"Religious Infiltration/Islamist Infiltration" in Quebec Public Schools

"Clearly there is a discomfort in intervening or discussing these religious questions very frankly and for me, this is not unrelated to the very Canadian anti-secularism discourse."

"[Quebec is facing a case of] ideological infiltration, anti-secularism and anti-Bill 21 activism."

"The federal government is truly the champion of defamation of Quebec's secularism, which is no stranger to the woke movement that presents secularism as a form of racism when it is actually a form of living together in peace."

"[Quebec must do more in terms of secularism in our schools to protect children] from all religious proselytism [and] ensure the duty of neutrality of teachers, which must be applied to all manifestations of religious beliefs, regardless of religion."

Parti Quebecois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon

 

"Obviously, if it comes out that there was a concerted effort to conspire, to impose your own religious values on others or on a public institution, of course that's unacceptable. But the report doesn't conclude that."

"Being visibly Muslim is seen somehow as threatening. That's a real social problem. And politicians should not be pandering or exacerbating fears around diversity."

Stephen Brown, CEO, National Council of Canadian Muslims 

"Our first concern must be the children. As a government, our first responsibility is to clean up this school and protect the children."

"There’s something very disturbing in this case, this attempt by a group of teachers to introduce Islamist religious concepts into a public school."

"In Quebec, we decided a long time ago to take religion out of public schools. We’ll never go back on that decision."

"We need all Quebecers to denounce these situations without fear of intimidation. The whole of Quebec must defend the choice of secularism in our public institutions. Let’s not be afraid."

Quebec Premier Francois Legault 

Eleven teachers at Bedford elementary school were suspended this past weekend for allegedly creating a toxic environment since 2016. (Ivanoh Demers/Radio-Canada

 

It appears that an untoward situation pertains; a group of teachers at a Montreal public elementary school has been ignoring the curriculum, turning instead to their conception of how subjects of their choosing should be taught to students in an education-hostile environment that they have transformed into an opportunity to teach students non-typical subjects with an Islamist bent, which has only recently been reported in the news, evidently because other teachers, along with students, have been intimidated to the point where they fear a violent backlash, restraining them from divulging the volatile and fraught situation.

The Quebec Ministry of Education published a report following a lengthy investigation, concluding that the dominant group of teachers was "mainly composed of people of Maghrebi origin", adding "although the majority clan is mainly composed of people of Maghrebi (North African) origin, people of other origins are also associated with it. Likewise, the minority clan is also partly composed of individuals of Maghrebi origin, including some of the strongest opposition to the majority clan." The group of problematic teachers are reported to frequent attendance at local mosque.

"The clans present different visions and understandings of education, pedagogy and relations with students", according to the report. One group of like ethnic/cultural/religious origins has protested against the majority group's educational ethos as inappropriate to their current setting in Montreal. The ruling clique aggressively pursues its own teaching methods and agenda separate and apart from the approved curricula. The result is a toxic, challenged environment, felt by the students and leading them to under-perform academically.

The situation runs counter to the State Secularism Act, known as Bill 21, adopted in 2019 by the National Assembly, to prohibit the wearing of religious symbols by those in positions of authority inclusive of teachers and principals of public elementary and secondary schools in the province. Montreal's Bedford School was the model identified as having a "toxic environment" which led to the Education Ministry's investigation and subsequent report on the situation.

Debates between teachers revolve around the use of foreign languages in common areas of public schools, acts of violence and humiliation against children while disciplining them, and opposing methodologies of teaching, which led to the suspension of eleven teachers during the time of the investigation. The report from the Quebec Ministry of Education points to a "dominant clan" comprised of North African teachers attempting to indoctrinate children while maintaining a "clan" dynamic among teaching staff, ongoing since 2017. 

The teaching of science, ethics and sex education was rejected by some teachers who instead used traditional rigid methods, some shouting at students as a form of discipline. A teacher was mentioned in the report in "an act of violence ... reported to the administration when a teacher allegedly closed the door to his classroom with a brutal gesture while one of his students had her fingers in the door frame". Rescued by another individual, from having her fingers crushed between the closing door and the door frame.

According to investigators, the local Muslim community exerted a "strong influence" within the Bedford school, where some teachers prayed in their free time in classrooms, performed ablutions in community bathrooms. Occasionally these performances were carried out in the presence of students. The spokesman for the National Council of Canadian Muslims states that should the politicians be unable to conclusively prove people are plotting to impose their ideology on a public institution prior to the completion of an independent investigation "it reeks of political opportunism".

It appears that other examples have emerged -- at Jewish schools and Catholic schools -- related to religious indoctrination. The difference, of course, being that these are schools independent of the public school system, with their own particular curricula. Students in attendance at parochial Jewish schools are there because their parents were interested in having them achieve an education comparable with that of the public schools, but overlaid with Judaic concepts and values. The same is true of the Catholic school system.

Parents of children attending public schools, particularly in a province that emphasizes secularism, anticipate that their children will receive an education compatible with a non-religious observance. It has been, in fact, some Muslim parents themselves, among others, who have been alarmed that their children are being exposed to a rigid form of Islamic overlay in the public system where teachers refuse to teach some of the subjects that will be elemental to a fully rounded education in Canadian society.

Controversially and ironically, it is in other provinces, particularly Ontario, where school boards and principals and teaching staff of some schools have contrived to have students exposed to Islam. More troubling has been the penchant for some among them to espouse distinctly un-Canadian views of championing Palestinian terrorist groups while demonizing the state of Israel, and in the process discriminating against Jewish students in a toxic mix of woke, DEI, Critical Race Theory and antisemitism.

