Two weeks ago, Hollywood liberal and all-around gorgeous good guy George Clooney hosted a glad-handing fundraising event that, according to the Patriot Act's broad provisions, should have landed him and fellow attendees Billy Crystal, Barbra Streisand, Tobey Maguire, and Robert Downey, Jr., behind bars for violating broadly designed material support for terrorism laws.
Twelve years ago, Mohamed Mahjoub became a victim of one of the most egregious legal measures that can be taken against a person in Canada, a security certificate. Since then, though he was never even charged with a crime, he faced seven years of detention followed by release with draconian conditions. Though his conditions of release were recently loosened somewhat, troubling questions remain about the entire security apparatus in which Mahjoub and others are ensnared.
The Shafia case is so unsettling that it seems to unleash the search for a single key to explain it. Then you could toss away other keys that don't work, and even lock the door to a recurrence. But I don't think that's the way to go.
For instance, people ask: Was it about honour killing or domestic violence? Yet honour killings are domestic violence. You lose something in understanding if you discard either category. And domestic violence is a case of violence in general. The same holds when you try to decide if the murders are social, cultural or religious. Religion and culture are social. Why choose?
Renowned philosopher, academic and political commentator Tariq Ramadan appeared at the Palais des Congres in Montreal on Sept. 8 to discuss the implications of the recent mass murders in Norway.
As the Islamic thinker and Oxford professor addressed the crowd of several hundred, it seemed as if there were just as many tourists in attendance as Montrealers for a presentation that coincided with the end of Islamic evening prayer held inside the hall.
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