Vancouver Sun: Spiritual thinkers, leaders look at fostering peace activism

A noted group of thinkers and spiritual leaders will gather in Vancouver on Saturday to explore how the public can cope when confronted by often-overwhelming conditions in the world, particularly following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

A one-day conference, titled Finding Hope in a Time of Despair, will look at fostering peace activism and interfaith dialogue in a time of increasing global tension, violence, poverty and destruction of the planet.

Speakers include Donald Grayston, an Anglican priest and former director of Simon Fraser University's Institute for the Humanities; Toni Pieroni, who leads groups in eco-spirituality; Ron Dart, a political scientist and religious studies instructor at University College of the Fraser Valley, and Mark Weintraub, chair of the Canadian Jewish Congress Pacific Region.

Sponsored by the Thomas Merton Society of Canada and Canadian Memorial Church Centre for Peace, the event takes place from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 1825 West 16th Avenue, Vancouver.

For more information, go to http://merton.ca/HOPEconfguide.html

Vancouver Sun: B.C. environmentalists seek global warming controls

Published: Thursday, February 01, 2007

Global warming is heating up into a major issue in British Columbia politics with a warning Thursday from a broad coalition of labour, environmental, aboriginal and religious leaders that Premier Gordon Campbell must set tough standards on green-house gas emissions.

In a public letter on the eve of today's release of a United Nation's International Panel on Climate Change, which concludes humans are "very likely" contributing to global warming, the B.C. group is demanding Premier Campbell take local action to reverse the province's upward trend in greenhouse gas emissions believed to accelerate climate change.

The coalition's letter -- which was distributed by Vancouver environmentalist David Suzuki's foundation -- warns "there can be no doubt that bold and immediate leadership is required of governments around the world to combat global warming."

The leaders -- who include B.C. Federation of Labour president Jim Sinclair and Grand Chief Stewart Philip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs -- say British Columbians have already gotten a taste of global warming's potential havoc with the recent wild winter weather as well as the relentless march of the mountain pine beetle, the tiny insects that are destroying much of the province's pine forests thanks to warmer winters.

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=ed8d3dff-a16e-4863-98d9-bb485a5df4a2&k=80969

Vancouver Sun: Op-eds

An exclusive forum, an intolerant forum: 'World peace' gathering didn't want to hear other voices

By: Mark Weintraub and Michael Elterman

This week marks a disappointing milestone for the principles of pluralism, inclusion and participatory democracy.

As the World Peace Forum draws to a conclusion, regardless of what the organizers may claim, it is evident for those who believe in balance and openness that the event has not met the mark.

Instead of serving as a true forum for ideas, engagement and identifying shared values -- everything that such a forum ought to be -- this initiative determinedly excluded those who bring a different perspective to the table.

The organized Jewish community was one of those groups excluded from the proceedings, notwithstanding our best efforts over a period spanning more than a year to play a constructive and meaningful role.

For the record, our concern is specifically directed to the WPF board and directors and the Middle East Working Group. We applaud the hundreds of participants who engaged in activities and open discussions that aimed at promoting world peace. Indeed, many Jewish community members were active participants. However, those principals did not apply on the subject of the Middle East.

In essence, as Paul Tetrault, chair of the WPF Mideast Working Group, explained to the WPF executive in a letter written on behalf of his committee, our participation in the event would show "bad faith" to the other participants. The rationale for the call to exclude our organizations was our support for Israel. In further elaboration, Tetrault confessed that when it called for open participation, the WPF's Middle East Working Group did so "without the least expectation that the [organized Jewish community] would be a participating group in the forum." The arrogance of that attitude, shared by others around the WPF executive, is matched only by its hypocrisy.

Recognizing the potential maelstrom its Middle East subcommittee created, the WPF executive half-heartedly sought to resolve the situation. Our organizations were told "Take an 'oath of allegiance to the principles of the WPF' and we will support a parallel program or workshop in which you can participate."