Rally outside of the Toronto & District School Board headquarters on Yonge Street, Tuesday Sept. 24, 2024. Photo by Peter J. Thompson/National Post

"The issue here is how to manage our schools to make room for all families who have very different perspectives on this subject."

"And the only solution is to not let religion enter our school system."

"So I can't help but talk about religion in the school system."

Paul St-Pierre Plamondon

Who Was Thomas Matthew Crooks?

• 5:10 p.m. Crooks was first identified as a person of interest
• 5:30 p.m. Crooks was spotted with a rangefinder
• 5:52 p.m. Crooks was spotted on the roof by Secret Service
• 6:02 p.m. Trump takes the stage
• 6:12 p.m. Crooks fires first shots

"While Crooks was making his way to his shooting position, Secret Service agents were listening to radio traffic about a suspicious person police were looking for and heard local law enforcement talking about some sort of confrontation involving police, the sources said."

"Butler County Sheriff Michael T. Slupe told ABC News that he was informed by other law enforcement officials that a Butler Township police officer searching for the suspicious person was vaulted onto the AGR building's roof and briefly confronted the gunman, who turned his weapon to the officer, causing him to retreat back down. Shots rang out moments later."

ABC News

 

 Bit by excruciating bit, details are emerging about the Saturday evening shooting in the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump at the Butler, Pennsylvania election campaign rally, when 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks was identified as the shooter and as the FBI is laboriously investigating, while its specialists "continue to analyze his electronic devices". 

It was explained that the shooter's residence and vehicle were searched, and close to a hundred interviews took place, questioning law enforcement personnel, attendees at the rally, along with other witnesses to fine-comb sources for details of interest. Photos and videos shot at the scene are also being thoroughly reviewed.

 

Prior to the Saturday shooting Crooks went to a shooting range where he was a member and there he practised firing. He was known to have gone to Home Depot where he bought a ladder and 50 rounds of ammunition from Allegheny Arms and Gun Works in Bethel Park, Penn. He had with him a rifle bought by his father in 2013. Following his purchases, an hour's drive north took him to the rally site.

 

An "Improvised explosive device" was found on inspection of his car trunk, a Hyundai Sonata. An unidentified official described the device as having been connected to a receiver with wires, and a remote control detonator was in Crooks' possession. "That suggests the gunman may have been planning to set off an explosion remotely, and investigators are considering the theory that he may have been planning a distraction during the shooting."

 

Before Secret Service snipers on a roof neighbouring the one Crooks was crouching on, he was able to get off several shots -- an estimated eight in total, including the first one, that grazed Trump's ear --until he was shot and killed. Those shots fired from the roof killed one person at the rally -- Corey Comperatore, a 50-year-old engineer and firefighter -- shot in the head, while two others were critically wounded.

 

Bethel Park is a quiet suburb of Pittsburgh, south of where the Saturday rally took place. Crooks lived there with his parents and he worked at a nursing home. He graduated with an associate's degree in engineering science from the Community College of Allegheny County in western Pennsylvania in May. "Like all Americans, we are shocked and saddened by the horrific turn of events that took place", stated the community college.

 

High school yearbook and graduation photos of Thomas Matthew Crooks

 

According to a former classmate who asked to remain anonymous, Crooks was reserved, seldom discussing politics at school and seemed centre-right and moderate. Hearing that Crooks was identified as the gunman, the classmate texted Crooks that he was sorry that someone attempted to impersonate him. When he later saw the photo of Crooks on the roof of the building where he was fatally shot, he understood why he received no text back.

Despite having ample access to Crooks' family and friends, his phone and those of some people he communicated with, investigators find themselves with scant information that might point to a motive for his actions. According to FBI officials, there is no evidence of any ideology that drove Crooks to commit such an act of violence. 

Police block roads around the home of Thomas Matthew Crooks in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, on Monday, as the FBI continues its investigation into the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.    Rebecca Droke/AFP/Getty Images

Sound Judgement Lacking

"Many of the students are immigrants or first-generation Canadians who have lived or spent extended time in the Middle East and South Asia. Many are Muslim. A large number are racialized women, who have experienced oppression and marginalization."

"More than one student recounted experiencing or witnessing incidents of sexualized violence in the past."

"The lawyers who fuelled the backlash against the students displayed the same kind of response for which they have criticized the students: using insensitive and harsh words, rushing to judgement, and not acknowledging opposing viewpoints."

J. Michael MacDonald, retired Nova Scotia judge

Toronto Metropolitan University. Photo by Ernest Doroszuk/Toronto Sun/Postmedia

"What lunatic goes around shooting up schools? That is just unacceptable."

"These guys need to be caught, they need to be punished, they need to be thrown in jail. And I have zero tolerance for this anywhere in Ontario."

"It does not matter what race, what creed, what religion you are from, I would say the exact same thing if it was another community as well. Enough is enough. You are bringing problems from everywhere else in the world, bringing it to Ontario and going after other Canadians."

"That's unacceptable. I have an idea: before you plan on moving to Canada, do not come if you're going to terrorize neighbourhoods like this. It's simple as that. You want to be a resident of Ontario? You get along with everyone."

