Facebook is blocking Canadians’ posts on the assassination of a BC Sikh leader
pressprogress.ca
pressprogress.ca
C-18 is a problem. We need to deal with it. That's not relevant to the issue at hand.
And to those saying "Well he was a terrorist..." we, in Canada, have something called the Rule of Law. You have to prove someone is guilty, in court, with real evidence. They serve time in prison for their crimes. They can be extradited to other countries to face court there.
If Bhai Hardeep Singh Nijjar was a terrorist, and there was sufficient evidence to convict him, the Indian government should have brought it to the Canadian Government. It's very simple really.
Murdering someone without trial because you don't like their political speech- why, I think there's a word for that.
The Khalistani perpetrators of the worst terrorist act on Canadian soil, second only to 9/11 in deaths, walked free.
I can't comment on Canada's justice system broadly. But when it comes to holding terrorists accountable, Canada's track record is a joke.
> The Canadian government guarantees this and the Indian government interfered with this sovereignty as alleged.
I would have said instead: "The Canadian government guarantees this and the Indian government is alleged to have interfered with its sovereignty."
>I can't comment on Canada's justice system broadly. But when it comes to holding terrorists accountable, Canada's track record is a joke.
The wikipedia article says the Canadian government spent $130M prosecuting the accused, but was unable to secure a conviction. If these people can't be convicted, isn't the correct course of action "walked free"? I'm not sure what the alternative is here? Should we lock them up anyway? Is there any reason to doubt that their prosecution was botched?
It's questionable if that exists in Canada given the system that's currently in place.
Look at the results of the most recent federal election, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Canadian_federal_election
A party that received 32.62% of the popular vote got 160 seats in the House of Commons, while another party that received 33.74% of the vote got only 119 seats.
A party that received only 7.64% of the votes got 32 seats, while another party that received 17.82% of the vote got only 25 seats.
A party that received 2.33% of the votes got 2 seats, while another party that received 4.94% of the vote got no seats.
With a votes-to-seats situation like that, there are a lot of Canadians who don't have proper representation in the House of Commons, or in some cases, effectively none at all.
It's no surprise that the voter turnout wasn't even 63%; many Canadians are completely disillusioned with how the current system works, and don't feel that any of the parties can offer them meaningful representation.
Fuck everything about that.
Seems like that's exactly what rule of law should entail: laws so strictly enforced that people can't be prosecuted when the prosecution is botched because doing so would... violate the rule of law.
So if anything, this further reinforces the idea that Canada hews closely to its laws than not.
If the prosecution fails to make their case, either through incompetence, or simply being outwitted by the defense, that's life. That's how the system as a whole should function. That is rule of law.
Well… wasn’t it:
> In his verdict, Justice Ian Josephson cited "unacceptable negligence" by CSIS when hundreds of wiretaps of the suspects and other informants were destroyed.
But that’s just how due process and judicial systems work.
This issue is not something we want to be adjudicating. It is not a matter of black and white, good guys and bad guys. If India does not like the guy and wants him charged with terrorism, she needs to go through Canadian courts.
> the murder of muslims in India in general?
Your accusations do not pan out in any statistics. India is a safer place for Shia Muslims than any non-Iran country in the middle east. India is the only country where Ahmediyyas are not prosecuted.
There is no 'murder of muslims in India in general'. India has communal tensions just as every heterogenous country has communal tensions. But other than uncontrollable riots where both sides are usually injured, Muslims are treated fairly in the Indian system. If anything, India practices affirmative action towards Muslims, allows islamic schools (madaras) and gives them fully independent management rights of all islamic institutions. None of these allowances are extended to the majority population.
Are you suggesting that he was involved?
Or are you suggesting that all Sikhs who believe in an independent nation for their people are guilty of that crime?
Should we also hold all Quebecois who believe in an independent Quebec guilty for the murder of Pierre Laporte?
Oh yeah? What's the word for accusing someone for murdering without an iota of proof?
By the way, the word you are looking for would be the same for someone accusing of lying or deception without an iota of proof.
