Friday, July 9, 2010

They Tried to Make Him Go to Rehab, He Said, "Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar"

Apparently, there's a good reason why the Attorney-General was so laggardly in agreeing to lay charges against vocal eliminationist Salman Hossain. The Globe and Mail reports that
Last year, Attorney-General Chris Bentley was asked to review a request by the Canadian Jewish Congress to examine the Web postings, but again no charges were laid.
Ministry spokesman Brendan Crawley said in an e-mail Thursday that there were several reasons Mr. Hossain was not charged.

Mr. Crawley said that in January, 2008, Mr. Hossain had removed all the comments and had not published similar public statements in more than a year. Mr. Hossain also had a rehabilitation program in place, Mr. Crawley said.

Under hate crime legislation, the attorney-general must consent to the charges.

“The activity of Mr. Hossain became more blatant,” said Vince Hawkes, OPP Deputy Commissioner.

Mr. Hawkes said setting up a website that promotes hate is very different than simply posting comments on other people's blogs or forums.
It is? Sez who and since when? Memo to Hossain clones: if you want to avoid hate speech charges, don't set up your own blog or forum. Post your thoughts on someone else's. According to the A-G, fora and blog comments are an oasis of free expression in our desert of state censorship.
 
Does the above strike you, as it does me, as one of the lamest explanations ever? Hossain may have held his tongue for a while, but anyone who has read his words will notice that their content and tenor remained pretty much the same "before" and "after" rehab. Speaking of which--exactly where did Hossain receive this therapy? Was it under the auspices of the Ceej? Was it in-patient treatment in a hospital? Did the A-G fly in Dr. Drew Pinsky from L.A. for a few sessions (Dr. Drew's new reality show: "Judenhass Rehab")? Or was it rather more amorphous and unofficial than that--say a couple of afternoons being forced to watch Yentl and Schindler's List?

Update: AM640's John Oakley just played the conversation he had with Hossain yesterday. Although the audio quality was poor, two things came through loud and clear: Hossain, who says he has renounced his Canadian citizenship, remains adamant about the insidious Zionist conspiracy; from the sound of his voice--surprisingly (at least, I was surprised) it had no trace of a Bangladeshi accent--he appears to be someone who was raised in Canada, if not born here.

Update: By coincidence, Harpoon Siddiqui weighed in on the issue of "dual citizenship" (Salman Hossain's status prior to his purported renunciation) in yesterday's Toronto Star. Siddiqui thinks such an arrangement is okey-dokey because
Not only is one in five Canadians foreign-born but second and third-generation Canadians are attached to their ancestral cultures and countries, or to nations because of religion or ideology.
A good reason to deny the likes of Hossain entry in the first place, no?

Update: What are the chances of Bangladesh, which has no extradition treaty with Canada, shipping Hossain's sorry keester back here? Let's say there's a snowball's shot in Hades of it happening. (The steps Canada would have to go through are outlined here.)

1 comment:

Admin said...

I plan to file a FOI request to get details on this 'rehab' program, who was running it and how the AG's office was monitoring it.. if there ever was a program in the first place.