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Canadian university to confer honorary doctorate on former head of Hamas-linked group

Jun 14, 2017 5:41 am By Christine Douglass-Williams

The University of Waterloo in Kitchener, Ontario is set to honor “Dr. Ingrid Mattson, of Huron University College, an honorary Doctor of Laws degree on June 14, 2017.” Mattson’s reputation precedes her: she has numerous connections to jihadist groups.

Point de Bascule reported on some highly disturbing background information about Mattson, referring to her as “another scholar whom the NCCM consults to gain an accurate understanding of Islam”. The NCCM is the former CAIR-CAN:

In 2009, during her [Mattson’s] mandate as President of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), U.S. Judge Solis ruled that “The [U.S.] Government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR, ISNA…with Hamas.” (United States of America v. Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development / pp.14-15 of 20).

In 2000, at an ISNA conference, Ingrid Mattson endorsed Muslim scholar Syed Maududi (1903-1979) by stating that he has probably produced “the best work of Tafseer [Koranic commentary] in English.” In the portion of his tafsir dedicated to verse 4:24, Maududi condoned the rape of non-Muslim female prisoners of war by Muslims. This kind of doctrinal justification led to the rape of Yazidi female prisoners of war on a large scale by the Islamic State in Iraq. According to the Guardian, “When [Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi] made his speech in July [2014] at Mosul’s Great Mosque declaring the creation of an Islamic state with himself as its caliph, [he] quoted at length from the Indian/Pakistani thinker Abul A’la Maududi [aka Syed Maududi], the founder of the Jamaat-e-Islami party in 1941 and originator of the contemporary term Islamic state.”

Yet Mattson launched a lawfare proceeding against terrorism expert and lawyer David Harris for his characterization of her as “radical” on a radio show in 2014. Mattson eventually dropped the case, prompting the Lawfare Project, which supported Harris, to state that “the unjustifiable nature of Mattson’s lawsuit is revealed by her willingness to drop the litigation, at an advanced stage, with no payout or apology from Harris, in spite of the alleged gravity of her claims.”

Now the Lawfare Project has written a letter to the President of the University of Waterloo, Dr. Feridun Hamdullahpur, calling for action on its plans to award Mattson an honorary doctorate. Also interesting to note was a report by Jonathan Halevi, senior researcher of the Middle East and radical Islam at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, who indicated in January 2016 that the University of Waterloo “was collaborating with a Palestinian university which serves as a hub for terrorist groups.”

“The Lawfare Project Calls for Action on University of Waterloo Plan to Honor Ingrid Mattson,” Lawfare Project, June 13, 2017:

Dear Dr. Hamdullahpur,

This is respectfully to convey the objections of The Lawfare Project, a legal think tank based in New York City, to the University of Waterloo’s plan to award Dr. Ingrid Mattson, of Huron University College, an honorary Doctor of Laws degree on June 14, 2017.

We believe that such an award would:

  1. discredit the University, at home and abroad;
  2. embarrass University donors and holders of honorary UWaterloo degrees;
  3. undermine the efforts of Muslims challenging extremism, including so-called “stealth jihad”; and
  4. bring into disrepute those University officers and staff responsible for facilitating the award.

At a time when so many of our Canadian Muslim colleagues and friends struggle, often at considerable personal cost, against the threat of radicalism, extremism, and associated violence, it is inappropriate for a Canadian university to single out someone of Dr. Mattson’s background and connections for such a singular distinction as your University today contemplates granting Dr. Mattson.

Dr. Mattson was for many years a prominent office holder in the US-based Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). Like many others, The Lawfare Project regards ISNA as a hardline Islamist organization….

Dr. Mattson rose to become ISNA’s president, occupying this position for some time when, in an unsurprising development, the U.S. Department of Justice designated the organization an unindicted co-conspirator in the major, successful Holy Land Foundation terror-financing prosecution. In the context of U.S. v. Holy Land Foundation, a U.S. District Court judge found (at pp. 14-15) that “[t]he Government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR, ISNA and NAIT with HLF, the Islamic Association for Palestine (“IAP”), and with Hamas.” Hamas is a designated terrorist organization under Canadian and U.S. law.