A murder accusation. What's your point?
If other governments have a problem with that they can get fucked.
The asymmetry you imply does not exist.
There wouldn’t be an issue if New Delhi had stuck to wanting to whack a Canadian.
Sure. There isn’t the necessity of a military response here. But it was exceedingly dumb. New Delhi has a rogue security element. I, at the very least, didn’t see that coming. From the indignant response, it appears Delhi didn’t either. That’s concerning.
[citation needed]
What's more likely are additional restrictions on international trade and immigration. The great experiment with globalism appears to be winding down and powerful countries are decoupling their economies from each other.
But ultimately this is effort to moderate west, well smaller countries like Canada (increasingly dependent on Indian immigration) to control what domestic diasphora voices they amplify. Which may very well backfire. Or not - decades of increased PRC immigration + students in Canada was associated with fed gov playing down PRC dissident voices (and still do to some extent). Short of getting rid of problems via extradition - which is political suicide for Canada and won't happen - India limited to raising political cost of associating unfriendly diasphora politics. Canada isn't going to hit immigration targets without playing nice with either India or PRC. So there's no reason not to push, and almost extra reason to. There's likely going to be millions of new Indians in Canada by 2030, India doesn't want dissident elements to organize, and is incentivized to make domestic politics difficult in Canada if they're allowed to.
It's fun that this one is "word".
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/word > Definition 2 a/b/c are clearly the contextually-relevant definitions
https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/word > Second most popular synonym: "phrase".
Next time when you try to be a pedant, come prepared. Not only is it not wanted, you're not even correct.
:)
Claiming without proof that Indian government carried out killing is called what?
The guy was brainwashed as a child by his lunatic father and dragged to Afghanistan to resist American's invasion. There was some kind of firefight, he nearly died, and the Americans decided that since he survived he was guilty of all the crimes.
He was 15. A kid. A child soldier, by international law.
He was held for a decade in Guantanamo Bay, a US military facility, without any real trial.
The US already had him. They abused his rights and ignored international law. Why should Canada give him back to them?
Of course, the difference here was that the USA attempted a diplomatic process and did not execute a citizen on Canadian soil.
You seem to be implying that if India couldn't extradite him, they should kill him.
Just thinking out loud, if some parts of India started breaking away from India, that could start a chain reaction. India has incredibly diverse sets of citizens, each with their own set of cultural identities and historical grievances. Maintaining national unity has been a struggle since India become its own country. And it’s two enemies to the north would love to see India divided. Violent suppression of separatists is apparently a necessity evil for them.
If true, this was a stupid move. They’ve martyred a separatist while bringing him and his cause international sympathy and attention. The assassins have carried out an action resembling an attack on a founding member of NATO and close ally of America’s. In North America. This is a line even the Soviets and Chinese respected. Not out of fear, but rational self interest.
If true, New Delhi’s best move is to find the perpetrators and make an example out of them. (My guess is a security element went rogue and the diplomats were too incompetent to keep it quiet.)
Well, Russia is pretty fine with carrying out extra-judicial assassination attempts of undesirables on UK soil, so it's not clear this line is true any more.
Also remember the killing in Turk soil by Saudi Arabia
By all accounts that was caused by the Ukraine invasion rather than the assassination.
>Also remember the killing in Turk soil by Saudi Arabia
What end up happening to them? Seems like they got off pretty light. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamal_Khashoggi#U.S._response
It's not either/or, it's both.
The counter example is USA (I'm american). USA had such a "good guy" track record post WWII that we invaded numerous countries and fucked around all over the world and we didn't get coalition'ed against.
Partly because they were on the other side. It's different here (if true) because, as the BBC points out -
"Western powers would have to make a choice between backing Ottawa or New Delhi, a choice between supporting the principle of the rule of law or the hard necessity of realpolitik."