Ontario Premier Doug Ford

Ontario Premier Doug Ford (centre) delivers remarks while flanked by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (left) and Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow, during a news conference in Toronto on May 30, 2024. (Arlyn McAdorey/The Canadian Press)

Two different versions of response to Palestinians and their sympathizers in the Province of Ontario; one a judge asked to investigate the actions of law students at Toronto Metropolitan University Lincoln Alexander School of Law, the other the elected premier of the province expressing his opinion of the latest shooting at a Jewish parochial school. Following on the mass slaughter in southern Israel of Jewish civilians by the Hamas terrorist group, Palestinians and their followers assembled protests against Israel, denigrating the Jewish state and blaming Jews for all that has gone wrong in the Middle East.

 

72 law students at the university's school of law circulated a petition claiming "Israel was not even a country", just "the brand of a settler colony busy ethnically cleansing Palestine since 1948". Anyone, declared the petition, that denied Israel commits genocide made themselves complicit in their violence. The invasion of southern Israel by Hamas was, according to the petition, Israel's fault, not Hamas's. All loss of life in Gaza was Israel's responsibility. The petition signatories "supported all forms of Palestinian resistance and efforts toward liberation".

 

Canada, the petition added, was itself a "settler colony", "the architect of apartheid". The law school's neutral position in not outright condemning Israel set it up in the petition of upholding racism and Islamophobia for its position. In response, Jewish and non-Jewish lawyers publicly questioned whether any of the 72 signatories could conceivably be expected to follow objective neutral paths to administering justice as future lawyers in Ontario. 

 

The university tasked former judge Michael MacDonald to investigate the charges brought against the students by  a group of lawyers. The university itself had condemned the petition its students had launched, refusing to support its contentions. Which itself raised the ire of the students. The former judge chose to accept student claims that they were misunderstood; "all forms of resistance" did not, in their petition, include the Hamas atrocities of October 7. 

 

When interviewing the students as part of his investigation, none would inform him despite his pointed questioning, who it was the petition had been drafted by, yet he chose to believe that the students were innocent of the claims of antisemitism and lack of judgement brought against them by Jewish lawyers. Mr. MacDonald believed the students' anger at what they alleged to be Israel's "ongoing war crimes" in Gaza, and what they claimed to be a disproportionate response by Israel to the October 7 attack exonerated them.

 

Despite that what they spoke of as a disproportionate response hadn't occurred, since the Israeli ground operations within Gaza took place after the circulation of the students' petition. "The death toll in Gaza has been staggering, disproportionate in comparison to other recent armed conflicts", his report stated, despite at that point and thereafter the death toll was relatively low; certainly not to be compared with Syria, Darfur, Yemen, Ukraine and other war zones. In referring to Hamas Mr. MacDonald spoke of "militants", not "terrorists" despite their being listed as such by both the federal and Ontario governments. 

The investigator extended personal empathy toward the perspective of the students since, as he commented: "some described living in active war zones, experiencing colonialism and oppression". Taking no note of the fact that Gaza had been unilaterally cleared by Israel of all Jewish occupants in 2005, leaving it free and clear for Palestinians themselves to make an effort on their own behalf to prepare for an eventual state by building the necessary civil infrastructure. 

 

Instead, a terrorist group built all the war bastions it felt was required through an extensive tunnel system to store weaponry and attack Israel in a lethal guerrilla warfare strategy costing lives on both sides.

Wuhan Institute of Virology Hypothesis 'Politicized'

"Peter Daszak is in many ways typical of the international world of disease prevention. As the president of EcoHealth Alliance, Daszak has spent millions of dollars of grant money from the National Institutes of Health in recent years. His organization's special focus is on preventing the outbreak of emerging diseases, such as coronaviruses. He was deeply involved with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) because his organization had funded bat coronavirus research that lab was doing when the COVID-19 outbreak occurred in late 2019."

"Daszak has been a good friend to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Chinese Communist government that runs it for years. His role in trying to discredit the lab leak theory has come under scrutiny amid a pronounced shift in media attention towards the theory and amid revelations about Daszak's own ties to the Institute."

"Early in the pandemic, Daszak was behind the creation of an open letter, signed by several scientists, which squarely rejected the suggestion that a lab accident at the WIV may have released the virus into the city of Wuhan. Daszak did not disclose his conflict of interest when signing the letter, which would receive significant coverage in news reports purporting to debunk the lab leak theory."

Peter Schweizer, President, Governmental Accountability Institute, U.S.

Shi Zhengli ('Batwoman' center) and Peter Daszak (far right). (Emerging Viruses Group)

"We will not accept such an origins-tracing plan as it in some aspects, disregards common sense and defies science."

"We hope the WHO would seriously review the considerations and suggestions made by Chinese experts and truly treat the origin tracing of the COVID-19 virus as a scientific matter, and get rid of political interference." 

"[China has always supported] scientific virus tracing [and wants to see the study extended to other countries and regions]. However, we are opposed to politicizing the tracing work."

Zeng Yixin, vice minister, National Health Commission, China

Zeng Yixin, vice minister of the National Health Commission, speaks at a news conference at the State Council Information Office, in Beijing, on July 22   Mark Schiefelbein, The Associated Press

"Without Chinese cooperation, WHO's hands are tied, international hands are tied, and our ability to identify the origins of the virus will be much reduced."

Mara Pillinger, senior associate, global health policy and governance, O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, Georgetown

"We believe a lab leak is extremely unlikely and it is not necessary to invest more energy and efforts in this regard."

"[More animal studies should be conducted particularly in countries with bat populations]."