Effectively, their solution amounted to blatant discrimination.

To our knowledge, not a single other prospective participant organization or individual was asked, let alone required, to swear fealty to a resolution.

The irony is that for the better part of a year we worked to organize and sponsor a series of programs and workshops at the WPF that spoke directly to interfaith dialogue and relationship building between Palestinians and Israelis.

Examples included potential workshops focusing on grassroots initiatives to build understanding and mutual respect, and the role of women and education in peace. Yet in the eyes of the "progressive" organizers, we were tainted because of our support for Israel. Although they professed that the content of our proposals was excellent, we could not be included in the conference program because of who we are.

Well, we don't apologize for our support for the only liberal democracy in the Middle East and the repatriation of a displaced indigenous people to their ancestral homeland after 2,000 years of exile. Indeed, the organizers of the WPF would have done well to take a lesson from the Jewish state.

In Israel, Jews and Arabs sit together in parliament -- in many cases as colleagues in the same political party. In Israel, Jews and Arabs sit together on the supreme court -- as colleagues and equals. In Israel, Jews and Arabs lie in adjoining hospital beds as they heal from the wounds of terrorist attacks.

Throughout this experience, we have held to the "high road," earnestly trying to find space for the contribution we felt we could offer to the discussion.

Each rebuff by the WPF was answered with another attempt to demonstrate our goodwill. However, prejudice is simply not responsive to reason, discrimination is unreceptive to inclusion.

For us in particular, our profound disappointment is threefold.

First, we truly believed we had a legitimate contribution to offer -- on interfaith dialogue toward peace in the Middle East as well as the dozens of conflicts raging in places like the Congo and Sudan.

Second, we truly believed others could benefit from hearing our perspective and discovering that we share more in common than they might otherwise think, and they were denied that opportunity.

And finally, we grieve that the best efforts of some noble individuals associated with the World Peace Forum, like the Reverend Dr. Barry Cooke, Executive Director of the BC Multifaith Action Society and WPF board member, who tried valiantly to work within the leadership of the WPF to shift their internal process to a positive and inclusive approach, but fell on deaf ears.

We, however, will not give up. We will look for partners across the entire political spectrum with whom we can collaborate in building momentum for peace.

We will search for voices that share our dream of a safe Israel living in peace alongside her neighbours. We will seek out those forums where all are welcome to contribute to the call for peace.

Mark Weintraub is chair of the Canadian Jewish Congress, Pacific Region; Dr. Michael Elterman is the chair of the Canada-Israel Committee, Pacific Region.

http://www.cjc.ca/template.php?action=oped&Rec=174

Vancouver Sun: Genocide is occurring in Sudan, Holocaust survivors' daughter says

Genocide is occurring in Sudan, Holocaust survivors' daughter says: 'There's a genocide going on and the world doesn't admit it'

Page: B5
Section: WestCoast News
Byline: Lindsay Kines
Dateline: VICTORIA
Source: Victoria Times Colonist

VICTORIA - Isa Milman used to wonder why people stood by while the Nazis murdered six million Jews in Europe more than 60 years ago.

Now the Victoria woman, whose parents survived the Holocaust, fears the same indifference that allowed the killing of her relatives then is allowing another slaughter in Darfur, Sudan.

"There's a genocide going on and the world doesn't admit it," said Milman, 56, following her Holocaust Memorial Day speech at the B.C. legislature Tuesday. "They speak about it in other terms and there's nothing stopping it. And it's so similar to what happened to Jews in the Holocaust. It's not enough to remember what happened in the past. I mean, the whole point is to be aware of what's going on today."

As more than 90 Holocaust survivors attended the ceremony, Milman and the Canadian Jewish Congress urged Canadians to honour survivors and victims alike by speaking out against the massacres in Darfur. B.C. politicians who attended the ceremony wore green "Darfur" ribbons given to them by the congress.

