OTTAWA, Ontario: Canada’s public safety minister said Monday that US officials should stay out of his country’s domestic affairs, joining other Canadian leaders in pushing back against prominent Republicans who offered support for the protests of COVID-19 restrictions that have besieged downtown Ottawa for more than a week.
A day after the city declared a state of emergency, the mayor pleaded for almost 2,000 extra police officers to help quell the raucous nightly demonstrations staged by the so-called Freedom Truck Convoy, which has used hundreds of parked trucks to paralyze the Canadian capital’s business district. The protests have also infuriated people who live around downtown, including neighborhoods near Parliament Hill, the seat of the federal government.
“Individuals are trying to blockade our economy, our democracy, and our fellow citizens’ daily lives,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in an emergency debate in Parliament, while the protest continued outside. “It has to stop.”
Trudeau said everyone is tired of COVID-19 but this is not the way. He said the restrictions won’t last forever and noted that Canada has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world. “Canadians trust science,” Trudeau said.
“A few people shouting and waving swastikas does not define who Canadians are.”
Protests unfolded elsewhere too. A truck-convoy protest near the Ambassador Bridge, the busiest border crossing between Canada and the US, caused long traffic backups along the span from the Detroit side of the Detroit River. And in Alaska, more than 100 truck drivers rallied in support of their counterparts in Canada by driving the 10 miles from Anchorage to Eagle River, the Anchorage Daily News reported.
Many members of the GOP have made comments supporting the demonstrations, including former President Donald Trump, who called Trudeau a “far left lunatic” who has “destroyed Canada with insane COVID mandates.”
Protesters have said they will not leave until all vaccine mandates and COVID-19 restrictions are lifted. They also called for the removal of Trudeau’s government, though it is responsible for few of the restrictive measures, most of which were put in place by provincial governments.
Prominent Republicans including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton complained after crowdfunding site GoFundMe said it would refund the vast majority of the millions of dollars raised by demonstrators.
The site said it cut off funding for protest organizers after determining that their efforts violated the site’s terms of service by engaging in unlawful activity. Ontario Provincial Premier Doug Ford has called the protest an occupation.
In response, Paxton tweeted: “Patriotic Texans donated to Canadian truckers’ worthy cause.” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said on Fox News that “government doesn’t have the right to force you to comply to their arbitrary mandates.”
Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino shot back: “It is certainly not the concern of the Texas attorney general as to how we in Canada go about our daily lives in accordance with the rule of law.”
“We need to be vigilant about potential foreign interference ... Whatever statements may have been made by some foreign official are neither here nor there. We’re Canadian. We have our own set of laws. We will follow them,” Mendicino said.
In a letter to Trudeau and the public safety minister, Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson said “what was initially described as a peaceful protest has now turned into a siege of our downtown area” with 400 to 500 trucks. He asked for 1,800 additional police officers. That would nearly double the existing resources of the entire Ottawa Police Service, which has 2,100 police and civilian members.
Dominic LeBlanc, the minister of intergovernmental affairs, blamed the GOP interference for inciting disorderly conduct and helping to fund entities that are not respecting Canadian law. Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair said Paxton was wrong for commenting on it.
Bruce Heyman, a former US ambassador to Canada, said groups in the US need to stop funding and interfering in the domestic affairs of America’s neighbor.
On the street in front of Parliament Hill were thousands of signs ranging from “no more mandates” and “freedom of choice” to “truck you Trudeau” and some compared vaccine mandates to fascism.
Trudeau has called the protesters a “fringe,” but he faces calls by the opposition Conservative party to extend an “olive branch” to them. Some Conservative lawmakers, including one running to lead the party, have met and posted for pictures with them.
Embattled Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly called the demonstration an “unprecedented protest never seen in Canada” and acknowledged that authorities failed to plan for it to last more than three days.
LeBlanc said the prime minister has been clear that this is the civilian police force’s responsibility. Trudeau ruled out sending in the army last week.
Meanwhile, Ottawa police were investigating a fire at an apartment building that was apparently set by protesters. Matias Munoz said residents of the building south of Parliament Hill were already at their wits’ end Saturday night as the noise of the protest blared through their homes for the ninth night in a row.
When he came downstairs Sunday morning, Munoz said the carpet and floor were charred, and there were blackened fire-starter bricks strewn across the lobby.