For example, it was historically non-aligned but on friendly terms with the Soviet Union:
> In 1954, the United States made Pakistan a Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) ally. As a result, India cultivated strategic and military relations with the Soviet Union to counter Pakistan–United States relations.[2] In 1961, India became a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement to abstain from aligning with either the US or the USSR in the Cold War.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/India–United_States_relation...
Pakistan is/was a closer and more reliable ally for the United States.
For another example where India disregarded the interests of the west:
> In 1970, Indira Gandhi enacted legislation which barred medical products from being patented in the country.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmaceutical_industry_in_I...
Of course, India would seem to be a natural ally given that both countries are committed democracies and there is massive immigration from India to the United States, but in practice the United States likes the reliability of less-democratic states and India likes to control its own affairs and is powerful enough to do so.
So it goes.
Because of the Himalayas, China can't interfere with India any more than it could if India were in Europe. (Yes, I know about the recent deadly skirmishes on their shared border. They involved small numbers of soldiers and even getting large numbers of soldiers to the border would be arduous, let alone anything like a tank.)
Even assuming it is sanctioned killing, how would that be an attack on Canada?
When it comes to assassination, maybe. But China conducts extra-judicial operations in Canada, and even deport citizens (send back to China), with little respect for Canada's sovereignty.
* Search for china+secret+police+canada and make your own mind. Obviously the CCP denies it and the Canadian government is mute. So you only have the mainstream media's word to go on.
So there are 2 differences here: - targeting their own citizens rather than the host nations - not killing them
Those are pretty big differences for international relations purposes.
The Soviets regularly murdered dissidents from the Soviet Union in western countries. That's like half the reason the KGB existed. You can read about it in The Sword and the Shield by Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, a book directly referencing KGB archives.
American citizens in North America?
They did a lot of shit in North America but one of the points of Sword and Shield was explaining how assassinations were mainly directed towards ex-Soviet dissidents and not American citizens. I'm not excusing what the Indian Government did here, I'm just saying that the Soviets (and the United States for that matter) regularly performed actions on this level in a number of western countries.
Sure. But America didn’t assassinate Russians in Russia. And the Soviets reciprocated. This is a bright line that someone stupidly crossed. Rogue elements happen. That New Delhi appears blindsided is the concerning bit.
The heyday of the Khalistan movement was decades ago. It has petered out and lingers only at a minor, ineffectual level similar to how left-wing militants or Basque separatist violence still simmered for a while in Europe but achieved nothing. Plus, Western audiences are still poorly informed about ethnic and sectarian differences within India, there’s nothing here easy for them to grab on to. I wouldn’t expect this event to bring any new impetus to the Sikh separatist cause.
The Khalistani movement is pretty weak, and as Pakistan shows, repression is counterproductive in that it is makes ethnic identity more salient not less. (At least in the Kashmiri case there is already a substantial terrorist movement that can’t be ignored; the Khalistan movement is a joke and certainly can be. Turnout in the last Assembly elections was ⩾70 per cent.) Even the Akali Dal was in alliance with the BJP. (See e.g. Jaffrelot's The Pakistan Paradox for an account of the radicalisation of Bengali, Muhajir, and Sindhi nationalists, inter alios.)
This is a specific policy to allow them to enforce their censorship laws in other countries.
It seems like India's stance is: If you want to do business in India, you have to have employees you care about on our soil, so we can be mean to them if you do something we don't like.
Facebook's stance appears to be: We like your money enough that we will comply with this.
I'm just glad I'm not one of those Facebook employees.
Nor a facebook user.
"Either have employees in-country so we can intimidate them so you'll do what we want, or we block your service."
Sounds pretty effective? Sure, some people will get around the blocks, but it'll be a relatively small percentage (especially if the government makes circumventing these blocks illegal, most people won't find it worth any risk to do it anyway), and your service will be effectively destroyed in that country.
Stuff like the drinking age (a state law) doesn't apply, but federal laws do apply, which is why American citizens who go abroad to commit gang-related crimes (and more stupidly, break fishing and hunting restrictions) are still arrested when they return despite the fact that no aspect of the crime touched American soil.