"In the next step, I think animal tracing should still be the priority direction. It is the most valuable field for our efforts."

Liang Wannian, Chinese team leader, WHO joint expert team

The World Health Organization's first investigative team arriving in China in February of this year was significantly hampered by the guidance and continual presence of Chinese authorities vetting their every move, informing them what they could and could not do, offering them limited opportunity to visit areas of concern in their investigation of the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing the global pandemic. Vital data that would have afforded the investigative team important information in their study was held back, so the conclusion reached was fairly predictable; no idea really how, where and why COVID emerged.

Unlikely, however, that it was the result of a laboratory accident where a pathogen under study at the Wuhan Institute of Virology somehow escaped to wreak havoc first in Wuhan then across the great wide world. On the team was a virology expert with direct ties to the Wuhan laboratory, and his influence certainly went far in convincing the other members of the WHO team that a laboratory 'escape' could not possibly have occurred.

Among the world's leading virology scientists much criticism of the report erupted, and by extension criticism of of the World Health Organization itself, leading its head, Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to speculate that there might be something to the lab escape theory after all, and that another, more extensive, in-depth scrutiny might be in order. He did, in fact, order such a second investigation, expressing the hope that Beijing would be fully co-operative and open to the venture.

But it was not to be. Mr.Zeng, China's vice minister of its National Health Commission together with Chinese experts urged the WHO, even as they poured cold water on any cooperation on China's part with a second investgation as to the origins of COVID, recommended an expansion of origin-tracing beyond China to encompass other countries. It has always been China's contention that the original infection was sourced elsewhere than China. 

Other countries, suggested Liang Wannian, the Chinese team leader on the joint expert team of the WHO, had another brilliant idea, that further animal studies be undertaken in countries with their own bat populations so that if evidence was unearthed incriminating other countries they needed to explore in depth whether any of them could have experienced a laboratory leak leading to the global pandemic. Back to square zero with Beijing.

Because Beijing claims that the issue has been 'politicized', the WHO's intention to study the origins of the coronavirus where it began, investigating audits of laboratories and markets in Wuhan, with the express aid of Chinese authorities simply isn't going to occur. The WHO's plan of action having listed the hypothesis of a violation of laboratory protocols in China was a direct assault on the scientific integrity of Chinese science, and therefore 'political'.

 

Strange that, since in 2010, Shi Zhengli director of the Centre of Emerging Diseases at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and a bat expert, published a paper describing a scenario where infected rodents led to a deadly virus leaked from a Chinese lab. The paper's title was: "Hantavirus outbreak associated with laboratory rats in Yunnan, China," of an outbreak of hantavirus hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome at a college in Kunming as the result of a lab leak in 2003.

 

And Peter Daszak, renowned zoologist and molecular biologist in 2015 co-authored an article in the journal Nature titled, "Spillover and pandemic properties of zoonotic viruses with high host plasticity," where he wrote that zoonotic virus spillover from wildlife was "most frequent" in a number of settings and occupations, including "laboratory workers." He also warned that laboratories are one of the most dangerous settings for major spillover events. 

Peter Daszak (R), Thea Fischer (L) and other members of the World Health Organization team investigating the origins of the Covid-19 coronavirus, arrive at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan  on February 3, 2021.  HECTOR RETAMAL | AFP | Getty Images

There Are Strange Things Done In The Midnight Sun

Peter Daszak (right), Thea Fischer (left), and other members of the WHO team investigating the origins of covid-19 arrive at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China's central Hubei province.

 

"We would ask that we separate the science from the politics, and let us get on with finding the answers that we need in a proper, positive atmosphere."

"This whole process is being poisoned by politics."

WHO emergencies chief Michael Ryan 

 

"The technical team will prepare a proposal for the next studies that will need to be carried out and will present that to the director-general."

"He will then work with member states about the next steps. There is no timeline."

WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib

 

"[The first phase of the WHO expert panel study was] insufficient and inconclusive. There is a need for a] timely, transparent, evidence-based and expert-led Phase 2 study, including in the People's Republic of China."

"[There is a need for access for independent experts to] complete, original data and samples [relevant to the source of the virus and early stages of the outbreak]."

"We appreciate the WHO's stated commitment to move forward with Phase 2 of the COVID-19 origins study, and look forward to an update from Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus."

U.S. Diplomatic Mission, Geneva 

Workers in protective gear carry a bag containing a giant salamander that was reported to have escaped from the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan in central China's Hubei Province, Monday, Jan. 27, 2020. (Chinatopix via AP)

When the mysterious appearance of a strange pneumonia was discovered in patients admitted to hospitals in Wuhan, China in December of 2019, and soon afterward the virus began spreading outside China's borders, Beijing took exception to the virus, identified as a new coronavirus called SARS-CoV-2 being familiarly referred to as the 'Wuhan virus', until the World Health Organization gave it the pandemic name it is now known by, COVID-19.

 

And now that world powers like the United States and Great Britain are leading a drive for a full and deep investigation to discover the origins of the virus causing COVID-19, Beijing continues to deny that suspicions harboured by many in the West that the closed high-security Wuhan Virology Institute laboratory might possibly have loosed the virus accidentally, giving the virus its villainous start on its global predation. Chinese authorities found it much more palatable to insist that the Huanan wet market was a likelier source of the zoonotic when the pathogen made its leap from animal to human.

