@#$%&* The Israeli lobby in Canada has Canadian police and politicians by the gonads, and it's cutting the oxygen off to their brains and hearts. We have a long road ahead, but step by step we will get there. This fight - complaint process - is not over. Neither are other forms of education and change. Resist, persevere, endure, justice will come. Bernie Farber and his friends can't pull a blinder over people's eyes indefinately. The truth will come out eventually. We will keep speaking it to all people of conscience and influence.
Khaled can you please post the complaint process and full contact information again so we may encourage other individual complaints to file complaints, since the York Police Services Board is not dealing with the Ontario Committee for Fairness in Policing members' contributions to the complaint? Thanks a lot.
By the way, when's the next election?
"Silence is not golden, silence is complicity."
Susan.
Khaled Mouammar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2005 07:22:23 -0400 (EDT)
From: Khaled Mouammar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Board rejects complaint on chief's trip to Israel
To: Khaled Loutfi Mouammar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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| Sep. 1, 2005. 01:00 AM |
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Board rejects complaint on chief's trip to Israel
York officials say visit to see `best practices' was appropriate
Middle East conflict not an issue for board to deal with, chair says
MORGAN CAMPBELL
STAFF REPORTER
The talking lasted an hour, but the decision took less than a minute.
After seven speeches from Palestinian-Canadians, a response from the Canadian Jewish Congress, and warnings to both sides to stay on topic, York Region's police services board dismissed a complaint yesterday by a citizen over a trip Chief Armand La Barge made to Israel in March.
"The board was obvious in its decision," said board chair David Barrow. "We are in favour of professional development. The history of the conflict in the Middle East is not an issue the board has the purview to deal with."
Khaled Mouammar of Richmond Hill and several supporters addressed the board during its monthly public meeting in Newmarket. Mouammar filed a 54-page complaint in July.
La Barge was one of 30 Ontario politicians and police officials who toured Israel for a week in March. The trip, organized by the Canadian Jewish Congress, aimed to let participants learn "best practices" from Israeli police.
Community Safety Minister Monte Kwinter took part, as did outgoing Toronto police chief Julian Fantino and Chief Bill Blair, then Toronto's deputy chief. La Barge was York's sole representative on the trip.
Mouammar's complaint included 46 pages of "supporting documents." He cited United Nations and Amnesty International reports that said Israeli police practice racial profiling and torture. Mouammar filed a "policy complaint" against the board, arguing that it should not send officials on professional development trips to countries where police abuse human rights.
"(Israel) is not an example that should be emulated by law enforcement officials," Mouammar told the meeting.
His complaint is one of several he and community groups have lodged against local police services across Ontario, including Hamilton, Toronto and Ottawa, and against the OPP.
In his letter to York's board, he urged them to apologize to the local Arab and Muslim communities, pay back all public money spent on the trip, undergo sensitivity training and change their policy on official trips abroad.
Bernie Farber, CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress, countered that Mouammar's complaint focused more on politics than policing. "It is part of an organized campaign of political protest that does not have any serious policy ramifications," he told the meeting.
Barrow repeatedly had to remind Farber and other speakers to discuss board policy and not Middle East politics.
The board's quick, unanimous decision didn't surprise Mouammar.
"I didn't expect them to have read (my) report in detail," he said.
During a break in the meeting, La Barge said he would meet with members of the Arab and Muslim communities before taking a similar trip, but stood by his decision to travel in March.
"I certainly do support the mission," he said. "We insisted on the opportunity to meet with Palestinian officials as well. We didn't go in with the perspective of getting one side of the story."
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