This is completely false. There is no country that is more well versed on imposing their laws on other countries than the USA. This is done via sanctions, limiting access to the international US dollar based financial system, and by holding a dominant position in trade negotiations that often allows the USA to literally dictate the contents of foreign laws.
Sure, the US government pressures other countries though various means to adopt certain legal regimes. But in the absence of that pressure (or the absence of a foreign country caving to that pressure), US law does not apply in that other country (well, except to US citizens traveling there; the US can and will arrest US citizens who break US federal law while abroad, upon their return).
The overarching point is that US-based companies will often apply US law to their operations in other countries, even when they are not obligated to (by any law, US or otherwise). Likely this is for consistency and simplicity reasons: it's easier to have one policy than hundreds.
Of course in this case it's the reverse: India strong-arming Facebook into following India's censorship initiatives. Seems they can do this by requiring Facebook employ people who reside in India, who the Indian government can threaten in order to get Facebook to comply. As lame as I think that is, that's life, and capitalism. Facebook seems plenty happy to accept all the revenue generated by their Indian user base, in exchange for complying with questionable (or worse) local laws.
The US arrests or gets foreign citizens extradited to the US for acts committed in a foreign country on a regular basis. I'm not sure how you're not aware of this since it has happened to several very notable figure such as SBF, Kim Dotcom and Assange.
More words: the Cloud Act was specifically designed to apply globally. As long as a company has some kind of presence in the US, they can compel that company to produce any data stored anywhere on the globe. That definitely makes American law apply in foreign countries outside of treaties.
I think it's really that simple. Facebook can say "we will obey whatever your laws decide" to every country. Or it can say "deal with it. Block us." And I think it already happens that way for many countries.
On the other hand, Facebook is much more likely to err on the side of India given the much larger population and associated $ potential and THE BILL.
Canada is not exactly an espionage expert relative to places like India so I find it highly unlikely that we (Canada) will be able to figure this out in the short term without external help.
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/canada-worked-closely...
He shredded the Charter to fabricate a wedge (interior vaccine passports, firing civil servants) to win a few votes in the last election. This is absolutely in character.. good governance means nothing to Trudeau compared to being re-elected.
Keep in mind that Jagmeet Singh is the leader of the NDP, the other main leftist party in Canada, and he represents the Burnaby South riding.
Due to how Canada's elections work, the Liberals drawing even a relatively small number of voters away from the NDP in key ridings could have a significant negative impact on the NDP's and Singh's level of success during the next election.
In 2021, Singh beat the Liberal candidate by only about 4,000 votes, for example. That was only 10% of the vote, and the overall turnout was merely 51% in that riding.
And identity politics can and do win you seats in local councils, senates, congresses, and so on.
This is the very common mistake by identity politics deniers. They always say that <minority group> population is x% where x << 100. But what they forget, willingly or unwillingly, is that population is not uniformly distributed over the country and are concentrated in some parts, and a party, by appeasing the <minority> can and do win seats in democratic elections.
I have seen this first hand in multiple places.
Edit: I just learned that Trudeau's party is in power because of the support of a Shikh party. His party was 10 seats short of majority needed to form government. A Shikh party provided the support which put him in power.
wtf? NDP is led by Jagmeet Singh, who happens to be Sikh. That doesn't make NDP Sikh. What a ridiculous line of thought.
[0]: https://capforcanada.com/air-india-bombing-revisited-sikhism...
Facebook should leave India or be forced by Canada and Europe not to cooperate with Indian demands.
Otherwise, the EU is letting India censor its own citizens.
The context is that there's a Canadian Sikh who has been calling for parts of India to secede from India. In response, India had him assassinated.
India has laws on the books that allow them to remove content globally for things that violate Indian law. They enforce this on social media companies by requiring them to have employees on the country's soil in order to take them hostage.
C-18 just says you can't post links on Facebook without news companies getting a cut of ad revenue. India wants all discussion of their assassination of a Canadian citizen to be censored, and they're currently getting that censorship.