"We are calling upon all Canadians to redouble their efforts to attempt to ensure that the post-Holocaust mantra of "never again" is imbued with real meaning," said Mark Weintraub, chairman of the congress's Pacific region.

The Jewish community has spoken out in the past about genocides in places such as Rwanda and Cambodia, he said. "But our voices were not loud enough, and the voices of our other brothers and sisters in Canada and the world, were not loud enough. And this time we made a decision that we were going to have very loud voices."

Two years ago, the congress began lobbying politicians about the unfolding crisis in Darfur. It succeeded in getting Canada to commit $200 million to support the African Union peacekeeping effort in the west of Sudan.

"Canada became a lead country in the Darfur region, but it has been tragically insufficient," Weintraub said.

The Associated Press reported last month that at least 180,000 people have died -- some estimates put the toll much higher -- and millions of people have been displaced since the start of a 2003 revolt by rebels from Darfur's ethnic African population. The Arab-dominated Sudanese government is alleged to have responded to the revolt by unleashing Janjaweed militias, who carried out sweeping atrocities against ethnic villagers, the news agency said.

Weintraub, a Vancouver lawyer, is encouraging people to write letters to newspapers, politicians, the prime minister, to push for an end to the killings.

"This is my message to my fellow citizens: You would be astounded by the impact that one letter can have in communicating what is a profound concern. Have your church groups, your synagogues, your mosques, all of your organizations commit to anti-genocidal work."

Milman, who runs the epilepsy program for the Victoria Epilepsy and Parkinson's Centre, said she, like others, often feels helpless in the face of such horrors.

"But I think, like Elie Wiesel said, our job as human beings is to be witnesses, and to not be indifferent," she said.

"That is what is the problem always. Indifference. It's like, 'Oh, it's not my problem. I don't need to worry about it. Somebody else will take care of it. It's not me. It's not my family. So why should I worry?'

"But we are a family of human beings in this world, and if we don't take care of each other, we know what happens."

Edition: Final
Story Type: News
Length: 574 words

Vancouver Sun: New meaning to 'never again'

New meaning to 'never again': B.C. Jews link the large-scale agonies of the Holocaust with the recent mass killings and rapes in Sudan's Darfur

Thursday, February 24, 2005

Page B2

Section: Westcoast News

By DOUGLAS TODD

Robbie Waisman is a Vancouver Jew who survived four years as a child labourer in the Buchenwald concentration camp. His parents and four brothers died during the Holocaust.

Nouri Abdalla is a Port Coquitlam Muslim who had eight relatives murdered in 2003 by machete-wielding, camel-riding Janjaweed militia in his homeland, the Darfur region of Sudan.

The African-born Muslim and Polish-born Jew, in a rare alliance, are at the forefront of a movement determined to end more than 60 years of global indifference that saw the world stand by while ethnic slaughter ravaged Nazi-occupied Europe, Cambodia, the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and now Darfur.

Brought together by the Pacific Region of the Canadian Jewish Congress, Waisman and Abdalla are bent on transforming their grief and rage into an interfaith effort that will pressure Canada and the world to send United Nations peacekeeping troops to stop a massacre that's so far cost at least 100,000 lives, with some human-rights
agencies saying the total may be more than 300,000.

But the pleas of people such as Waisman and Abdalla are coming up against a wall of political and military torpor, despite the United Nations calling the massacres in Darfur "the world's worst [continuing] humanitarian crisis."

Some national leaders, particularly Prime Minister Paul Martin, have expressed grave concern about the horror in Darfur.

But little is being done to stop the killing or rescue the roughly two million Muslims in the region who have been raped, tortured or forced from their homes by a militia said to be backed by Sudan's Muslim fundamentalist government.

"Eight members of my extended family in the village of Shoba Mountains were hauled out and shot and hacked to death on July 25, 2003," says Abdalla, 44, a businessman who has lived in Canada for more than a decade.

