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Written by: Marthad Umucyaba
The International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group (ICLMG), a coalition of 44 NGOs concerned with the effects of the “War on Terror”, has denounced Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network’s placement on the Terrorist Entities list by Canada. This comes part of ICLMG’s long-term campaign launched in 2002 against the Terrorist Entities list.
Canada opportunistically created the Terrorist Entities list a year after 9/11.
The Terrorist Entities List, active since 2001, makes a mockery of the so-called ‘universal values’, which Canada spread by colonising and committing genocide against entire nations upon the North American continent. The only question is whether there will be more or less voices calling out this hypocrisy in the future.
Samidoun’s placement on the list
On October 15 2024, after members of Samidoun had exercised their right to free speech in calling for the dissolution of Canada and in burning the flag, many Liberal and Conservative MPs, such as perennial Zionists Anthony Housefather and Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre, were in an uproar. An allegation of ‘“ties” to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) was established, based solely on their public political positions and the word of Israel.
The International Coordinator of Samidoun, Charlotte Kates, was even demonised for visiting the Islamic Republic of Iran and receiving a humanitarian award. All of this vilification occurred without a concrete paper trail of financing or explicit collaboration with the PFLP or any other ‘proscribed’ organisation in Palestine. However, the listing is generally arbitrary anyways, and isn’t necessarily based on anything that could be called “due process”.
Nevertheless, Canada did hesitate until now to label Samidoun as a terrorist organisation, fearing the implications. But the increasing pressure from Zionists, as well as the visual effect of the protests reinforcing the messaging from Iran and the Axis of Resistance compelled the government to take this step.
ICLMG opposition and its actions
The ICLMG, to its credit (or to its lethargy, depending on how you look at media and organisation response), on October 17, two days after the Samidoun placement on the “Terrorist Entities” list, denounced the listing and reiterated its longstanding calls for the complete abolition of the “Terrorist Entities” list. A petition was announced on the ICLMG site six days later, requesting supporters to sign the petitions and have them submitted in an open letter to the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Minister of Public Safety Dominic Leblanc, Minister of Justice Arif Varani, and the local Federal MP, depending on the supporter’s location.
The ICLMG noted the circular logic of the arbitrary persecution, as a terrorist entity designation is always done without due process, and due to the difficulty in finding financial support after the designation, also further restricts the right to be tried fairly:
“In the 24 hours since this announcement, there have already been calls on social media to label any individual attending an event, or associating with individuals linked to Samidoun, as terrorists or terrorism supporters.
Because it is illegal to support a listed entity in any way, including financially, it means that the organization cannot fundraise or pay a lawyer to mount a defense and challenge the terrorist listing in court. This renders it incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to be removed from the list, once again violating the right to a fair trial.”
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ICLMG Statement on Samidoun Terrorist Designation
The Terrorist Entities List and its origins
After 9/11, Canada seized the opportunity to establish a pretext to weaken anti-colonial organisations that opposed various NATO projects such as the ethnic cleansing plan in Palestine, and the resource extraction and theft in Colombia.
Groups that opposed ethnic cleansing in Palestine were listed as “terrorist entities”. Such examples of these groups are Hezbollah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Other anti-colonial groups around the world, such as Colombian groups Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) and Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), were also listed.
Underground CIA assets such as Al-Qaeda, the Three Percenters, et al., are regularly added to the list in order to give it some “legitimacy”, while strengthening the intelligence agencies’ leverage over these groups and forcing the members to integrate with the state, either subtly or overtly, as a condition for maintaining the strength of the organisations and maintaining a viable livelihood for the “proscribed” members.
Another expose on the falsehood of “Universal Free Speech”
Canada has already pushed the envelope of absurdity by putting security organisations of sovereign governments on the “Terrorist Entities” list, namely the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – Qods Force (IRGC-QF) of the Islamic Republic of Iran. That envelope has now become a comprehensive package which includes Samidoun.
When will the insanity end? When people understand the functional nature of the state, and why ‘universal values’ like ‘universal free speech’ are nothing more than a fiction. However, with explicitly anti-communist elements of the curriculum in Canada already implemented, this will be a bitter fight to wage.
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Marthad Shingiro Umucyaba (formerly referred to as Christian Shingiro) is a Rwandan-born naturalized Canadian expat. He is known for his participation in Communist/anti-imperialist national and international politics and is the radio show host of The Socially Radical Guitarist.
He is also a freelance web developer in Hong Kong, China, striving to provide “Socially Radical Web Design at a socially reasonable price”.
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