Why do people keep saying this like it's a fact? Often it's the same people claiming that the murdered victim in Canada should be presumed innocent of the accusations levelled at him.
In both cases, we should approach the accusations with skepticism.
There are occasionally people who opportunistically claim credit for crimes they didn't commit, when it suits their politics. And even if it was someone in RAW, being "close to the government", does not necessarily mean it was ordered by that government.
None of us have enough information to say for sure at this point. Yet people carry on like we know the truth without equivocation.
The Prime Minister of Canada just did a state visit to India, where he was not warmly received, and made to look foolish on the world stage. So, he has his own political calculations in this affair, and is far from an objective arbiter of truth.
This 100%. It is the only reason why this mudslinging is happening now.
This is a very bold claim.
I don't think so.
The state visit, and the bad PR it brought to the Canadian PM is well-reported publically. And the idea that a PM makes political calculations, which don't hold truth as more important than all other factors, wouldn't be controversial to most political observers.
So is blaming this killing on India. No evidence has been presented.
This was probably nothing but gang rivalry.
Indo-Canadian organized crime or Punjabi-Canadian organized crime is made up predominantly of young adults and teenagers of Punjabi ethnic, cultural and linguistic background, typically ethnic Jatt’s. [0]
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Canadian_organized_crim...
Read the Wikipedia link. There has been known and established link between Khalistani elements in Canada and Punjabi/Sikh organized crime.
And for your information, I live in Vancouver. I'm aware of the organized crime issue here. But not every Sikh is a terrorist or criminal (I can't believe I have to say that).
Suggesting they are criminally involved just because of their race is textbook racism.
Now you’re just making things up. Where in my comment did I say that every Sikh is a terrorist or criminal or I’m blaming criminal ties due to his ethnicity? Please point me to that.
I was referring to him being a Khalistani and I did point you to the fact that Khalistanis have ties with organized crime. There’s shit ton of evidence related to that.
For the record, I’m sure I know more Sikhs than you, have since childhood and none of them is a Khalistani nor a criminal.
>This was probably nothing but gang rivalry.
>>Indo-Canadian organized crime or Punjabi-Canadian organized crime is made up predominantly of young adults and teenagers of Punjabi ethnic, cultural and linguistic background, typically ethnic Jatt’s. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Canadian_organized_crim...
Since you purposefully pulled a quotation from the wiki article about ethnicity, it seems pretty obvious to me you are linking his ethnicity to organized crime. Right? Am I crazy? You brought up his ethnicity. You did that.
If you meant to say Khalistanis have ties to organized crime then you should have said that. But, you didn't.
Anyways, now that you've corrected (or backtracked) to say Khalistanis have ties with organized crime, I acknowledge your correction. Though, I still don't follow the logic of "Khalistanis have ties with organized crime" therefore, this is "probably" organized crime but this has gone on long enough.
FYI, I'm not going to read your reply.
He is also deeply unpopular, sinking in the polls, and facing major public pressure over Canada's housing and cost of living crisis. He also has taken significant criticism for his handling of Chinese foreign interference campaigns.
A cynic might point out that starting a fight with an unpopular foreign government is a great way to distract attention from the government's domestic policy failures.
Well, I agree; in these matters there is rarely definitive proof until the archives are opened. Given the implicit epistemic standards governing such assertions, I think this particular assertion is fine; there is a pretty good argument for it. Those standards vary by context, and sentences of the form 'intelligence agencies did blah' have relatively low standards.
> The Prime Minister of Canada just did a state visit to India, where he was not warmly received, and made to look foolish on the world stage. So, he has his own political calculations in this affair, and is far from an objective arbiter of truth.
(https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/19/trudeau-india-...)
I can equally make an argument that the relatively muted reaction of the Indophile UK government suggests that there is something to these reports:
> The British foreign secretary, James Cleverly, said his government backed a Canadian investigation, adding that he expected India’s “full cooperation” in the inquiry. “Obviously, we have a very strong relationship with Canada, a very strong relationship with India,” he said.
or that the States would have denied this if they could, given the importance of the Quad; and so on.