"With 170 other people, their bodies were buried in a mass grave, which is now gone. When the killings began to be investigated by Amnesty International, the militia started taking the bodies out of the mass grave and burning them. It's happening all over Darfur."

As Waisman, a 74-year-old retired accountant, drinks coffee in the Vancouver condominium of Sheila Fruman, an official with the B.C. wing of the Canadian Jewish Congress, he listens to Abdalla tell the tragic story of his relatives' murders.

Then the Holocaust survivor says: "I feel anger. I have no words to describe the anger. Then I feel saddened the world hasn't learned a thing from the Holocaust. And then I feel encouragement that there are people of different faiths coming together to care about their fellow human beings."

Many call it an ethnic genocide -- a concerted campaign by nomadic Arabs to destroy a long-standing community of indigenous blacks. The perpetrators and the victims are all Sunni Muslims. But the Darfur rivalry has ripped apart their Muslim solidarity.

Abdalla says the people of Darfur grow furious when they hear Sudan's leaders and the Janjaweed raiders dare refer to themselves as authentic Muslims.

The atrocities in Darfur have galvanized activists from many spheres: Canada's major Jewish organization, Muslims, ecumenical Christians groups, European human-rights watchdogs, labour organizations in North America, black organizations in the U.S. and the former UN forces commander in Rwanda, Canada's Romeo Dallaire.

Mark Weintraub, chair of the Pacific Region of the Canadian Jewish Congress, says there would be little point in Canada's 300,000 Jews remembering the recent 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp if they aren't determined to stop another genocide in the making.

"The Jewish mantra of 'never again' wasn't meant to protect only the Jewish community from annihilation," says Weintraub, a lawyer. The cause of anti-Semitism, he says, is about protecting all people from being scapegoated.

" 'Never again' was a battle cry for a fundamental shift in human consciousness," Weintraub says. The efforts of Jews to stop another Holocaust, he says, has already helped lead to the creation of the UN and initiated a drive for human rights throughout the latter part of the 20th century, especially in Canada.

"Unless the world utters a collective scream to stop the killing in Darfur," Weintraub says, "all the words about anti-Semitism and about the Holocaust, about Cambodia, about Kosovo, about Rwanda don't mean a damn thing."

Abdalla, who attends the Tri-City Mosque in Port Coquitlam, returned to *Darfur* in 2003. He keeps in constant touch. "You should see my phone bill."

His family of origin have so far been safe because they live in a large city, and not a vulnerable village. But Abdalla hears on a near-daily basis from family and others about unfolding catastrophes.

Given Abdalla's activism in Canada's Sudanese community, Weintraub asked him to speak last fall at a Vancouver synagogue during Yom Kippur, the most holy event in the Jewish calendar. Most Greater Vancouver synagogues devoted their Yom Kippur services to the mass murders in Darfur.

Still, the Jews and Muslim sitting around the table in Vancouver worry not nearly enough is being done at the geopolitical level to force the Sudanese government to stop the killing in Darfur.

They believe the Canadian government must give much greater support to the work of B.C. Senator Mobina Jaffer, a Muslim and Canada's special envoy to Sudan, who has been desperately trying to create a workable solution for Darfur.

The Vancouver-based human-rights advocates acknowledge, however, that one of their campaign's challenges has been creating an easy-to-grasp picture of what is going on in conflict-ridden Sudan, which is the size of France and has a population of 32 million.

In early January, in a deal separate from the Darfur atrocities, Sudan agreed to a peace agreement to end a 21-year civil war between the hardline Muslim government in the north and Christians and animists in the south. That conflict left 1.5 million people dead.

The peace agreement, signed under international pressure from the U.S. government, U.S. evangelical Christians and European nations, assured Christians and animists in the south they would get some access to Sudan's rich oil reserves and the right to vote on independence in six years.