As the public record clearly shows, Dr. Mattson has been an unreliable advocate of moderation.

Thus, following Mattson’s departure from ISNA, the Muslim Executive Director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism would pen an article titled “Ingrid Mattson: No Longer Leading ISNA, but Still Advancing Radical Islam.” Putting aside Dr. Mattson’s capacity for smooth management in assorted outreach contexts, the article spoke directly of Mattson’s “talent for untruthful improvisation . . . .” “Mattson,” it declared, “is consistent on one important issue: the variety of Islam she has embraced which, as represented by ISNA, is fundamentalist and radical, oriented toward Saudi Wahhabism, Pakistani jihadism, and the Muslim Brotherhood.”

In line with this, and in addition to ISNA, Dr. Mattson has been personally connected to a number of disturbing individuals and organizations, including the International Institute for Islamic Thought. In a development triggering considerable adverse publicity in Canada and the U.S., that Institute, among other troubling entities, assisted in endowing the Huron University College (HUC) Islamic chair now occupied by Dr. Mattson. Reflecting security worries that Mattson’s appointment to HUC may have been part of a broader pattern of facilitating Islamist penetration of academic, media, and other realms of Canadian and North American life, Winfield Myers observed in American Thinker…

Beyond the variety of other criticisms one could properly marshal against any University of Waterloo’s plan to recognize Dr. Mattson, lies a further problem. The fact of the granting to this individual of an honorary degree highlighting the discipline and calling of law constitutes, in our view, an insult to Canadian constitutional values enshrined in Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. For, in what we believe to be a direct assault upon the right of Freedom of Expression under s. 2 of the Charter, it is our considered opinion that Dr. Mattson and the interests supporting her have in the past misused Canadian libel law in an attempt to silence public discussion about her history and links, including the fact that she has never condemned publicly and by name certain ideological extremists with whom she has had dealings. It is perhaps because of this silencing that some University officials may have been unaware of the grave error reflected in the Mattson honoris causa proposal….

It is especially noted that Dr. Mattson has, to an extraordinary extent, relied for her credibility on limited links that she formerly had with the U.S. government, through outreach programs. Dr. Mattson’s usual reliance for bona fides typically involves advertising her activity with military chaplaincy programs, but the U.S. and Canadian chaplaincy programs have been fraught with issues of Islamist penetration. To mention merely one example: the U.S. program was established by the al-Qaeda-linked Abdurahman Alamoudi—once portrayed in network media as a model Muslim moderate—who today is serving a lengthy prison term following involvement in a major international assassination plot.

In fact, military and other government outreach has hardly been an unmitigated success: American-born Anwar al-Awlaki, invited to present at a Pentagon luncheon, was later “droned” in Yemen by the Obama Administration after being exposed as a lethal al-Qaeda terrorist plotter and ideologue. “They vetted people politically and showed indifference toward security and intelligence advice of others,” a former senior Federal Bureau of Investigation official reportedly concluded about outreach screening standards. Much the same can be said of some minor interfaith cohorts, as demonstrated by Mattson’s ability, when the heat is on, to invoke the endorsements of a very small stable of marginal—and in our opinion, unaware—Christian and Jewish groups.

A good deal of the foregoing is detailed in material appearing in court documents connected to the failed Mattson libel “silencing” lawsuit, Mattson v. Harris. No invitation to honor Dr. Mattson should possibly have been considered without relevant University of Waterloo officials’ having first acquitted themselves of their professional due diligence responsibilities, by, among other obligations, mastering the content of the publicly available documents therein. Please regard as incorporated by reference in the present email, The Lawfare Project’s July 6, 2016 news release, “Collapse of Mattson Libel Suit Signals Victory for Free Speech and The Lawfare Project,” including the very significant “Statement of Defence” and other documents appearing by link in, or as attachments to, the news release.

