{"id":7613,"date":"2014-01-30T16:12:09","date_gmt":"2014-01-30T16:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/?p=7613"},"modified":"2014-01-30T16:12:09","modified_gmt":"2014-01-30T16:12:09","slug":"muslim-group-demands-apology-from-stephen-harper-and-spokesman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/muslim-group-demands-apology-from-stephen-harper-and-spokesman\/","title":{"rendered":"Muslim group demands apology from Stephen Harper and spokesman"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A major Canadian Muslim group is demanding an apology from Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his chief spokesman for a comment it says linked the organization to a terrorist group.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The National Council of Canadian Muslims has filed a notice of libel in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice that accuses Jason MacDonald of acting maliciously when he made the comment earlier this month.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The council had criticized the inclusion of a controversial rabbi in Harper’s delegation that went to the Middle East\u00a0last week.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cRather than responding to our legitimate concerns, the PMO’s director of communications attacked us and attempted to smear our name by claiming NCCM had \u2018documented ties to a terrorist organization such as Hamas,\u2019\u201d Ihsaan Gardee, the council’s executive director, told a news conference Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing could be further from the truth. NCCM will not let the PMO’s false statement stand.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The council says MacDonald’s comment was a deliberate attempt to discredit the group and Harper is responsible for the words uttered by his spokesman.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The libel notice is the first step in what could become a formal lawsuit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Prime Minister’s Office responded tersely: \u201cAs this matter may be the subject of litigation, we have no further comment.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Further legal action is possible, said Nader Hassan, lawyer for the council.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWhether we go through with the lawsuit is going to depend on a number of factors, namely the quality, timing and content of the public apology and retraction,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Gardee said MacDonald’s comment was \u201ccategorically false, offensive and defamatory.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The libel notice said MacDonald’s statement was unwarranted.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe defamatory words were stated maliciously in order to discredit and insult an organization that did nothing other than exercise its constitutional right to freedom of expression to criticize a decision made by the prime minister,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cMr. MacDonald simply made up that statement in an effort to discredit NCCM and deflect its criticism of Mr. Harper.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The council describes itself as an independent, non-partisan, non-profit group which has worked for 14 years on human rights and civil liberties issues on behalf of Canadian Muslims.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A half-dozen other rights groups, including the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Canadian Association of University Teachers, have offered support to the Muslim group.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Farhat Rehman of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women said more than just the council was impacted by the remark.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThis defamation endangers the very valuable work of NCCM and goes against every Canadian democratic principle,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cFurther, it exposes the members of NCCM and the whole Muslim community to suspicion, hatred and bigotry.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A major Canadian Muslim group is demanding an apology from Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his chief spokesman for a comment it says linked the organization to a terrorist group. The National Council of Canadian Muslims has filed a notice of libel in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice that accuses Jason MacDonald of acting …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7614,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-islamic-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7613"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7615,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7613\/revisions\/7615"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}