prof. rafiq islam responds to the vice-chancellor of the university of punjab outlining the background of the hall case at the 2 shares




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dear vice chancellor kamran:




salam from the east coast of canada.




thank you for taking the time to address this important issue regarding professor hall. like yourself, we all have been stunned by the voracity of dr. mahon<u+2019>s action. we used to think academics of certain reputation were above the reach of the tentacles of the establishment. we all hoped that a president would not resort to such a shameless pandering to a special interest group. however, b<u+2019>nai brith is not just a special interest group, it is perhaps the most vindictive organization that has ever received prominence in the west. allow me to elaborate.




you have correctly identified b<u+2019>nai brith to be <u+201c>behind this movement against shutting down free speech.<u+201d> while this statement is accurate, this phenomenon of targeting canadian universities and canadian society is not something that started now. not too long ago, it used to be branded as <u+2018>the hidden hand behind the hidden hand<u+2019>. during the harper era, this operation became a full-blown politically driven policy directive. the legislation that dr. mahon pathetically relies upon is a product of the harper era. harper had an extremist right-wing background and organizations like b<u+2019>nai brith have channelled that extremism to accomplish their hateful agenda. as early as the 1980s, i personally observed the spirit of this unholy union during my tenure as the president of muslim student association at the university of alberta. although harper didn<u+2019>t attend that university, we were not too far from the epicentre of the neo-conservatism movement that was brewing in canada. we fast-forward 30 years and come upon the type of events such as professor hall travesty that are products of that time. in fact, a web of such operations has been in full force for sometime in every aspect of canadian lives. only recently, we had this court ruling against canadian security intelligence service that was illegally spying on the public. this gangster-like involvement started in 2006, shortly after harper and the neocon came to power.




this is not to say that the public is protected from such unconscionable manoeuvring under a liberal government. in fact, the most notorious scandals involving government and human rights have erupted during the liberal regime. take for instance the case of omar khadr travesty .




more... creating an anti-muslim bias at a canadian university suspension of tenured professor lacks due diligence toxic mind control contaminates the public sphere irish human rights activists against freedom of speech? this case is something we had known, albeit too late to intervene at the time, and has been subsequently discredited publicly, even during the harper regime . the overwhelming theme was pointed out by then barely 16 year old, omar khadr, who said, <u+201c> you don<u+2019>t care about me <u+201d>. this is what defines the mindset of these people, bent on extremism over extremism to subdue public conscience.




the attack on professor hall was particularly toxic, but equally sinister attacks have taken place before. some decade ago, now defunct canadian islamic congress faced onslaught from all sides based on planted stories and baited manoeuvring. it was the largest muslim organization at a time canadian muslims became the largest religious minority. one particular episode involved b<u+2019>nai brith<u+2019>s planted story involving a university professor, who became the target of hate crime, while at the same time investigated for hate crime. if it wasn<u+2019>t for the humane and civic behaviour of the then university president (current governor general), david johnston, it would have become career threatening, if not life threatening event of the professor. top university personnel told me in private how the university faced pressure from <u+2018>donors<u+2019> that wanted that professor to disappear from the academic as well as public arena. the vendetta of this sort beggars belief even today. what we don<u+2019>t know is how many of these assaults on conscience took place and has been brewing.




clearly, some of the faithful members/sympathizers apply it publicly. such was the case of former professor turned politician, irwin cotler, who routinely infected the political arena with his prejudice and bias imported from the academia. then there are others, such as alan rock of university of ottawa that implanted manoeuvring of the political arena to the academia. a third group would be lorna marsden of york university that abused authority to run a vindictive agenda. yet, others have found every other way possible to target a person of conscience all the meanwhile covering up all trails so the victim cannot point a finger to the attacker and has no recourse to justice or self defence. it doesn<u+2019>t matter which category they belong to, they all produce scandals and drag down the good name of the academia while agencies that are supposed to be uphold the rights and dignity of the academia stand by and, for some cases, join in to the atrocity. this obscene attack on human rights and academic decency was once brought to light by late professor david noble, who ended up suing york university and canadian jewish congress jointly for conspiring against him. professor noble, a jew himself, faced the vilest of subjugation by organizations claiming to promote the rights of jews. that wasn<u+2019>t enough, dr. noble had to take on human rights commission and other agencies that stood by either in complicity or in collusion with the university authority. professor noble passed away before the lawsuit could see a day in court but soon university of ottawa would come in the picture with the infamous involvement of alan rock, a man without a phd that was at the helm of the university. mr. rock recently left the university<u+2014>but not before leaving the university<u+2019>s good name in the sewerage of politicking. what dr. mahon has done is bring this insidious modus operandi to yet another victim.




had i not have the misfortune of being on the wrong side of this modus operandi in the last 30 years, i would almost not understand what is at works here. in old days, such tactic would be unheard-of in a university. certainly, such things couldn<u+2019>t happen in a civilized country, i would exclaim.




so, what happened to professor hall is not new. what is new is the waking up of the general public. your letter reverberates the emotion of everyone with conscience that came to know about professor hall. people are waking up and are beginning to ask for justice. for instance, in the context of csis, an activist, jim comeau wrote, <u+201c>i would say it's time to jail the highest ranking csis to send a clear message to the rest of them, do something illegal, straight to prison. they damn well knew what they were doing was illegal.<u+201d>




the people<u+2019>s revulsion to such atrocious maligning of people of conscience was summed up in recent letter of julian assange, who wrote on us general election day (november 8, 2016):




<u+201c>yet, some weeks ago, in a tactic reminiscent of senator mccarthy and the red scare, wikileaks, green party candidate stein, glenn greenwald and clinton<u+2019>s main opponent were painted with a broad, red brush. the clinton campaign, when they were not spreading obvious untruths, pointed to unnamed sources or to speculative and vague statements from the intelligence community to suggest a nefarious allegiance with russia. the campaign was unable to invoke evidence about our publications<u+2014>because none exists.




in the end, those who have attempted to malign our groundbreaking work over the past four months seek to inhibit public understanding perhaps because it is embarrassing to them <u+2013> a reason for censorship the first amendment cannot tolerate. only unsuccessfully do they try to claim that our publications are inaccurate.<u+201d>




of course, recent events have allowed us to see this in the highest level of politics in the united states.




to anyone with an iota of conscience, there is no mystery here. people are making their voice clearly known. in the words of claire lanyado, <u+201c>i prefer unpredictable to criminal and evil.<u+201d> the problem is, when a president of university for whatever reason decides to use his position to serve the special interest group deliberately, there is no recourse for a professor to fight him/her. in other cases, if such atrocity were launched against a student (e.g. the case of freeman-maloy vs. lorna marsden of york university ), the student, an anti-zionist jew, could bring a lawsuit of misfeasance in public office with the help of yet another jewish lawyer, peter rosenthal (who himself is a university professor of mathematics). it was struck down by the court, and then it was overruled by the court of appeals. at the end, the university settled and dr. marsden, the embattled president was gone. the morale of this story is, the path to justice is steep, but for a professor, the path to justice is becoming impossible.




the irony is that it is the people harboring so much hate who tell others that they are committing hate crimes, just because they dare speak out against an atrocity. of course, they pick their targets that are perceived as weak and vulnerable and they attack the target only after making sure that the target cannot run to anyone for justice.




that<u+2019>s how extremism works.




 sincerely,




rafiq islam
the b'nai brith and the history of the mounting assault on academic freedom in canadian universities
rafiq