Surveillance video showed two men light a package of the bricks in the lobby and tape or tie the front door handles together before leaving through a side door before dawn. The video also showed a different man entering the building and putting the fire out a short while later, Munoz said.
“Somebody trying to do something as insidious as taping the door shut so people can’t leave if there’s a fire in the main lobby — it’s terror, is what it is,″ Munoz said.
Ottawa police declined to release details, citing the ongoing investigation.
In other developments, Ontario Superior Court Justice Hugh McLean granted a 10-day injunction to prevent truckers parked on city streets in downtown Ottawa from honking their horns incessantly.
Canada pushes back against GOP support for COVID protests
https://arab.news/c2g56
Canada pushes back against GOP support for COVID protests
- Trudeau has called the protesters a “fringe,” but he faces calls by the opposition Conservative party to extend an “olive branch” to them
Belgium’s Ghent university severs ties with three Israeli institutions
Pro-Palestinian protesters in Ghent have been protesting against Israel’s military offensive in Gaza and have been occupying parts of the university since early this month.
The university’s rector, Rik Van de Walle, said in a statement that ties were being cut with Holon Institute of Technology, MIGAL Galilee Research Institute, and the Volcani Center, which carries out agricultural research.
“We currently assess these three partners as (very) problematic according to the Ghent University human rights test, in contrast to the positive evaluation we gave these partners at the start of our collaboration,” Van de Walle said.
Partnerships with MIGAL Galilee Research Institute and the Volcani Center “were no longer desirable” due to their affiliation with Israeli ministries, an investigation by the University of Ghent found, and collaboration with the Holon Institute “was problematic” because it provided material support to the army for actions in Gaza.
A spokesperson for the university said the move would affect four projects.
The three Israeli institutions did not immediately comment.
The protesters told Belgian broadcaster VRT they welcomed the decision but regarded it as only a first step. They said they would continue their occupation of parts of the university “until UGent breaks its ties with all Israeli institutions.”
The actions mirror those of students in the United States and elsewhere in Europe, calling for an immediate permanent ceasefire and for schools to cut financial ties with companies they say are profiting from what they regard as the oppression of Palestinians.
Muslim professionals quit ‘hostile’ France in silent brain drain
PARIS: After being knocked back at some 50 interviews for consulting jobs in France despite his ample qualifications, Muslim business school graduate Adam packed his bags and moved to a new life in Dubai.
“I feel much better here than in France,” the 32-year-old of North African descent told AFP.
“We’re all equal. You can have a boss who’s Indian, Arab or a French person,” he said.
“My religion is more accepted.”
Highly-qualified French citizens from Muslim backgrounds, often the children of immigrants, are leaving France in a quiet brain drain, seeking a new start abroad in cities like London, New York, Montreal or Dubai, according to a new study.
The authors of “France, you love it but you leave it”, published last month, said it was difficult to estimate exactly how many.
But they found that 71 percent of more than 1,000 people who responded to their survey circulated online had left in part because of racism and discrimination.
Adam, who asked that his surname not be used, told AFP his new job in the United Arab Emirates has given him fresh perspective.
In France “you need to work twice as hard when you come from certain minorities”, he said.
He said he was “extremely grateful” for his French education and missed his friends, family and the rich cultural life of the country where he grew up.
But he said he was glad to have quit its “Islamophobia” and “systemic racism” that meant he was stopped by police for no reason.
France has long been a country of immigration, including from its former colonies in North and West Africa.
But today the descendants of Muslim immigrants who came to France seeking a better future say they have been living in an increasingly hostile environment, especially after the attacks in Paris in 2015 that killed 130 people.
They say France’s particular form of secularism, which bans all religious symbols in public schools including headscarves and long robes, seems to disproportionately focus on the attire of Muslim women.
Another French Muslim, a 33-year-old tech employee of Moroccan descent, told AFP he and his pregnant wife were planning to emigrate to “a more peaceful society” in southeast Asia.
He said he would miss France’s “sublime” cuisine and the queues outside the bakeries.
But “we’re suffocating in France”, said the business school graduate with a five-figure monthly salary.
He described wanting to leave “this ambient gloom”, in which television news channels seem to target all Muslims as scapegoats.