A growing clamour of voices calling for an independent, unbiased and unchaperoned-by-Chinese-authorities investigation take place to settle the question once and for all; whether the virus origins was a lab-held virus that made its escape or the leap of transmission between species. The WHO assembly was informed by a Chinese representative the official Chinese position that the "China part" of the origin-tracing study "has been completed". In other words: you want to study further, go right ahead but don't expect any cooperation from China. 

 

An interpreter made it clear as well that China was interested in seeing "a global origin-tracing cooperation" -- the translation of which is that China feels the hunt would be best carried out elsewhere than in China. Literally washing its hands of any further investigation, much less the thought that China would further lend itself to another such survey as the original WHO 'independent' investigation when the investigation team was comprised of more Chinese investigators than WHO investigators. 

 

And where the official presence of Chinese authorities at all interviews and site visits constrained a deep and useful investigation, topped off by China's refusal to allow the WHO investigators access to critical records. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian suggested on Wednesday that U.S. sites should be explored -- reflecting Chinese specious 'speculation' the coronavirus could have emerged there. Surely derisively. 

 

Wuhan, a central Chinese city of 11 million people, is where China's first-ever BSL-4-certified laboratory is located. This is a rare classification identifying laboratories meant to work with the world's most lethal pathogens. When it was opened in 2018, the Wuhan Institute of Virology campus was recognized as specializing in coronavirus studies, particularly bat coronaviruses which just happen to represent the likely origin of COVID-19. 

 

The Wuhan Institute is noted for its  unusual housing of the "most comprehensive inventory of sampled bat viruses in the world", according to a January investigation by New York magazine, considered the most rigorous journalistic probe into the COVID-19 potential lab origins. In addition, the lab is understood to engage in gain-of-function experiments, where researchers attempt to supercharge coronaviruses to infect lab mice or human cell samples. Gain-of-function is meant to discover methods of combating the emergence of new viruses from nature, but it is also "exactly the kind of experiment from which a SARS-2-like virus could have emerged", explains a scientific breakdown of COVID-129 origins by The Wire, an Indian news site.

Given these incriminating circumstances, how likely is it that a novel coronavirus linked to bats might have simply by coincidence begun infecting humans who just happened to be located within easy walking distance of a laboratory that incidentally is the world centre for studying highly infectious bat coronaviruses? As a plot of fictitious origins it is hardly believable, as a scenario of real-time circumstances, there is no competition for the actual location of the Virology laboratory escape.

With respect to circumstantial identification of source, American diplomats back in 2018, long before the emergence of the coronavirus causing COVID, visited the Wuhan Institute of Virology and afterward drafted a cable to Washington complete with a heads-up warning of a mishap waiting to happen. Their distinct impression was that the facility's safety and security standards were lax enough to risk sparking a pandemic. According to the Washington Post, which headed the story, "The new lab has a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory", read the cable.

Three years later, the revelation that a US. intelligence report that three workers at the Wuhan Institute were hospitalized "with symptoms consistent with both COVID19 and common seasonal illness", came out this week. Another very peculiar coincidence, this time bringing Canada into the narrative, when researcher Xiangguo Qiu, working at the high-security BSL-4 lab at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg was escorted from the facility along with her scientist husband and a Chinese student, all later fired, with no public explanation.

The two-week investigation by the World Health Organization scientific team of ten, joined by a team of 17 Chinese scientists in Wuhan conducted interviews under constant supervision. The researchers spent a mere few hours at the Virology lab where select documents were presented for their examination but no forensic examination of lab protocols was undertaken, only a few supervised meetings with laboratory staff who assured them the institute had witnessed "no disruptions or incidents" at the time of the emergence of COVID-19.

"The lab leak hypothesis has picked up more adherents as time passes and scientists fail to detect a bat or other animal infected with a virus that has covid’s signature genetics. By contrast, within a few months of the start of the 2003 SARS pandemic, scientists found the culprit coronavirus in animals sold in Chinese markets. But samples from 80,000 animals to date have failed to turn up a virus pointing to the origins of SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes covid."

"The virus’s ancestors originated in bats in southern China, 600 miles from Wuhan. But covid contains unusual mutations or sequences that made it ideal for infecting people, an issue explored in depth by journalist Nicholas Wade."

"Scientists from the Wuhan Institute have collected thousands of coronavirus specimens from bats and registered them in databases closed to inspection. Could one of those viruses have escaped, perhaps after a “gain of function” experiment that rendered it more dangerous?"

Arthur Allen, KHN

The World Community Has a Right to Know

Lab-leak theories centre on the Wuhan Institute of Virology   Reuters

"[Of the lab-leak theory]: That possibility certainly exists, and I am totally in favour of a full investigation of whether that could have happened."

"[I am] not convinced [the virus originated naturally]."

Dr.Anthony Fauci, U.S. President Biden's chief medical adviser   

 

"From day one China has been engaged in a massive cover-up."

"As the evidence for the lab-leak hypothesis grows, we should be demanding the full investigation of all origin hypotheses that's required."

Jamie Metzl, a fellow at the Washington-based Atlantic Council 

 

"We do need to be a bit patient but we also need to be diplomatic."

"We can't do this without support from China. It needs to be a no-blame environment."

Prof Dale Fisher, Singapore's National University Hospital 

"I've read it, [report released by the Washington Post calling into question when and how the SARS-CoV-2 virus emerged] it's a complete lie."

"Those claims are groundless. The lab has not been aware of this situation, and I don't even know where such information came from."

