing House to either view or hear Galloway......
"How could the Canadian embassy in London have believed Mr Galloway's food and medicine shipment to Gaza, made with Israel's agreement, and its delivery to the Hamas government was a "terrorist" act, even if Stephen Harper's Canadian government regards Hamas as a "terrorist organisation".
Mr Galloway wasn't shipping guns and is touring the US with his anti-war, pro-Palestinian, non-terrorist speeches. "It's just not credible, Mr Kenney," Mr Galloway shouted, "to call a man touring the United States, playing to packed audiences... a terrorist or a security threat."
Quite so. After all, the US has lost thousands of soldiers in its "war on terror" in the Middle East. Canada's army in Afghanistan comprises barely 2,000 and has suffered fewer than 120 military casualties."
And:
"But there's a bigger issue. Canada helped the US send an innocent Canadian citizen, Mahar Arar, to "rendition" in Syria, where he was savagely tortured. Only a few days ago, another Canadian Muslim told me how he was whipped with steel cables in Damascus as his torturers read out questions from the Canadian embassy. Yet another Canadian Muslim citizen, Abousfian Abdelrazik, has been living in the reception of the US embassy in Khartoum for 10 months after Canadian agents asked the enormously democratic Sudanese government to imprison him for terrorism. Now the government won't let him come home unless he's taken off not a Canadian, but a UN "terrorist" list. Cromwellian isn't the word for it. But the mystery is this: how did so many millions of decent Canadians come to be ruled by such a weird government?"
But perhaps the last laugh is with Galloway - because the publicity of the ban and then harnessing technology [haven't the Canadians "discovered" the internet yet?] allowed Galloway to "broadcast" into Canada from New York.
Go, here, to Information Clearing House to either view or hear Galloway......
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