We can try to read the tea-leaves, but we don't know for sure.
I'm not saying it's wrong, i'm saying people should stop being so emphatically absolute in their belief that they know the truth. It's a corrosive sickness that permeates much public discourse these days.
Have you considered the possibility that the reason he got a cold reception was he brought the accusation he just made publicly? Would put the issue with the plane in a whole new light too...
"India’s ministry of external affairs said in a statement it “rejected” statements by Trudeau and his foreign minister, adding that allegations of India’s involvement in any act of violence in Canada are “absurd and motivated ” ...
... “ growing concern at the interference of Canadian diplomats in our internal matters and their involvement in anti-India activities” [0]
TLDR: "We didn't do it and he was a bad guy anyway!"
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/18/credible-evide...
The only way you could read that response as an admission is if you've already made up your mind before reading it.
Trudeau's poor relationship with India has been a constant scandal for his government. Similarly his junior coalition partner Jagmeet Singh, whos relationship with the international Sikh community has resulted in constant accusations of sympathy for Khalistani terrorists.
Canada has a massive Indian diaspora, and they're Liberal voters. Pissing them off without merit would be very dangerous for the already-embattled PM
So what I mean to say is: while he cannot provide justification, he would not have made this accusation lightly. Unfortunately this is not a court case so we will not get to know the details. It is what it is.
Are you suggesting that India requires Facebook to employ people who reside in India in order to operate in India, and that they use those employees as hostages in order to coerce Facebook to succumb to their demands even when when those demands concern communication between non-Indian nationals residing outside of India?
If so, I'd love to hear more about this; do you have any resources?
https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/elon-musk-sa...
But on the other hand we also ran a referendum and asked if the public really wanted to leave.
The separatists lost the referendum. Repeatedly.
Particularly relevant since PM Trudeau's father was involved in handling that situation.
Where’s the evidence? Can you point to it.
Canada has less than 40 million total people. If Facebook completely exited Canada and banned all Canadians from Facebook, it wouldn’t be all that big of a deal.
India on the other hand has over a billion people.
If you have to choose to piss off a government, Canada is a much better choice than India.
https://www.ndtv.com/business/earning-rs-25-000-you-are-in-i...
https://competitiveness.in/the-state-of-inequality-in-india-....
"Canadian Sikh Facebook users posting about the assassination of a Sikh community leader are seeing posts disappear and accounts suspended in response to legal demands by the Indian government."
What does that have to do with C-18?
Nothing? Less then nothing?
Imo there's little difference in what Facebook is doing here with what they did when they removed Jan 6th posts. Hardeep Singh Nijjar was trying using his political influence to overthrow the Indian government by supporting extremist groups within India. Obviously unless you pass laws to protect freedom of speech Facebook isn't going to allow posts supporting this kind of behaviour on their platform – even if in this case a lot of people in the West agree with the extremists.
I'll also note that we don't even know if Hardeep Singh Nijjar was assassinated yet. This for the time being ranges from likely to a conspiracy theory depending on which governments and media sources you trust.
- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-10/trudeau-i...
- https://www.fijitimes.com/modi-scolds-trudeau-over-sikh-prot...
With some luck, the people of Canada will completely forget what a tool Trudeau has been when it comes to foreign policy, rally behind him in the defense of the country against that big bad bully India and give him a majority in the next election.
I assure you that the Canadian public is fully capable of responding to this in a far more favorable way than almost any press, including the "Indian nationalist" press.
As an example, they keep voting Trudeau back into office.
Again, whatever their many faults, Canadians are capable of opposing extrajudicial assassinations and voting Poilievre (or Singh). Meanwhile, the Indian press lap up 56 inches' supposedly patriotic nonsense whilst he cedes land to the PRC.
That's more just an accident due to how Canada's electoral system happens to behave.
During the 2019 federal election, the Liberal Party received 33.12% of the votes, and got 157 seats in the House of Commons. The Conservative Party had more votes at 34.34%, but only got 121 seats.