Then, in early February the UN envoy to Sudan, Jan Pronk, argued the north-south peace deal will not last unless violence is also ended in the conflict among Muslims in Darfur, in western Sudan. Darfur's troubles were sparked in early 2003 when indigenous black rebels began fighting for greater independence from Sudanese authorities, maintaining the northern government had long favoured the region's Arabs over its blacks.

Pronk has urged the UN to send more than 10,000 peacekeeping troops to stabilize Darfur. However, some permanent members of the UN Security Council, China and Russia, are balking at moving in troops or imposing economic sanctions to force an end to the Darfur massacres.

Weintraub notes that China relies on Sudanese oil, and Russia profits from arms sales to Sudan's government, which claims it has nothing to do with the marauding Janjaweed militia.

International efforts to pressure the authoritarian Muslim rulers of Sudan were further complicated in early February when a UN panel report fell short of calling the massacres a "genocide," which can be defined as the obliteration of a people because of their nationality, ethnicity or religion.

Instead, the UN report said the killings in Darfur revealed "genocidal intentions" and amounted to a crime against humanity.

An official "genocide" label would have obliged the 15-member UN Security Council to take immediate measures to stop the killing.

In addition, the UN and the U.S. disagreed in early February over how to prosecute Sudan's wrongdoers.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged that trials for those behind Darfur's atrocities be held at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands. But U.S. President George W. Bush's administration has long opposed the Dutch-based international court, fearing it could someday be used to prosecute American soldiers. The
U.S. believes prosecutions should take place at a separate court in Tanzania.

Currently, only 1,200 UN-backed African Union soldiers are stationed in Darfur. They have been ordered to do little more than observe the so-called "ceasefire." They are not allowed to stop the massacres.

That's similar to the tragic situation Dallaire found himself in in Rwanda in the mid-1990s, says Fruman, who was once communications adviser to former B.C. premier Mike Harcourt and who has worked for pro-democracy organizations in the ethnically torn Balkans.

The Rwandan disaster, which occurred 10 years ago, has been the subject of many official apologies, says Fruman. The mishandled crisis has recently been depicted in Dallaire's biography, Shake Hands with the Devil, an award-winning documentary of the same name, and the new movie, Hotel Rwanda.

"Darfur is in the shadow of Rwanda," says Fruman. "The aid always seems to come too late. We don't want the seriousness of the conflict in Darfur to be the subject of another set of apologies 10 years from now."

Waisman, remembering his dead family members and the 1.5 million children killed in the Holocaust, adds: "As a survivor, our greatest fear is that all those people will have died in vain and we won't free the world of genocide. It affects us all. Mass murder always starts with an identifiable group. But it never ends there."

The interfaith campaign being launched by Waisman, Abdalla, Fruman and Weintraub is urging Martin to capitalize on Canada's good reputation in Africa. The group has already convinced the Canadian Jewish Congress to work with the mainline Christian organization, Kairos (Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives), to make Darfur a
priority letter-writing campaign.

The Vancouver group has also sent letters to Martin urging him to press harder for 50,000 UN peacekeeping troops to be moved into Sudan and particularly Darfur. They also want Martin to insist on a no-fly zone over Darfur. That's because when the Janjaweed militia are not storming into villages on horses or camels, they fly in in government-owned, Russian-made airplanes, causing villagers to rush in panic into the forests.

"They burn everything; and they kill everything they need to," says Abdalla.

The pro-government militia has been accused of torching villages, systematically raping women, throwing babies into fires, singling out men and boys for execution and torturing fathers in front of their families.

The Vancouver-based human-rights advocates want Martin -- who during a fall visit to Sudan urged President Omar al-Bashir to protect Darfur's refugees -- to inject more bite into the arguments he made before the UN last September.

That's when, addressing the UN General Assembly, Martin went further than most heads of state. He said the attacks on civilians in Darfur show that the world, under the auspices of the UN, must sometimes override the traditional sovereign rights of a country by sending in troops to intervene to stop massacres.

