"[That Bradford is to be included was a] weight off my shoulders."

"Bradford has evaded inquiries for many, many years and it's time that the full truth about what happened comes out."

"We need accountability. There's one thing prosecuting the persecutors of these crimes - that should have been a given - but the people who chose to go into safeguarding roles that made these decisions - that weren't just turning a blind eye to the children's abuse, but added and facilitated it."

Abuse survivor Fiona Goddard

 

"[I hope the inquiry will mean] no further inquiries into grooming gangs will ever be needed."

"These hearings will help us to establish what national institutions and services should have been doing to implement these findings and to protect children from abuse and harm - and what, if any, progress has been made in areas where investigations have taken place."

Baroness Anne Longfield CBE to head the Statutory Independent Inquiry into Grooming Gangs 

A case study in institutional failure    Photograph: Reuters

 

"The question for this inquiry will be why so many [recommendations from the reviews, reports and inquiries since the late 1990s] have not been implemented. And most importantly what will be different this time?"

"The inquiry has promised to put the voices of those who were abused and exploited at is heart. Many survivors speak of their deep distrust of those in authority, not just because of what happened at the time of their abuse, but also because of the lack of action over the longer term."

"Past reviews have found in some organisations and in some parts of the country an attitude that the exploitation of children by grooming gangs does not happen here."

"The challenge for the inquiry will be to ensure everyone remains alert to the possibility that this sort of abuse can and does happen anywhere."

BBC Social Affairs editor Alison Holt 

Reports focusing on U.K. rape gang victims chronicled acts of debased gang violence transcending rape alone. Rape including torture and mutilation with broken bottles pushed into vaginas, dousings with gasoline, stabbings, threats to family members seeking help, forced abortions. Nightmare scenarios of horrible abuse, targeting mostly British white girls. The situation of gang rape and no repercussions has been known for years. Known, but nothing done to stop the atrocities; no government figure, no police interventions.

 

As though these were mere rumours, not witnessed reports and documented events of assaults insulting of the most basic human rights. Appeals to government went to deaf, disinterested ears. Victims left to their own devices. Abusers assured that there would be no societal reprisals, no cost associated with the dread actions taken by gangs impervious to social decency, for the abusers. The victims left to live amongst their attackers, and vulnerable to ongoing atrocities.

 

They were left by an uncaring government to remain hostage to groomers and their legions of hangers-on. There was no lack of descriptive horrors experienced by helpless girls. Accounts by rape gang survivors that they were abandoned by police, social services, teachers, politicians at every level, and media. No one wanted to risk being labelled a racist. That this fear of appearing racist would dominate the emotional reaction normally expected to come to the rescue of vulnerable girls manipulated, violated, beaten, and left to recover until the next hellish episode is beyond belief.  

 

AP Photo/Jon Super

 

Rupert Lower, U.K. Parliamentarian of the Restore Britain political party released a 219-page Rape Gang Inquiry Report June 16 -- for the most part detailing witness testimony of survivors from working-class Muslim-majority jurisdictions. The long-term sex victimization by organized criminals, mature male adults as well as those in their teen years for whom preying on vulnerable white girls whose families lived among them in the areas became easy pickings.

 

The Lowe report pointed out among other issues that courts themselves bypassed justice for the victims. Defence arguments like that of one Somali defendant attesting that forced sex represented his "culture and tradition" and therefore justified a "cultural sensitivity" discount in sentencing to avoid "empowering the far right" or damaging "community cohesion" seemed to find favour with some judges sitting on rape crime trials. 

 

Under the leadership of now-outgoing Prime Minister Keir Starmer the Crown Prosecution Service, despite a case against a rape gang with copious evidence, dropped the case, leading the Greater Manchester Police to drop a wider investigation into regional rape gangs, thus extending freedom for a continuation of their odious operations preying on girls with no defense. 