Yuan Zhiming, director, Wuhan National Biosafety Lab, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Wuhan, China

The story in the Wall Street Journal claims that three laboratory workers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology fell ill in November of 2019, and were admitted to hospital for treatment. A month later, China advised the World Health Organization of the sudden appearance of a zoonotic, a virus transmitted from animal to human, and that authorities in China felt confident the virus had erupted in a fresh food market where wild animals were sold and pangolins were the suspected source.

The U.S. intelligence report cited by the paper had originally been the product of an investigation authorized by then-President Donald Trump who stated  his determination to get to the bottom of the matter that he suspected was Beijing's lack of openness in alerting the world community of the presence of a galloping new virus with unknown properties but a surprising level of lethality, initially presenting as a new kind of pneumonia. 

It was the newspaper's contention and possible purpose of re-visiting the investigative report and coming away with greater details, that what it revealed could conceivably bring support to the evidence already in question, leading to a broader and deeper investigation into what many in the scientific community suspect -- and many others object to -- that the COVID-19 virus could have been a lab escapee.

What is undeniable unless new information arises, is that the first cases of a strange new pneumonia were being reported toward the end of December 2019 in the central Chinese city of Wuhan where coincidentally two high-security laboratories for the study of viruses were located. One laboratory had undertaken studies of viruses collected from bats in caves and theorized that the bats had infected pangolins and the pangolins carried the virus with them when they were trapped for sale at the live animal market in Wuhan.

 

Although rumours have circulated widely that the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID-19 was not a zoonotic that naturally occurred, infecting people who had come in contact with a vector at the Wuhan market, but rather a laboratory-produced virus and that inept, insecure methods led to its escape, China has steadfastly denied any such allegations. Claiming instead that the lab theory was unproven and nonsensical and simply represented U.S. paranoia.

 

Instead Chinese authorities point to the possibility that the virus may very well not have originated in China, or Wuhan, at all, and was imported with frozen food from some other geographic location. Wildlife trading too was cited as a source, as well as a circulating virus that had emerged elsewhere and found its way to China by some unsuspected means. China's foreign ministry rejected the claim that three lab workers had been hospitalized, characterizing it as a lie.

 

The World Health Organization, which had sent an independent team of researchers to Wuhan months ago to undertake a detailed investigation, now entertains thought of another investigation, this time perhaps without Chinese authorities' interference, although without Beijing's approval for yet another group of scientists arriving in Wuhan there can be no follow-up of the original which declared its joint opinion that no lab escape of a virus was a likely explanation for the pandemic.

 

That opinion was reached despite that there were no unescorted interviews permitted where the investigators could privately, without interference and the presence of Chinese authorities, closely question someone who might have information critical to the investigation, nor were the investigators permitted to see collected data directly relevant to the more immediate Chinese investigation of the market where purportedly the outbreak was traced to.

 

According to Tarik Jasarevic, a spokesman for WHO, the organization's technical teams were currently making decisions on whether to proceed further and if so, how. Further study was obviously required into the role of animal markets, as well as the hypothesis of a lab leak. The issue, after all, is that of a lethal, minuscule, unseen pathogen seeking out new hosts, invading body cells and replicating wildly. A virus that has in the space of a year-and-a-half killed three and a half million people worldwide.  

Knowing its true origins could help medical science more fully understand the nature of the pathogen and how best to control it. It could also lead to techniques of detection and deterrence that could help avoid future such global pandemics. As well as teach both the global medical community and governments how best to anticipate new and perhaps even more deadly invasions of viruses from wild animal to humanity.

 

The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was linked to early Covid cases   Getty Images

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking for Answers to COVID Derivation in China

"The new lab has a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high containment laboratory."

U.S. Diplomatic cable

"It's a fabulous piece of virology by the Chinese group and it's very impressive, but they haven't been thinking clearly about what they are doing."

"It's very worrying."

Simon Wain-Hobson, virologist, Paris Pasteur Institute

"[The Chinese government was responsible for the most] ambitious, agile and aggressive disease containment effort in history."

"The deep commitment of the Chinese people to collective action in the face of this common threat [is beyond praiseworthy]."

World Health Organization report

"So it was apparent [that the investigation was marred by clear political tension]  and there were people from foreign affairs in China attending our meetings and so on."

"It was at times tense, but always very well mannered and good humoured."

"The group [WHO investigators] wasn't designed to go and do a forensic examination of lab practise in Wuhan, China]."

Dominic Dwyer, microbiologist, Austrian WHO investigative team

The WHO team investigating the origins of the novel coronavirus arrives at the heavily guarded Wuhan Institute of Virology in China in February. Photograph: Héctor Retamal/AFP/Getty Images

 

Much-needed answers to questions regarding the true provenance of the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID-19 remain elusive. China's initial identification of a wet market in Wuhan as the source of the novel coronavirus cross-species-infection from animal to human was proven to be untrustworthy. And as the virus flamed out of China to invade the world at large, the peculiar coincidence of a virology laboratory located in sneezing distance of where the first COVID cases were detected raised suspicions that all was not as revealed.

China's first BSL-4 laboratory, a classification representing facilities equipped to deal with dangerous pathogens, was located adjacent the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The laboratory had most recently been involved in research on coronaviruses and in particular on bat coronaviruses, the very type believed to be most closely related to the virus causing COVID-19. U.S. diplomats visited the Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2018.

