Canadian spies accuse bosses of Islamophobia, racism in lawsuit: campaign to combat Islamophobia

19 July 2017

By News Agencies

OTTAWA: Five agents and analysts at Canada’s spy service are suing their bosses with allegations of homophobia, racism and Islamophobia, the latest high-profile accusations of bad behavior to hit Canadian security forces.

The group of employees filed a $27.7 million lawsuit on Thursday against the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), saying they had been bullied for more than a decade.

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“CSIS is a workplace rife with discrimination, harassment, bullying and abuse of authority, in the which the tone set by management, namely to mock, abuse, humiliate and threaten employees, has permeated the workforce,” said the lawsuit.

Last November, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police offered an apology to female officers and civilian members and settled claims of harassment, discrimination and sexual abuse made in two long-running court cases.

The Canadian armed forces have experienced similar issues for years. In 2015, after an investigation uncovered widespread sexual misconduct and hostility towards minorities and women, the new chief of the defense staff said such behavior “must stop now.”

CSIS director David Vigneault said the agency took allegations of inappropriate behavior very seriously.

“CSIS does not tolerate harassment, discrimination or bullying under any circumstances,” he said in a statement on Friday, while declining to comment on the specific allegations.

CSIS, which employs 3,300 people, has suffered a number of problems since it was created in 1984. Last November, a court declared it had illegally kept data collected during investigations and threatened sanctions.

Of the five employees who are suing the agency, three are Muslim, one is gay and one is black.

The gay agent, who has a Muslim partner, stated his manager sent him an e-mail in 2015 that said “careful your Muslim in-laws don’t behead you in your sleep for being homo.”

The group said superiors regularly made derogatory comments, including that all Muslims were “blood thirsty murderers” or ‘terrorists.’

Richard Fadden, who served as head of CSIS from 2009 to 2013, said he had not had the sense the agency suffered from such problems when he was in charge.

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“We could not generalise that all Muslims, or all members of any group, were potential terrorists because we had to identify the real terrorists,” he said in a phone interview.

“If some of the allegations are true they need to be dealt with quickly.”

The opposition New Democrats called for an immediate investigation, citing potential concerns for Canada’s national security.

Boston launches poster campaign to combat Islamophobia: group launches cellphone app to report hate crimes

Boston has launched a new public service campaign to fight Islamophobia by offering the public ways to address aggression toward others because of their appearance or beliefs.

The campaign launched Monday involves 50 posters that provide a step-by-step guide to handling when someone is being harassed. They will be posted on bus stop benches and other public places around the city.

Titled “What to do if you are witnessing Islamophobic harassment,” the posters encourage people to engage with the person who is being targeted and to draw attention away from the harasser. The technique is called “non-complementary behavior,” and is intended to disempower an aggressive person by countering their expectations.

“These posters are one tool we have to send the message that all are welcome in Boston,” Mayor Marty Walsh said. “Education is key to fighting intolerance, and these posters share a simple strategy for engaging with those around you.”

The city’s Islamic community lauded the campaign.

“We encourage all of our fellow Bostonians to apply the approach in these posters to anyone targeted — whether Muslim, Latino or otherwise,” said Suzan El-Rayess, civic engagement director at the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center.

San Francisco has a similar campaign. Thea Colman, whose sister had worked with San Francisco’s Bay Area Rapid Transit to have posters installed throughout that system, approached Walsh’s office.

The posters, designed by French artist Maeril, will stay up for six months.

US Muslim group launches cellphone app to report hate crimes

Hoping to get an accurate count of anti-Muslim hate crimes in the United States, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on Friday launched a mobile app allowing victims to report bias incidents.

The group launched its Making Democracy Work for Everyone app a month after it reported a 44 per cent surge in the number of hate crimes reported by US Muslims last year. Concerned that the 260 hate crimes CAIR learned of last year represent just a fraction of the actual total, the group intends the app to increase reporting.

“In a moment of trauma, you’re not thinking that I need to go online and enter something, but your phone will always be in your hand,” said Corey Saylor, who runs the group’s anti-Islamophobia efforts.

The application allows a user to file a description of an alleged incident, which CAIR staff will then investigate. If the group concludes the incident was the result religious bias, it will include it in its reporting, and if it believes the incident was criminal, it will share the details with local police.

The app offers advice about what rights are protected by the US Constitution and contains contact information for CAIR’s national headquarters in Washington and chapters nationwide.

The group this year resumed tracking anti-Muslim incidents, following a surge in bias cases last year. While the group saw an increase in anti-Muslim incidents prior to Donald Trump’s stunning rise in last year’s presidential primaries and November election victory, it said the acceleration in bias incidents was due in part to Trump’s focus on militant groups and anti-immigrant rhetoric.

Trump has said his policies do not reflect religious discrimination but rather efforts to improve national security, following a series of attacks.

It is not the first time a US advocacy group has used an app to try to track bias incidents. The Sikh Coalition Organization launched a similar app in 2012 to report bias incidents in US airports. 

©  EsinIslam.Com

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