The tech employee, who moved to Paris after growing up in its lower-income suburbs, said he has been living in the same block of flats for two years.
“But still they ask me what I’m doing inside my building,” he said.
“It’s so humiliating.”
“This constant humiliation is even more frustrating as I contribute very honestly to this society as someone with a high income who pays a lot of taxes,” he added.
A 1978 French law bans collecting data on a person’s race, ethnicity or religion, which makes it difficult to have broad statistics on discrimination.
But a young person “perceived as black or Arab” is 20 times more likely to face an identity check than the rest of the population, France’s rights ombudsman found in 2017.
The Observatory for Inequalities says that racism is on the decline in France, with 60 percent of French people declaring they are “not at all racist”.
But still, it adds, a job candidate with a French name has a 50 percent better chance of being called by an employer than one with a North African one.
A third professional, a 30-year-old Franco-Algerian with two masters degrees from top schools, told AFP he was leaving in June for a job in Dubai because France had become “complicated”.
The investment banker, the son of an Algerian cleaner who grew up within Paris, said he enjoyed his job, but he was starting to feel he had hit a “glass ceiling”
He also said he had felt French politics shift to the right in recent years.
“The atmosphere in France has really deteriorated,” he said, alluding to some pundits equating all people of his background to extremists or troublemakers from housing estates.
“Muslims are clearly second-class citizens,” he said.
Adam, the consultant, said more privileged French Muslims emigrating was just the “tiny visible part of the iceberg”.
“When we see France today, we’re broken,” he said.
North Korea fires ballistic missile, South Korea’s military says
- South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff did not immediately provide details of the projectile or its trajectory
- North Korea has launched a range of ballistic and cruise missiles as well as tactical rockets in recent months
SEOUL: North Korea fired a ballistic missile toward the sea off its east coast, South Korea’s military said on Friday.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff did not immediately provide details of the projectile or its trajectory.
North Korea has launched a range of ballistic and cruise missiles as well as tactical rockets in recent months, describing them as part of a program to upgrade its defensive capabilities.
Earlier on Friday, the powerful sister of North Korea leader Kim Jong Un said its tactical rockets were intended solely as a deterrent against South Korean military aggression, while denying that Pyongyang was exporting the weapons.
The missile launch comes at the same time as a visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin to the Chinese northeastern city of Harbin.
French police ‘neutralized’ armed person who tried to set fire to synagogue in Rouen — Darmanin
- The incident occurred early on Friday morning
PARIS: French police in Rouen shot dead an armed man who set fire to the city’s synagogue, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin and local officials said on Friday.
The incident occurred in central Rouen, 130 kilometers northwest of Paris, early on Friday morning, Darmanin said in a post on social network X.
The attacker’s identity and motive were still unclear. He was carrying a knife and iron bar, according to local authorities.
France hosts the Olympic Summer Games in two months and recently raised its alert status to the highest level against a complex geopolitical backdrop in the Middle East and Europe’s eastern flank.
Elie Korchia, the president of France’s Consistoire Central Jewish worshippers body, said police had “avoided another anti-Semitic tragedy.”
Regional broadcaster France 3 said fire fighters were on the site. The fire had been brought under control, a Rouen city hall official said.
Rouen’s mayor said the Normandy town was ‘battered and shocked’.
The city in 2016 was rocked by an attack later claimed by the Islamic State, when a priest was killed with a knife during service in town of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, in the southern part of Rouen’s urban agglomeration.
Suspected gunshots near Israeli embassy in Stockholm prompt police cordon
STOCKHOLM: Swedish police have detained several people and cordoned off an area in Stockholm after a patrol heard suspected gunshots, they said on Friday, with the Israeli embassy located in the closed-off area.
"A police patrol at Strandvagen in Stockholm heard bangs and suspected there had been a shooting," police said on their website, adding that the affected area lay between the capital's Djurgarden Bridge, its Nobel Park and the Oscar Church.
Several people have been detained and an investigation has been launched into a suspected serious weapons crime, they added.
"In connection with the ongoing forensic investigation, findings have been made that strengthen the suspicions that a shooting took place," police said on its website.
Reuters could not immediately reach police and the Israeli embassy for comment.
Swedish news agency TT said police declined to comment on whether there was a link between the incident and the Israeli embassy.