Although the activists sitting around the table in Vancouver regretted that Canada is now ranked only 37th in the world in terms of its commitment to peacekeeping troops, Weintraub is convinced the globe-trotting Martin is the prime minister who will launch a new era in Canada's foreign policy.

"Canada has often been able to punch above its weight" in global influence, says Weintraub.

Weintraub envisions Canada returning to the era of former Liberal prime minister Lester Pearson, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 for brokering a deal that avoided armed conflict over access to the Suez Canal.

If Canada fails to raise enough pressure to end the slaughter in Darfur, Weintraub worries Jaffer, as the country's special envoy, will "have to bear the cost of a vast humanitarian crisis."

Why do so many in the West seem indifferent to Darfur, or at least to making something happen to stop the deaths of an estimated 10,000 people each month?

Dallaire says the developed world virtually ignored the murders of 900,000 Rwandans for two basic reasons: Because they were black, not white; and because their land and resources were of no economic significance to the superpowers.

The people of Darfur suffer similar invisibility, say the Vancouver activists.

They are largely indigenous black subsistence farmers, victimized by nomadic Arabs bent on forcing them out of their villages so they can control their land and use it for grazing their animals.

Former British colonialists helped create Sudan's problems through their map-making. Just as they did throughout much of the Middle East, British rulers gave Sudan virtually unworkable borders, which allowed antagonistic groups to assume power over each other.

Even though Western colonialists have guilt on their hands in Africa, Fruman says, people in the West tend to write off Sudan's problems. They shake their heads and blame the troubles on Africans, saying the continent is such a mess nothing can be done about it.

Unlike some genocides-in-the-making of the 20th century, however, Fruman maintains that this time, leaders and citizens of the West can't honestly say they didn't really know what was going on in Darfur.

Modern communication technology, she says, has kept the world informed about Darfur's atrocities, whether we like it or not.

"We really have no excuse," she says. "Every day we know somebody is dying because we're not doing enough."

dtodd@png.canwest.com

Vancouver Sun: Cleric blames media for storm over anti-Jewish diatribe

Oct. 25, 2004

By: Jonathan Fowlie

VANCOUVER - A Vancouver-based Muslim cleric who called Jews the "brothers of monkeys and swine" released a long statement on the weekend saying he is "not a violent nor hateful person" and that his comments were taken "completely out of context."

Younus Kathrada was heavily criticized last week after reports surfaced in the media of speeches he had made in which he called Jews the "brothers of monkeys and swine" and in which he espoused the virtues of an "offensive jihad," or holy war, between Muslims and people of non-Muslim religions.

In the 1,600-word response on his website, Kathrada said he is going through "perhaps one of the saddest moments of my life," and attempted to clarify what he meant in his lectures.

"References to Jews in any of my lectures have always been linked to the Palestinian issue and the Al-Aqsa mosque," Kathrada wrote, adding "it is not our belief that Jews are subhuman."

With regards to an "offensive jihad" Kathrada said he "made it clear, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that many conditions must be met before this is permissible."

He blamed the media for quoting him out of context in search of a "sensational story."

In reaction to Kathrada's posting, Jewish groups said on Sunday the statement does not change their condemnation of the cleric's earlier comments.

"In my view there is no authentic remorse," said Mark Weintraub, chairman of the Pacific region of the Canadian Jewish Congress.

"But even if there were, it is against Canadian law," he said. "Incitement of hatred and genocide are criminal offences -- punishable by imprisonment if appropriate."

After reading Kathrada's statement, Karen Lazar of B'nai B'rith Canada said, "I think a lot of what he says gives us great cause for concern.

"Having read this, B'nai B'rith certainly stands behind its initial call for an investigation to be launched immediately into charges of incitement to hatred and incitement to genocide, and I hope authorities will respond immediately," she said.

Weintraub said Kathrada's posting was no different from someone who has committed assault turning around and saying he was misunderstood, in an effort to avoid being charged.