Based on a careful analysis of the evidence, The Lawfare Project therefore requests that the University of Waterloo:

  1. cancel forthwith the proposed awarding of its honorary Doctor of Laws degree to Dr. Ingrid Mattson;
  2. authorize establishment of an independent review of the circumstances surrounding this disturbing episode, including any manipulation by University insiders or others sympathetic to radical Islamism;
  3. upon announcing investigative findings and any disciplinary action, set and enforce appropriate standards of professional due-diligence for employees involved in the process of selecting candidate-recipients of University of Waterloo honorary degrees; and,
  4. make special efforts to recognize Canadian Muslims and others who honorably and effectively reflect the values and aspirations of Canada and the University of Waterloo…..

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Filed Under: academia, Canada, Featured, Leftist/Islamic Alliance, Stealth Jihad, Useful idiots Tagged With: Ingrid Mattson, Kitchener, Lawfare Project, University of Waterloo


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Comments

  1. FYI says

    Jun 14, 2017 at 6:29 am

    It’s funny how academic converts to islam are not actually smart enough to differentiate between God and allah.

    The koranic allah is a completely warped misrepresentation of God.

    allah doesn’t even agree with the original commandments:he happily encourages his
    followers to flout the known laws of God in respect to murder,adultery,lying,stealing etc.

    It is quite amazing how academics are not sufficiently intelligent to see the problem with allah and what he teaches:and what allah teaches is both morally wrong and in complete opposition to God’s commandments.

    And they can’t see that the life of muhammed was a life dedicated to doing things that are all condemned by the same original commandments.That’s not a prophet!
    The emphasis in islam is all about the great prophet and his deeds.An actual prophet of GOD would never seek personal glory or praise.He would emphasise the importance of OBEYING GOD’S COMMANDMENTS and would be required to live a good moral life.
    Muhammed,it seems completely misunderstood that.

    Of course these silly academics have free will to choose between the Truth and the counterfeit version.
    And the reason God allows the counterfeit version (explained beautifully in II Thessalonians II)
    is to separate those who love the truth ENOUGH to be saved from those who think they can gain salvation on their own terms.
    Converting to islam will not provide salvation because (a) you cannot fool God and (b)allah is NOT God.

    What allah teaches is very,very wrong.
    allah has no problem with muslims committing adultery(as long as it is with slave girls),mass murder of innocents(as long as they are infidels),lying to promote islam through taqqiya etc,forcing infidels to pay the jizya tax etc,polygamy etc

    Yet all these wicked and evil practises are 100% at odds with the ORIGINAL commandments.. that allah seems to have missed and his “prophet” completely ignored.

    Academic professors who convert to islam are exceptionally stupid.
    The other shower of converts…murderers,sex offenders,bored failed Christians or Jews etc are not able to think for themselves so inevitably they are attracted to a religion that facilitates their hatred of others (or ideally their self-hatred and low self-esteem–handy for recruiting suicide bombers)

    There is nothing sillier than academic converts to islam with their silly hijabs.
    They may even think they are so smart that they study Arabic to find out about the mysterious monoglot allah{a god who is so theologically incompetent that he thinks the Christians are polytheists because he mistakenly imagines the Trinity to be 3 gods}.
    Or they could take a short cut,read the original commandments and see if they can explain why allah-allah himself- both disagrees with them and why he thinks it OK to tell his followers to break them(…but breaking God’s commandments is SIN!!)

    allah is OK with sin.
    GOD isn’t.

    • mortimer says

      Jun 14, 2017 at 8:07 am

      Allah is very concerned with ‘correct worship’, but little else. Allah hates incorrect worshiping (kufr) and commissions Muslims as bounty hunters to stamp out wrong worship wherever it appears.

      Killing or torturing incorrect worshipers (kufaar) are holy activities that bring the highest rewards in Islamic, but Allah is obsessive compulsive about washing correctly for prayer, not having urine on one’s clothing, flatulence during prayer, and many other trivial matters take up over half of a Muslim’s life, leaving time for little else. Many Muslims try to observe all these obsessive compulsive cleansing rituals and end up with ‘Salafi burnout’ which causes them to drop out of Islam … more or less.

      • Rufolino says

        Jun 16, 2017 at 2:57 am

        Not at all surprised that Allah has a problem surrounding flatulence -given the ludicrous prayer-posture taken by millions of Moslems every day. Allah is probably wearing a gas-mask.