 

According to an article by Dominic Adler, 25-year veteran of the Met's anticorruption command tasked with "sensitive investigation into police wrongdoing", the Independent Office for Police Conduct "tiptoed  around the heritage and religion of offenders. Two root problems for police inaction were cited in Adler's 2025 article on "Operation Linden"; "austerity-ravaged services ill equipped to deal with large-scale disorder", and "the politicisation of policing and its role in supporting state-mandated policy of multiculturalism". The scandal, he stated, is "the quintessence of two-tier policing". 

"There is a systematic pattern of behaviour not even from just one country, but from sub-communities within those countries."

"People with a particular background, particular class background, work background ... very, very poor sort of peasant background, very very rural, almost cut off from even the home origin countries that they might have been in, they're not necessarily first generation."

"[What struck was the apparent sense of impunity with which they operated, as opposed to the punishments they would supposedly face in their home countries]."

"There are some places where, when people behave in that way, a mob turns up and burns their homes down, and then they know that they can’t do that sort of thing."

Conservative  opposition leader Kemi Badenoch

Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch. Kin Cheung/The AP

 

"[The U.S.-Iran agreement] rehabilitates Tehran's regime as a regional power."

"[The financial benefits that it could confer] will make Iran a greater monster than it was before."

Abdulrahman al-Rashed, Saudi journalist 

 

"It's left a big wound. It's going to take a long, long time to recover."

"We are terrified that this is going to be an ongoing war."

"[It feels like the Trump administration is looking at the Gulf] as an A.T.M. [and that] bothers a lot of people." 

Khalid Al-Jaber, head, Middle East Council on Global Affairs, Qatar research institute

A smoke plume rises from an ongoing fire near Dubai International Airport in Dubai on March 16, 2026. (AFP)

 

Interesting that this commentator writing out of Qatar fields a singular perspective without considering that Qatar itself has invested millions upon millions upon millions in the United States, as though its treasury was unlimited, in indebting U.S. colleges and universities, to the Middle East country for its generosity. And to believe that this is done simply for a love of America by an oil-rich Gulf state is to be naive beyond redemption. Qatar, in seeking influence for its 'philanthropy' in America does in fact, resemble an A.T.M. 

"Why has a country of just 330,000 citizens that is half the size of New Jersey and a leading patron of the Muslim Brotherhood plowed $400 billion dollars into the United States? This amounts to approximately $1.2 million per Qatari citizen — an enormous sum."

"Some Americans may welcome the generosity of the Qatari regime. After all, one could argue that a great many of these investments — spanning energy, defense, biotech and other important sectors — serve to benefit the U.S. economy and U.S. citizens. One could also argue that Qatar, like Japan, Canada, or other countries that sink billions in the United States, simply seeks return on investment."

"But Qatar is different. There are more than a few reasons to question the largesse of the Qatari government. At the end of the day, Qatar is ruled by an Islamist, autocratic regime; Freedom House consistently ranks the country as “Not Free” in its annual Freedom in the World survey. And Doha’s failure to guarantee the rights of its citizens is not the biggest problem."

"Rather, it is the country’s tendency to support jihadi causes in the Middle East that raises significantly more concern. The country’s horrific track record in this regard distinguishes Qatar from other Gulf states that spread their wealth in America."

Jonathan Schantzer, Foundation for Defense of Democracies  

That little quibble dispensed with, one can indeed feel a level of sympathy for the newly-occurring plight of wealthy Gulf Arab nations, witnessing and experiencing a regional war too close to home for comfort.

Few countries in the Middle East view the Islamic Republic of Iran through a lens of tender brotherhood. Those that do stand out from say, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Qatar and Oman, on the other hand, have a pronounced soft spot for the truculent totalitarian Islamist government that the entire Middle East views as a threat to peace and stability. 

 

A building damaged in a reported Iranian drone strike, amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Seef, Manama, Bahrain, March 10, 2026. (Reuters)

 

In the region most exposed to Iran's firepower, suddenly normality has been upended. The violence of Iran's chastising its near neighbours for accepting American bases on their soil, expressed by Iran's disruptive drone and missile attacks has disabused its neighbours of the attitude that this is Israel's and the United States' conflict with Iran, nothing to do with them, even  while they have been hoping that the Iranian regime would fall and relieve the regional tension and threats emanating from Iran with a changeover to a new, non-threatening regime.