"How do you reinterpret a call to kill Jews?" he said. "The hatred in other countries must be kept out of Canada, and I call on all Canadians to stand firm in repudiating his call for violence."

Reached by Canadian Press on Sunday, Kathrada would not elaborate on his statement.

"I think I've made it about as clear as I could on the [web]site," he said. "At this point in time I think I would like to leave it at that."

Kathrada's Dar al-Madinah's information centre came into the spotlight earlier this month because Rudwan Khalil Abubaker, a Vancouver man reportedly killed by Russian forces in Chechnya, went there to pray.

A report from Russian officials says Abubaker was buried in Chechnya after the raid, meaning his body may not be returned.

Federal officials in Canada say the Abubaker family has been provided with the details of that report and told that a representative from Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs will speak with the family's lawyer about the case again today.

http://www.cjc.ca/template.php?action=itn&Story=997

Vancouver Sun: Police probe radical cleric

October 23, 2004

Police probe radical cleric: East Van mosque linked to three B.C. men missing in Asia

By: Joel Baglole, Jonathan Fowlie, and Krisendra Biset

The RCMP and the Vancouver police said Friday they are investigating racist comments made by Sheik Younus Kathrada, a radical Muslim cleric in Vancouver who promotes Islamic holy war against Jews and other non-Muslim people.

"We are aware of comments that have been made at this particular mosque, and we are following up with an investigation," RCMP Cpl. Catherine Galliford said. "I am not prepared to say if there are any other Vancouver mosques currently under investigation," she added.

A controversy erupted in Vancouver's Muslim and Jewish communities after it was reported that Kathrada, cleric of the Dar al-Madinah Islamic Society mosque in east Vancouver, made anti-Semitic and racist comments during public speeches, several of which have been posted on the Internet.

On Friday, those comments triggered a confrontation outside the Dar al-Madinah mosque as a lone protester waved a sign at people going into the storefront doorway.


Kathrada first entered the news as the cleric who ran a prayer group attended by Rudwan Khalil Abubaker, the Vancouver man believed to have been shot by authorities in Russia. On Friday, Phil Rankin, lawyer for the Abubaker family, confirmed Abubaker had attended Kathrada's mosque.


In an interview with The Sun, Rankin also said the Abubaker family learned Friday that Russian authorities had buried their 26-year-old relative in the Chechan village of Niki-Khita -- the small village where he is believed to have been killed -- in the days, or even hours, after he was allegedly shot by Russian authorities in an anti-terrorist raid Oct. 8.

Rankin, who previously did not know where the body believed to be Abubaker's was being held, said the family of the 26-year-old remains uncertain their relative is dead, since the only proof of his identity so far has been the passport Russian authorities held up to a television camera after four men were shot in the apparent raid.


That identification process will become more complex, Rankin said, now that the body has been buried.


"The [Russians] say that Rudwan was buried so they can't get the body back," Rankin said.


"He had a good Muslim burial and they're not going to exhume him," he said, adding Muslim faith does not allow for bodies to be exhumed.


"We'll make an exception," he said, explaining the family still wants the body to be brought back to Canada.

Rankin said the Russian authorities have sent fingerprints of Abubaker, but that the family is uncertain whether they would be able to make a match because they do not believe his prints are on file with anyone.


He added the Russians said they may also send a picture of the dead man's body, which the family could use for identification, but he was not certain if that was going to happen.


On Friday night, federal sources told The Sun a picture of the body has been sent from Russia and is with Canadian authorities in Ottawa.


Rankin also said that Azer Tagiev and Kamal Elbahja, two friends of Abubaker who are missing and may also have been in Russia, also used to attend the Dar al-Madinah mosque.


Kathrada, the cleric at that mosque, has referred to Jews as "the brothers of monkeys and swine," and espoused the virtues of an "offensive jihad," an Islamic holy war between Muslims and people of non-Muslim religions.


On Friday, Rankin said that Abubaker's younger brother, Amir Abubaker, attended the mosque with Rudwan, but does not recall any lectures containing those or similar words against Jews.