    • Robert says

      Jun 14, 2017 at 10:38 am

      I agree in spirit with what you say. But I think the stupidity of academia is a symptom of a much larger problem. The real problem is moral — these professors like to think, to desire, and to do things that are essentially wicked. They like wickedness.

      Their moral compass is messed-up beyond repair. And because their moral compass is broken, their thinking tends towards evil things. They don’t know what is good, only what is bad.

      That’s why we see intelligent people, with years of formal academic training, think in ways that are morally repugnant. They can rationalize why it’s okay to rape women outside their religious community without any pangs of conscience. Because their minds is informed by an immoral worldview. In their view, sexual violence is acceptable because the means (rape) justifies the end (making their beliefs supreme).

      • Robert says

        Jun 15, 2017 at 9:24 am

        Correction: In my haste to post, I wrote ‘the means (rape) justifies the end (making their beliefs supreme), but it should have been ‘the end (making their beliefs supreme) justifies the means (in this case, rape) .

  2. Elisha says

    Jun 14, 2017 at 6:34 am

    “Yet Mattson launched a lawfare proceeding against terrorism expert and lawyer David Harris for his characterization of her as “radical” on a radio show in 2014.”

    She ain’t no radical, she’s an ORTHODOX muslim, commanded to hate and destroy unbelievers. Pity the jellyfish at Brandeis University caved in to the muzzie students and SJWs regarding Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Honorary doctorate that was withdrawn.

    (Why do these muslimas all look dead behind the eyes, like a shark?)

    God bless.

    • mortimer says

      Jun 14, 2017 at 8:10 am

      Elisha, Mattson is a JIHADIST. All Muslims are JIHADISTS or they have left Islam. Less than 1% of Muslims are military/kinetic jihadists, while 100% of Muslims are VERBAL JIHADISTS.

      Mattson is a leading VERBAL JIHADIST who uses DISINFORMATION to trick and dupe the dirty KAFIRS about the real meaning, motives and methods of JIHAD-TERRORIST-WARFARE against the dirty KUFAAR.

      Mattson’s game is DISINFORMATION.

      • Elisha says

        Jun 14, 2017 at 10:01 am

        There are only two types of adherents to any religion-orthodox and heterodox. Jihad is commanded by Satanallah and muhammad. Orthodox adherents of islam are called to do jihad, amongst many other things. The point I’m trying to make is that people invent labels instead of using the accurate terminology that already exists. The term “moderate” is one that is particularly annoying, being a construct of the left. BTW, there’s no need to shout. Stay calm, and if you haven’t already done so, place your faith in Jesus Christ and repent of your sins.

        God bless.

    • Peter says

      Jun 18, 2017 at 5:37 am

      I’ve noticed that many of these muslims look absolutely evil when you look at their eyes.

  3. P.V. Ravi Chandran says

    Jun 14, 2017 at 7:25 am

    Quite rightly so!

  4. John A. Marre says

    Jun 14, 2017 at 9:47 am

    Shows the left’s complete acceptance of Islam, and its willing submission to Islam.

  5. Danusha Goska says

    Jun 14, 2017 at 11:00 am

    Ingrid Matson said that Koran 4:34 which tells husbands to beat wives is intended to “bring their relationship back where it is supposed to be.” http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/25/world/americas/25iht-koran.4.5017346.html

  6. jdf007 says

    Jun 14, 2017 at 11:32 am

    I had to go to law school for 3 years, after taking an entrance test. I doubt I qualified to be admitted to this Canadian University.
    Nice to know that all I had to do was be a genocidal maniac and I could’ve had a debt-free honorary degree. That seems fair.

  7. Flavius Claudius Iulianus says

    Jun 14, 2017 at 8:22 pm

    The way to cure this problem is to pass laws that prohibit big influence money from coming into the country. These people have infiltrated, with the help of middle eastern oil money, etc, highly reputable institutions and now the only way to get rid of them is to shut down these schools.

  8. BRIAN says

    Jun 15, 2017 at 12:31 pm

    It appears to me this ‘honhour’ amounts to nothing more than some butt kissing on behalf of the university. Truly embarrassing to me as a Canadian. This does nothing except deepen the divide of muslims within Canada. Canadians in general are not easily glossed over by acts such as this. Shame on this university.

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