Oppose Use of the “Terrorist Threat” to Attack the Rights of the People
On the weekend of June 3-4 ten adults and five
teenagers alleged to be an “al Qaeda-inspired terrorist group” were arrested by Toronto
police and the RCMP. Police claimed that two other adults who had previously
been arrested for attempting to smuggle guns into Canada
from the United States
were also connected to the group. The formal charges against the 17 individuals
include conspiracy to carry out a terrorist activity, training for terrorist
purposes, bomb-making and illegally importing guns and ammunition. The
individuals have apparently been under police surveillance for the past two
years.
A police synopsis of the allegations against the
individuals claims that the group intended to blow up a number of Toronto buildings,
including the Toronto Stock Exchange, and discussed taking over the Parliament
buildings and beheading Prime Minister Stephen Harper. It is also alleged that
the group tried to buy three tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer to make bombs,
although there are conflicting reports as to whether or not the RCMP supplied
the fertilizer or just delivered it, substituting a harmless material en route. In any case, defence lawyers have cautioned
that police synopses are notoriously inaccurate and are often works of fiction,
so it remains to be seen how much of the information provided by police is
accurate and how much is merely playing to the media and to U.S. security
officials. It must be kept in mind that two years ago 26 Muslim men were
arrested supposedly as part of “an Al Qaeda sleeper cell”, but the only charges
ever laid against them consisted of minor immigration offenses.
The media has used the recent arrests to organize
racist attacks against an entire section of the Canadian people, describing the
defendants in dehumanizing terms, attributing their actions to “radical Islam”
and claiming that they were recruited through a particular mosque, despite
knowing virtually nothing about the individuals, their motivation or their
history. The media frenzy, including a torrent of racist letters to the editor
blaming the problem on an immigration policy that allows entry to people who do
not share “Canadian values”, emboldened some individuals to vandalize the largest
mosque in Toronto,
resulting in tens of thousands of dollars in damage.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Security Minister Stockwell Day and various state officials have been
pointing to the arrests as proof of the preparedness of the Canadian state to
deal with the threat of terrorism, as well as proof of the correctness of the
participation of Canadian military forces in Afghanistan. At the same time, they
have been quick to claim that the motivation of the individuals has nothing to
do with Canadian foreign policy but rather with their hatred for “Canadian
values” of freedom and democracy. Meanwhile, the response south of the border
has been mixed. While members of the Bush administration praised the Canadian
government, those members of the U.S. Congress who are pushing for the erection
of fences on America’s
borders used the arrests as proof that Canada is a breeding ground for
terrorist groups.
Canadians oppose all forms of terrorism, both
individual acts of terrorism, as well as state-organized acts of terror against
the rights of the people, against national minorities and against other
countries. However, an equal or greater danger to the Canadian people is posed
by those, such as Harper and Day, who seek to exploit the arrests to justify
both the increasing erosion of rights of the Canadian people as well as the
increasing militarization of Canada’s
foreign policy.