What they saw there persuaded them to send a cable to Washington with a warning about the lax standards at the facility and the risk it potentially posed of possibly becoming the future source of a pandemic. In January of 2021 the State Department claimed it had evidence staff at the Chinese institute were revealed to have symptoms now known to be those of  COVID-19, back in the fall of 2019.

This would not have been the first time that a high-security virology laboratory in China posed as a possible source of runaway globe-altering pathogens on the loose. The Harbin Veterinary Research Institute in 2013 had been accused of "appalling irresponsibility" when scientists there mixed avian and human influenza viruses in the creation of a new and potentially deadly hybrid. Dr.Simon Wain-Hobson, a virologist in France warned that the lab might have created a virus with the potential to be the cause of between 500,000 and 100 million global deaths.

When a serious security breach took place at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Canada in July of 2019, Chinese researchers Xiangguo Qiu, her husband and a Chinese student were escorted from the Winnipeg facility by RCMP and questioned regarding a shipment of Ebola and henipavirus samples, both pathogens flown without adequate safeguards out of the laboratory to Wuhan. There has been silence ever since, no explanation for the event, but the suspicion lingers of scientific espionage.

 

The World Health Organization investigation team discussed the conclusions of its investigation at a press conference in Wuhan, China, on 9 February.   Credit: Kyodo News/Getty

Australia boldly insisted the world required a thorough probe into the origins of COVID-19. Beijing has since exacted a number of penalties on Australia, an important trading partner with China. Threats and attempts at forcing Australia to stand down have been numerous. Eventually the World Health Organization agreed to a more neutral version of the Australian proposal and dispatched a team of ten researchers to China for a two-week period. The team was assigned to conduct interviews and review reports, all under strict surveillance by Chines authorities.

The microbiologists at the Wuhan laboratory knew full well that Chinese authorities expect them to say little and certainly nothing incriminating. Beijing made a point of threatening any medical personnel at the beginning of the epidemic in Wuhan that their professional accreditation would be endangered if they failed to behave with proper circumspection. "If the officials had disclosed information about the epidemic earlier I think it would have been a lot better", ophthalmologist Li Wenliang stated.

Shortly afterward the young physician who had been interrogated over having alerted his professional peers to the presence of a strange new and deadly pneumonia-like virus that had entered hospitals, was dead himself from the lethal effects of having contracted COVID. Beijing was found to be funding research into COVID's origins and at the same time censoring results through a specialized task force. Scientists working on bat coronaviruses have had samples confiscated and orders were given to avoid speaking to the press.

Peter Daszak of a World Health Organization team rolls up a vendors layout map of Huanan Seafood market after signing on it as he prepares to leave his hotel for the airport at the end of their WHO mission to investigate the origins of the coronavirus pandemic in Wuhan in central China's Hubei province Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2021. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

Investigating Islamofascism in France

"[Sefrioui -- Abdelhakim Sefrioui — a Moroccan-born Islamist described by one prominent French Muslim leader as] dangerous [was] dangerous because he seduces the youth."

"He is more dangerous than [Islamist academic] Tariq Ramadan because he seduces the base, the parents." 

Hassen Chalghoumi, imam, Parisian suburb of Drancy

 

"Sefrioui does not have the right to speak on our behalf." 

"It is a personal initiative, which in no way commits the council."

Daw Meskine, Council of French Imams  

"[Extremists are] people who, engaged in a process of radicalization, are likely to want to go abroad to join terrorist groups or take part in terrorist activities."

French government definition

Protestors in the Place de la Republique in Paris following the brutal murder of school teacher Samuel Paty. Photo: Panoramic / Reuters.

 

They are also people who express their radicalization as Islamofascists who remain in France infiltrating the system and the culture to demand that France and its population of non-Muslims pay due obeisance to Islamist Sharia law, incompatible with French culture, freedoms of conscience, speech and behaviours. Violence is never too far from the offing when Islam feels 'insulted' by casual French dismissal of ongoing demands that the tender sensibilities of Islam not be assaulted by the vaunted French freedoms.

And Abdelhakim Sefrioui, an influential imam who has a penchant for inciting to 'action',  has been in the sights of French intelligence for 20 years, known for his ability to agitate the Muslim collective in sympathy with the 'plight' of the Palestinians, living pitiably in what he describes as "the worst concentration camp mankind has ever known", making use of a wide variety of social media platforms to get his message across. 

The day prior to the slaughter of Samuel Paty, Sefrioui showed up at the Conflans-Sainte-Honorine school where he filmed an interview with a female Muslim student, who said that the history teacher had told her she might want to "leave the class",  before showing students an image of a “naked man” who supposedly represented Muhammad. In a follow-up meeting with school management, Sefrioui  asserted that Muslim children “had been attacked and humiliated in front of their classmates", demanding Mr. Paty's immediate suspension, referred to him as "this thug".

 

For his prominent role in organizing protests against Samuel Paty, Sefrioui was taken into custody for questioning on Sunday. He is being held partially responsible for inciting 18-year-old Chechen refugee  Abdoullakh Anzonov — who shouted the words “Allahu akbar”, as he slaughtered Mr. Paty. After which, according to investigators, Anzonov sent a photo of Paty’s decapitated head to French President Emmanuel Macron on Twitter, along with the message that he had “taken revenge on the one who insulted the Prophet Muhammad".

 

Muslim parents whose children attended the school, targeted Mr.Paty for protests, and one of those parents sought out the help of Sefrioui, bringing him into the cabal that went to great lengths to persuade the school authorities to dismiss Mr. Paty who had been receiving threats ever since his class discussion of  freedom of speech, using Sharia-forbidden cartoons of Mohammad as a visual assist.