A similar thing happened in 2021. The Liberal Party received 32.62% of the votes, and got 160 seats. The Conservative Party again had more votes at 33.74%, but only got 119 seats.
Even his 2015 majority government only received 39.47% of the vote.
1984 is the last time I can think of when a majority government in Canada actually received over 50% of the vote, and even then it was only 50.03%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Canadian_federal_election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Canadian_federal_election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Canadian_federal_election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Canadian_federal_election
> Your page has been unpublished,” reads a notice sent to BC Sikhs that was reviewed by PressProgress. “This is because BC Sikhs goes against our Community Standards on dangerous individuals and organizations.
I for one am so glad that we agreed it was a good idea for social media to censor dangerous people and opinions, especially ones that might spread misinformation. It is a good precedent going forward that I do not think will have any unintended consequences.
This is hilarious to anyone who knows any Sikhs. They’re some of the most peace loving people on planet earth.
If you want to say Sikhs are at least as dangerous as the average, I’m open to see a statistical argument to support that position. I don’t think it’s true, but I could be convinced.
You are assuming an extreme position that nobody expressed.
I stand by my statement until shown statistical evidence to the contrary. This link is insufficient.
What about Tibetan Buddhists? They have been highly persecuted. Yet only thing they set fire to is their own body.
Sorry, but the burden of proof is on you. Please provide a study, or serious statistics proving your point.
I'd be open to see a statistical argument to support the above position.
"peace loving" != "not dangerous"
As an example: The kirpan (Punjabi: ਕਿਰਪਾਨ) is a curved, single-edged blade that Khalsa Sikhs are required to wear as part of their religious uniform . . . Sikhs are expected to embody the qualities of a Sant Sipahi or "saint-soldier", showing no fear on the battlefield and treating defeated enemies humanely.There are Sikhs in Canada, and they planted a bomb in Canada, but the location was incidental, in my opinion.
Is your point all Muslims are terrorists?
Obviously not all muslims strictly follow the ideology.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_battles_involving_th...
Tibetan buddhist they are not
Uh huh.
1. PM Trudeau called emergency session over "credible" allegations but no actual evidence. The leader of opposition has also called out lack of evidence.
2. Canada expelled a key Indian diplomat but not nothing more - basically diplomatese - https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/18/americas/canada-hardeep-s...
3. India issued statement calling allegations as baseless and irresponsible - https://bit.ly/3EHtuwe
4. India too immediately booted out key Canadian diplomat. Diplomat was so angry he almost slammed car door on a journalist (https://x.com/ANI/status/1703997495318352108?s=20)
5. PM Trudeau seems to realize he has worsened relations with no credible evidence - https://www.reuters.com/world/canada-pm-not-trying-provoke-i...
As for background, India considers two countries as those which harbors terrorists active against India - Pakistan and Canada. Canada has harbored "Khalistani" terrorists (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_India_Flight_182) for long. Recently these "khalistani" (mind you, not Sikhs) have started threatening Indian diplomats (https://x.com/AdityaRajKaul/status/1676496624519122950?s=20) and attacked Indian properties and temples in Canada/UK. India recently started taking harder stance on push back on both Canada and UK for safety of it's nationals.
That is not what he said at all: https://nitter.net/PierrePoilievre/status/170389391532824992...
* https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/poilievre-trudeau-har...
+ there's a lot that's been written about his refusal. The short of it is that his position is that part of the process is he needs to promise not to reveal anything he sees and he has said that could interfere with his work as leader of the opposition.
thank you .. also I have seen ill-informed US people accosting young Sikhs with accusations and harassment on the street in daylight .. Sikhs identified by their formal dress
I think explaining the differences between groups is totally worth wile, but denying the label seem like prejudice to me.
I rather doubt that Sikhs have been accosted in the US based on being confused with Khalistanis, as few americans have ever heard of Khalistanis. The attacks I heard about all had to do with ignorant Americans not knowing the difference between Sikhs and Muslims.
you misunderstand - I did not say that.
