One of Canada’s largest faith-based charities has won a settlement over a set of publications that falsely claimed it was a “front” to fund terror groups abroad.
Islamic Relief Canada reached the out-of-court settlement earlier this month in a lawsuit against Thomas Quiggin — a former military officer turned self-described researcher who last year emerged as one of the more recognizable names in the truck convoy protests — and six others who it argued made “false, malicious and defamatory” statements aimed at harming the charity.
Along with Quiggin, the $2.5-million lawsuit from December 2018 took aim at Benjamin Dichter, who later emerged as a convoy spokesperson; writer Tahir Aslam Gora and an online television channel of which Gora is CEO; writer Raheel Raza and her husband Syed Sohail Raza; as well as a Yarmouth-based man named Joseph Hazelton who interviewed Quiggin about the charity in a YouTube video that garnered over 10,000 views.
Seems like an upstanding institution to me.
Islamic Relief Worldwide: … A July 2020 expose by the London Times and Dr. Lorenzo Vidino, director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, revealed that Heshmat Khalifa, a trustee and director of Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW), had posted on his Facebook page calling Jews the “grandchildren of monkeys and pigs.”
Khalifa had also posted on social media in 2014 and 2015 calling Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi a “Zionist pimp.” Khalifa had also praised Hamas, a U.S. designated terrorist organization, calling it “the purest resistance movement in modern history.” Khalifa resigned after The Times approached IRW.
Report clears Muslim charity of institutional antisemitism
The charity had been “horrified” when it discovered that Tayeb Abdoun, network and resource development director, had been tweeting antisemitic material under an alias, and had acted swiftly to deal with the individual, Grieve said.
Abdoun, who had worked for the charity for more than 25 years, was forced to resign. A few months earlier it was revealed that two trustees had posted antisemitic comments on social media before they were appointed. A new board of trustees was appointed soon afterwards.
