The National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) used to be known as the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CAN). It is suing former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper for saying it had links to Hamas. The problem with the suit, however, is that it does. According to the Terrorism and Security Experts of Canada (TSEC Network), “the NCCM/CAIR CAN lawsuit against the Prime Minister of Canada and his spokesperson appears to be a case of law fare, not libel. Everyone connected to launching the lawsuit on the day it was first filed was ‘one degree of separation’ from HAMAS, the terrorist entity which is at the heart of the lawsuit or the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the parent organization of HAMAS. The lawsuit will likely never see the inside of a courtroom due to the overwhelming evidence against NCCM/CAIR CAN and HAMAS.” TSEC Network sets out all the evidence here.
So the Toronto Star is now taking orders from a group with links to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, and fostering ignorance and complacency in its readers by obscuring the true nature and agenda of the Islamic State.
More on this story. “Muslim lobby behind Toronto Star’s decision to stop calling ISIS an ‘Islamic’ entity,” by Jonathan D. Halevi, CIJ News, March 5, 2016:
The National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), formerly known as the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CAN), played a role behind the scenes in encouraging the Toronto Star to start using the term “Daesh” instead of the “Islamic State”, a.k.a the Caliphate, IS, ISIS and ISIL.
Daesh (داعش) is the Arabic acronym of the al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi al-Iraq wa al-Sham (the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant), the original name of a group which split off from Qaeda. Later in 2014 its name was changed to the Islamic State or the Caliphate.
The Toronto Star favored the old long name to be used in the news reports of the paper effective of March 3, 2016.
Michael Cooke, Toronto Star’s editor-in-chief, described the Islamic State/ Caliphate/ Daesh as “multinational gang of killers and rapists” who “have no legitimacy as a state” explaining that the “name change helps emphasize that.”
Olivia Ward, Toronto Star’s Foreign Affairs Reporter, elaborated on the new policy: “That’s because the criminal gang that has murdered, raped and pillaged its way across the Middle East, while sending sycophants to slaughter civilians abroad, is neither Islamic nor an internationally recognized state.”
The Star’s position which denies any connection between the Islamic State to Islam goes in line with the official policy of the Liberal government.
“The Toronto Star has shown tremendous leadership in being the first major Canadian media organization to take such a definitive stand about how it refers to the terrorist group,” said Amira Elghawaby, NCCM’s Communications Director. “We call on other media outlets and independent journalists to consider adopting the term Daesh as well. This may lead the way for parliamentarians to do the same.”
On February 23, 2016, Toronto Star posted Elghawaby’s op-ed article entitled “Want to hurt the Islamic State? Call it something else.” The subtitle read: “How politicians and media refer to the terrorist group may actually help in countering its destructive narratives.”
Arguing that the Islamic State does not represent Islam, Elghawaby said that referring to the Islamic State (ISIS) as an “Islamic” entity emboldens ISIS’ objective to drive a wedge between Western societies and Muslims. She also suggested that there is a correlation between the language use to describe the Islamic State and the increasing number of reports of anti-Muslim attacks and comments….
NCCM revealed that the NCCM’s Stronger Together Chair Mohammed Hashim also met with the Toronto Star’s publisher John Cruickshank to encourage the change….