Do you agree the fundamental difference with Abrahamic religions is their choice of holy books and introduction of a holy prophet? The Jews have the Torah. The Christians had Jesus and appended the New Testament to the Torah, hence new religion, Christianity. The Muslims had Muhammad and appended the Quran to the Torah, hence new religion, Islam. The Mormons had Joseph Smith and appended the Book of Mormon to the Bible. I struggle to see how that doesn't make them a different religion just like the rest, worthy of a different name.
Depending on how you define Christian, it either includes or excludes Mormons. No discussion about "Are Mormons Christian?" is productive without first agreeing on a definition.
Islam views both Old and New Testament as the word of god, but the Quran is not viewed as an appendment to them but rather as a replacement.
> I struggle to see how that doesn't make them a different religion just like the rest, worthy of a different name.
Other religions add new holy books and new holy people without transforming. The Sikhs had 10 gurus over the course of more than 200 years.
Fundamentally, it is a question of cultural identity. Here, the key point is that the Mormons claim a Christian identity. What non-prejudiced purpose does it serve to deny them that identity?
You say Canada as "harbored" terrorists, but then link to an attack by Babbar Khalsa, which is designated as a terrorist by Canada. Do you have any basis for this assertion?
Also, I see calling credible allegations "baseless and irresponsible" doesn't inspire confidence. It's pretty clear how bad the assassination looks for India and pretending otherwise instead of promising to assist with investigations just make India look more guilty.
Canadians, time for change!
I do understand how this related only in a tertiary way. However, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission is a hot mess and Canada is headed towards total media control.
He himself, who often writes glowing articles about the current provincial government, seems to frequently be privy to otherwise unknown/unreleased details from our provincial government. He is coincidentally in a long term relationship with Ivana Yelich, who works in the current Premier’s office as “ executive director of media relations”
The blame lies on Mark Zuckerberg. This is a Mark Zuckerberg (or more generally, unfettered capitalism) problem.
The fact that BC Sikhs was eventually uncensored would indicate the latter, but India knows that they can try again, because...
- Companies like Facebook are big, monopolistic platforms, which mean they have too much content and not enough moderators, so they have a 'shoot first, ask questions later' mentality
- India holds some Facebook employees hostage. This is part of their law, you can't run a social media network there without domestic employees, and those employees effectively become agents of India with stiff penalties for noncompliance.
The fault Facebook and other capitalists have is not immediately NOPEing out of the Indian market. They left themselves open to being used as a censorship tool by powerful-enough governments.
A. Few. Moments. Later... "why is Facebook blocking my posts?!"
Free speech allows for a diversity of voices, some of which may express views not aligned with the government's perspective, whereas its absence leads to fewer government takedown requests.
To be super clear, if India actually assassinated a Canadian in Canada, this becomes relevant in America and Europe. (At best it means New Delhi has a rogue security element.)
This is not an editorial decision by Facebook. It’s the mindless implementation of complex policies.
Sorry, I was misled by news articles about the individual's status in Canada which were published prior to the announcement earlier today that he became a citizen in 2015.
Trudeau is notorious for lying, dividing people, and "interpreting differently" things, especially when all the attention is on his crumbling regime and mismanagement of virtually everything in Canada.
And it should raise everyone's flags that Trudeau, who has done everything possible to obstruct and derail the inquiry into Chinese election interference which likely put him in power - including saying that the information is classified - suddenly decides to share highly classified information from Canadian intelligence.
lol. No.
But the family does have a very extensive and documented history for love of tyrants:
https://macleans.ca/opinion/the-trudeau-familys-love-of-tyra...
Trudeau briefed the leaders of the opposition ahead of the announcement and they are all offering a united front on this. That's enough for me to infer that the intelligence on this must be rock solid.
How convenient!
Canada is not required to burn its intelligence assets prove its assertions. Releasing the evidence in a manner that exposes sources and methods just hands India's foreign intelligence apparatus a win because they can then deny Canada and her allies access to those sources.