Canada has listed Samidoun, a pro-Palestinian group behind a rally where people chanted “death to Canada” and burned the Canadian flag in Vancouver earlier this month, as a terrorist entity.
Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc made the announcement on Tuesday and noted that the listing was made alongside the U.S. Treasury Department’s own decision to list the group as a specially designated global terrorist entity.
“Violent extremism, acts of terrorism or terrorist financing have no place in Canadian society or abroad,” LeBlanc said in a statement.
“The listing of Samidoun as a terrorist entity under the Criminal Code sends a strong message that Canada will not tolerate this type of activity, and will do everything in its power to counter the ongoing threat to Canada’s national security and all people in Canada.”
Samidoun has been previously listed as a terrorist entity by Germany and the Netherlands and, in a release, Public Safety Canada, said the group has “close links with and advances the interests of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
That group is also listed as a terrorist entity by Canada, the U.S. and European Union.
Being a listed terrorist entity carries severe consequences. It is illegal to contribute to any activity of a listed group, and its property can be seized and forfeited.
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The listing comes just over a week after MPs in the House of Commons condemned the group after supporters chanted “death to Canada, death to the United States and death to Israel” and burned the Canadian flag at a rally in Vancouver.
The masked speaker at that rally who uttered the chant over a microphone also told the crowd “we are Hezbollah and we are Hamas.”
Both Hamas and Hezbollah are listed as terrorist entities.
The Conservatives during question period last Tuesday called on the federal government to list Samidoun as a terrorist organization.
“Samidoun has been fomenting these violent and horrific protests and mob actions, this organization is a front for an already banned terrorist group,” Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said last week.
Vancouver Police say they are also conducting an investigation into the pro-Palestinian rally in which the chant and flag burning took place, where law enforcement say speakers expressed “solidarity with terrorist groups.”
The police force has previously investigated Samidoun, having arrested its director Charlotte Kates last year in a hate-crime investigation. She was released from custody on an undertaking, but the hearing which she was to appear at was cancelled, and her court-ordered conditions along with it.
— With a file from Global News’ Sean Boynton, Simon Little and Rumina Daya and The Canadian Press
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