'Unreasonably' Charged With Jihad

"The appellant takes the position that the decision to list it as a terrorist entity was unreasonable and that at law there were not reasonable grounds to believe that it should have been listed."
Yavar Hameed, lawyer representing International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy - Canada

The Canadian law in question, according to Mr. Hameed, referring to part of the Anti-Terrorism Act -- brought into law after the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York, Washington and Pennsylvania by jihadist Islamist terrorists -- stand in violation of the right to "life, liberty and security of the person" guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, he suggests.

IRFAN-Canada which works out of Muslim regions of the world, raising charitable operating funds within Canada, came under Canada Revenue Agency auditor scrutiny a decade ago. Concerns about its links to Hamas had alerted charities regulators. The charitable group signed an undertaking guaranteeing it was unaware groups it funded were associated with Hamas and it would "no longer put its resources at the disposition of organizations linked to Hamas".

And so, it was permitted under those circumstances, to retain its charitable status. A later audit discovered that between 2004 and 2009 IRFAN-Canada had funded "operating partners that were run by officials of Hamas, openly supported and provided funding to Hamas, or have been listed by various jurisdictions because of their support for Hamas or other terrorist entities."

So much for guarantees. It was revealed through the Charities Branch of the CRA that $15-million had been forwarded on to groups like the Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technology, controlled by Hamas, and which, despite the misleading and somewhat innocuous title "distributes financial assistance to the families of martyrs."

A relationship continued to be maintained with the Union of the Good which urges Muslims through its president Yusuf Qaradawi to arm themselves for war against Westerners, "corrupt Jews" and "pagan Hindus", also according to the Charities Branch of CRA. The Al-Khidmat Foundation, a branch of Jamaat-i-Islami, representing the political wing of the Pakistani militant group Hizbul Mujahideen, a financier itself of Hamas, received $50,000.

Its well-earned reputation with the CRA for poor record keeping and "deceptive and misleading fundraising" earned it no plaudits. Overtly it led its supporters to believe that its urgently solicited donations were to benefit high-profile disasters, but evidence that the funds were used for such purposes was completely absent.

In 2011 IRFAN-Canada's charity status was revoked, and it has contested that decision to the Federal Court of Appeal in a case that was scheduled to come before the court  tomorrow, but on April 24 the government added IRFAN-Canada to its official list of terrorist groups, effectively outlawing its presence within the country.

A "substantial" amount of evidence was seized last Monday by the RCMP Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams during searches of IRFAN-Canada's Mississauga-based headquarters, as well as at a residence in Montreal. IRFAN-Canada, according to Mr. Hameed's interventionist letter to the Federal Court, had been "incapacitated" by recent events.

Events which had "seriously and irreparably" prejudiced its case against its charity status revocation. Mr. Hameed requested the court to stay the proceedings until such time that he can succeed in having the group removed from the government's terrorist list.

In yet another spectacular demonstration of the ease with which jihadist groups which have infiltrated society manipulate Canada's laws to their advantage.