 

Samuel Paty, a well-liked teacher, had been threatened over showing the cartoons  AFP

 As the investigation proceeds in the face of widespread French anger over the atrocity, four pupils of the school who are thought to have received payment in exchange for identifying Mr. Paty to his killer have been detained, bringing a total of 15 suspects into custody, including the killer's grandfather, parents and 17-year-old brother, all held in some way accountable for the ghastly murder. Then there is the father of one of the pupils who launched a campaign online against Mr.Paty, inciting Muslims to react to the unspeakable assault on Mohammad represented by the illustrative cartoons.

 

Both the father and Abdelhakim Sefrioui whom he had recruited, have been accused of having issued a "fatwa" against the teacher, by Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin. Dozens of raids targeting suspected Islamist radicals were carried out on Monday, some not linked to the murder of Mr. Paty. Police planned to interview some 80 people believed to have posted messages supporting the killing, according to Mr. Damanin. "We want to harass and destabilize this movement in a very determined way", another interior ministry source stated.

A probe of 51 French Muslim associations is also being undertaken, with the intention of closing down any discovered to be promoting hatred. Mr.Durmanin labelled an "enemy of the state", one organization, the Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF), which monitors anti-Muslim hate crime in France. It accuses the minister of slander. The Interior Minister had made the claim that the group was "obviously" involved in Friday's grotesque attack.

People have laid flowers in tribute to Samuel Paty outside the school where was murdered   Getty Images

Fascism's Stranglehold

"[The discovery is a] disgrace [for the police in the western region of North Rhine-Westfalia and impacted the force] to its core."

"We are talking about the nastiest and most disgusting neo-Nazi, racist and refugee-hostile hatred."

"I have to tell you that this process makes me speechless. And I haven't been able to get it out of my mind since I found out about it."

"We have to ask unpleasant questions of ourselves. Who knew about this? Why was this tolerated for years? By whom?"

Herbert Reul, interior minister, North Rhine-Westfalia

 

"The battle against right-wing extremism is in the DNA of the police." 

"The fact that there are, nevertheless, officers who share radical, far-right and xenophobic content in chat groups is unbearable."

Michael Maatz,  regional deputy chair, GdP union

Dozens of officers in Essen were asked to hand in their badges and weapons.  BERND THISSEN/DPA/AFP via Getty Images

Germany is undergoing yet another neo-Nazi scandal, to augment those that have already been revealed polluting their national military and law enforcement agencies. Twenty-nine police officers yesterday were suspended on charges of taking part in extremist chat groups sharing images such as swastikas and depictions of genocidal victims in gas chambers. Photographs of Hitler, Third Reich flags and another image showing a Black person being shot were part of the images shared on these chat groups.

 

There were 126 images in total, many of them grounds for lawful punishment, shared on five WhatsApp chat groups predominantly or exclusively dominated by police officers, 25 of whom were on the same police force in the city of Essen, asked to hand in their badges and weapons yesterday. Disciplinary measures are underway for the intention of termination against 14 of the officers, eleven of whom are suspected of having carried out criminal offences.

 

At 34 locations such as private homes and police stations, early morning raids were carried out. Extreme-right scandals have plagued police and military units in Germany. Prominent public figures have received death threats from neo-Nazis. Left-wing politicians and lawyers in recent years have been threatened, the incidents linked to police computers. The WhatsApp chat groups were revealed when an inquiry was launched into those threats, where it was revealed officers shared racist and anti-Semitic content.

 

A group of neo-Nazi "preppers", called Nordkreuz was discovered in 2017 who, according to authorities, were preparing themselves for "Day X", amassing lists of political opponents and storing weapons and body bags toward the goal that "Day X" evidently represented for them. Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer disbanded a combat unit of Germany's elite Special Forces Command in June in the light of suspected extreme-right ties in the ranks.

 

German authorities, according to security experts, have failed to tackle the problem of resurging fascism directly and have avoided answering the obvious; whether police can be trusted to investigate themselves. No officers have yet been charged with relation to the death threats. A police officer who founded Northkreuz who had served in the German military, had been given a 21-month suspended sentence on weapons charges last year.

 

Minister Horst Seehofer in the Bundestag.  Hannibal Hanschke /REUTERS

Horst Seehofer, German interior minister, has resisted any assertion of structural racism within the security forces. He cancelled a scheduled study of racial profiling by police back in July with the explaintion by his ministry that there was no necessity to proceed with the investigation since racial profiling is illegal. He spoke, rather, of a study into police-directed violence. 

 

Far-right networks in three of the country's sixteen federal states, cautioned a spokesman for the federal interior ministry, should not be taken as a"structural" racism issue among the nation's 300,000 police officers. Adding that it was too early to re-evaluate the decision that the racism study be shelved, Steve Alter was anxious in his statements to impress upon the news media that the interior ministry continues to trust the democratic, law-abiding judgement of Germany's security officers.  

After an officer's cellphone had been confiscated over suspicion of media leaks, what was discovered was the presence of the offending chat groups, one of which started in 2012, another created in 2015, where most of the offensive material was found to have been posted and shared. Leading Mr. Reul to warn that there may well be further shocking revelations since cellphones belonging to other officers were seized on Wednesday for examination.

Herbert Reul, North Rhine-Westphalia's interior minister presents the state's unit for arrests and securing evidence in February 2019    (EPA)