 

And to further compound matters, the economic hits courtesy of Iran's closing of the Strait of Hormuz, the main international waterway for exporting oil, fertilizer, LNG and other products globally has been deliberately constrained creating an economic dilemma of no mean proportions. American bases on Kuwaiti soil, UAE and Saudi Arabian soil and elsewhere made them surprised sitting ducks for Iranian blowback. Suddenly the Gulf countries realize that despite their enormous oil wealth their defense capabilities are minimal, necessitating an upsurge on spending for military hardware and defense.

 

Iran has attacked Gulf states in retaliation for Israeli and US bombing on its country AFP via Getty Images

 

No other course of action is feasible with Dubai and Doha having suffered immense missile hits leaving their luxury towers smoldering. Incoming missile alerts have introduced a new, unwelcome reality to Iran's neighbours, suddenly vulnerable to unexpected attack. The Emirates were forced to close their schools for weeks, while foreign residents fled. Interception of most of the thousands of missiles and drones out of Iran succeeded in keeping damage and lives lost to a relative minimum, but no country and no population appreciates living with this level of uncertainty.

 

Each of the targeted countries went their own way, there was no unified reaction. Qatar as usual presented itself as a key mediator between the United States and Iran, alongside Pakistan for the same purpose...supporting Iran and convincing the U.S. that a ceasefire is infinitely preferential to ongoing kinetic hostilities, punishing to the Gulf States and placing U.S. servicemen in ongoing danger. 

 

Negotiations amidst the uncertainty and tension have led the Emirates to strengthen alliances with both the United Sates and Israel. A pre-conflict rift between the UAE and Saudi Arabia has seen the Saudis keeping options open; maintaining channels with Iran, while attempting to influence American decision-making. Attesting to the medieval-era relational strains, Saudi Arabia and Iran are at loggerheads over Mecca, and the threat posed by Iran toward Saudi Arabia historically seems to have petered out for the present.

 

Gulf nations are now busy planning how best to proceed with uninterrupted passage of oil, food and other goods shipped out of the Middle East to global destinations. A new strategy of "zero Hormuz dependency" has persuaded the Emiratis to expand its ports outside the critical Strait susceptible to further closures by Iran, and to build oil pipelines and railways. Oman with its ports on the Arabian Sea far from the Strait is now seen as a crucial logistics hub trucking goods overland for its neighbours. 

 

Qatar has become one of the biggest exporters of natural gas  AFP via Getty Images

 

"Engagement is not endorsement. Having an embassy, having consular services in a country does not mean we endorse the policies of that country."

"There are a series of countries with whom we have not seen eye to eye, to put it mildly, where we do not have representation. Iran, Venezuela [are] two examples. There are others."

"That puts us at a disadvantage, first and foremost, to helping Canadians that are in these countries."

"[In some consular cases Ottawa has leaned on countries that] aren't our natural allies [to help Canadians leave Iran]."

Prime Minister Mark Carney

 

"[The government is looking at alternative options to improve consular services for Canadians in countries like Iran]."

"We've taken no decisions, but we are looking at how best to serve Canadians, not only within this country, but internationally and that will be a process that occurs over the next number of months."

Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand 

 

"Nothing about the regime has changed."

"The problem that Canada has with this regime goes much deeper [than geopolitics]."

"This is a regime responsible for flagrant human rights violations, and this is a regime with which normalizing relations may not be possible."

Masoud Zamani, lecturer in international relations, University of British Columbia

 

"[Reopening an embassy in Tehran could be part of a broader restoration of diplomatic relations, which could allow Iran to re-establish an official diplomatic presence in Canada]."

"What they want is a political footprint here in Canada through an embassy. I don’t know if we gain anything by allowing them to do that.  I don’t think that there is a real intention to do that."

