Israel Matzav

Silencing dissent: Pro-Israel event canceled due to threats in...

This one is not about France or Britain or Sweden. Some of you might recall that in 2002, Binyamin Netanyahu, who was not the Prime Minister of Israel at the time, was prevented from speaking by violent 'protesters' at Concordia University in Montreal. Now, it's happened again. A pro-Israel program at Concordia has been canceled due to specific threats of violence.

CIJR and CAMERA were schedule to host Canadian MP Marc Garneau for a talk about Canada-Israel relations. When Montreal police alerted CIJR that there was an organized protest scheduled for outside of the event, CIJR moved to postpone the lecture indefinitely.
According to the Concordian, those who intended to attend the lecture were informed that it was canceled via Facebook.

Bradley Martin, CAMERA Fellow and Representative for Montreal and a student at Concordia, wrote on the event’s Facebook page at around noon on Jan. 12 announcing the talk had been cancelled because the Montreal Police had notified them of a violent protest was set to take place because of this event. At around 7 p.m., Martin posted to clarify what had happened, writing the following: “This morning, the Montreal Police informed CIJR that their cyber division detected a planned protest of the event. This protest was estimated to consist of about sixty demonstrators and considered to be hostile and violent. Under the circumstances, it was determined that the venue could not be secured properly and the safety of attendants would be at risk. It was therefore decided that the event would not take place as planned and be postponed indefinitely.”

In the post, Martin spoke for both organizations and said that they were very unhappy with the situation. “We are very disappointed and outraged about the fact that our rights, and the rights of an elected Member of Parliament, to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly have been compromised,” Martin wrote.

“Threats of violence and intimidation tactics are not acceptable behaviors and cannot be tolerated under any circumstances. We live in a beautiful country, where the freedom of speech and assembly are foundational to our way of life.”

Jack Kinsler, CIJR’s National Chairman, made the decision to cancel the event and told the Concordian that he felt the they had no choice but to cancel the event because the call from the police happened so soon before the talk was set to happen, and because they hadn’t organized the event themselves.

"On the very same day that 40 world leaders joined one million people in Paris, France in a march to honor the 17 innocent victims murdered by radical Islamists, the Montreal community was targeted by it's own extremists," Aviva Slomich, International Director of CAMERA on Campus told TruthRevolt. "CAMERA, along with the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research, had scheduled months in advance Canadian Member of Parliament Marc Garneau to speak on Canadian- Israeli Relations."

 Free speech anyone?

Labels: anti-Semitism, freedom of speech, Islamic terrorism, Montreal

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:15 AM