Outside the Dar Al-Madinah mosque on Friday, a lone protester who expressed concern that Kathrada's comments will damage Muslim-Jewish relations, was confronted by a group of angry Muslims.


Kathrada was not at his tiny rented office and prayer rooms on Vancouver's Fraser Street and a sign posted at the entrance of the building said the day's prayer would not be taking place at the location.


Muslims arriving for the 1 p.m. Jumaah Prayer were startled to find the door locked and some became angry when another Muslim man, Hanif Abdul Karim, arrived with a placard saying that "anti-Jewish, anti-Muslim hate hurts all of us."


Some in the group tried to yank the placard from Karim and shove him from outside the mosque entrance but were restrained by others. Shaken by the ordeal, Karim, who left soon after, said he was appalled by their reaction -- and by Kathrada's comments.


"I'm saddened that this type of hate speech can be said in the name of Islam," he said.


But he was shouted down by Muslims close to Kathrada. One man, who would not give his name, said of the anti-Semitic comments: "This is a minor issue. Do you know what the Palestinians are going through? You have no idea."

Another man, who looked no older than 20, said: "We are an honest, peaceful people and who speak the truth. If it hurts, so be it. No Jew will be spared."


In an interview with The Canadian Press, Kathrada did not deny he made the comments, and said his words speak for themselves.


Vancouver police spokeswoman Const. Anne Drennan said an investigation into Kathrada's comments "has been ongoing for some time now." However, she added that police have no immediate concerns about the mosque.

"At this point, there is nothing to indicate a likelihood of violence breaking out," she said.


Jewish groups in Vancouver and across Canada reacted strongly to Kathrada's comments.


"I am very disturbed by these comments," said Mark Weintraub, chair of the Canadian Jewish Congress Pacific Region. "If in fact the individual in question has called for the killing of Jews, then this is the most overt attack on Jewish people Vancouver has ever seen."


B'Nai Brith Canada called on B.C. Attorney-General Geoff Plant to begin an immediate investigation. A spokeswoman for the ministry declined to comment.


Condemnation of Kathrada's actions was equally strong in Canada's Muslim community.


"This kind of commentary is completely against the teachings of Islam and all people of conscience should deplore it," the B.C. Muslim Association said in a statement. However, the association noted: "The comments appear to have been made in response to the assassination of Sheik Ahmed Yassin in Palestine. The Muslim community was obviously shocked by the assassination and it is possible Mr. Kathrada over reacted."


The Dar al-Madinah mosque is among a handful of mosques in the Vancouver area that are not affiliated with the B.C. Muslim Association.


The Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations also denounced Kathrada's comments, calling them "deeply offensive" and not reflective of the views of Canadian Muslims.


Kathrada told Canadian Press he is a native of South Africa's Indian community, and that he has been a cleric at Dar al-Madinah for six years. Before that, he said, he was a Muslim chaplain at the University of Victoria on Vancouver Island. He said he studied in Saudi Arabia.


In his speeches, Kathrada tells an audience that martyrdom should be the desire of all real Muslims. "The prophet . . . says that the stone and the tree will say `Oh Muslim, oh slave of Allah, that verily behind me is a Jew. Then come and kill him," he says in one text of a speech.


Basel Barqoni, who moved to Vancouver from Palestine 17 years ago, described Kathrada as a "very respectable man" and didn't believe he would make negative comments concerning Jews. But Barqoni expressed his own strong views, saying he was uncomfortable that "Jews control the world and the media" and that Muslims are branded as terrorists.


David Matas, a lawyer for B'nai Brith, said Kathrada could be prosecuted under Canada's hate crime laws against inciting hatred and/or genocide. Given that Kathrada's comments are on tape and he has not denied them, any case against him would be "cut and dried," he said.


Also appeared in the Ottawa Citizen, Moose Jaw Times and Canwest News Service.


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