"This issue of inconsistency in the positions adopted by the prime minister is itself quite a serious matter."

Kaveh Shahrooz, senior fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute

Protests erupted in Iran on 28 December 2025. People across the country, outraged at decades of repression, were demanding fundamental change and a political system that respects human rights and dignity. Iranian authorities have responded with an unprecedented deadly crackdown. Security forces have used unlawful force, firearms and other prohibited weapons, against protesters, which resulted in mass killings and serious injuries. Amnesty International

 

 Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper responded to the Islamic Republic's well-known abuse of human rights in Iran, and the regime's role as the foremost sponsor of terrorism in the Middle East by shutting down the Iranian Embassy and Consulate in Toronto, and withdrawing Canadian diplomats from the Canadian embassy in Tehran in 2012. Then-Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird declared the Iranian legation persona-non-grata in no uncertain terms. "Canada is committed to fighting global terrorism and to holding perpetrators of terrorism — and those who provide them support — accountable for their actions. Iran is among the world's worst violators of human rights. It shelters and materially supports terrorist groups."

 

When Mr. Harper left office and PM Justin Trudeau became prime minister, he mused about re-opening relations with Iran, despite that nothing had changed in the Islamic Republic's favour; it remained the stridently repressive government in Tehran, suppressing its public and enforcing strict totalitarian Sharia government, while its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps kept order along with its Basij branch, and its al-Quds arm continued training, funding and arming terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

 

Fast forward to the courage displayed by mostly young Iranians who spontaneously began to mount protests against the regime in December of 2025, demanding that it step down from office. Before long the protests spread from the capital to other areas of the country, with greater participation from the regime-hating population. The initial crowd-control protocols soon gave way to violence in the IRGC and Basij and national police responses, when live firearms were increasingly used to 'restore order'. In the end, an estimated 30,000 Iranian protesters were killed and many thousands arrested and tortured for their insubordination. 

 

Protests were also reported in several other provinces, including Kermanshah - Middle East Images / AFP via Getty Image

 

More latterly, with current prime minister Mark Carney musing publicly that Canada should consider reopening an embassy in the Islamic Republic for the sake of 'engagement' seems a stretch too far, even for him; restoring relations with the largest state sponsor of terrorism in a Canada that has become progressively less wedded to its traditional values of democracy, rule of law, public security, equal support for all its ethnic groups within its great ongoing experiment of multiculturalism and prepared to jettison its respect and support for the Jewish-Canadian community while sanctioning the viral antisemitism, anti-Israel fulminations of the now-more-populous Muslim-Canadian community.

 

The speedy, sudden growth of the latter demographic itself a product of Liberal-progressive permissiveness that has led to societal division, cultural-religious antagonism and public displays of illegal threats by one group against another which politicians and government institutions appear not to notice is fraying the mantle of multiculturalism held so dear by government that groups living in silos opt out of the normal social contract in the belief that cultural-traditional mores of racist invective are perfectly normal in a democratic society

 

Men stand amid rows of corpses in a morgue in Tehran following mass killings of protestors by security forces in this undated image obtained by Iran International

 

The Islamic Republic of Iran stands alone in financing terrorist groups whose oft-stated raison d'etre is the destruction of the State of Israel. This doesn't trouble the Liberal government of Canada, but understandably it does the Jews of Canada. All the more so that they are made victims of this new lashback of anti-Zionism/antisemitism that appears not to trouble mainstream Canada, much less academia and unions in Canada, all complicit with Palestinian student groups inciting hate against other Canadians.

 

Among other minorities, Canada has a substantial number of Iranian-Canadians within the population, many of whom arrived as new immigrants to Canada shortly after the 1979 Iranian revolution. To these Canadians of Iranian birth, Canada has become a haven, but it is also more latterly, a country which, although it has placed the IRGC on a terrorist list, permits members of the IRGC and their families to enter Canada at will, to live or vacation there, while supporting the Islamic Republic. Their presence in Canada threatens the well-being of anti-regime Iranian-Canadians. This government is not interested.

 

It has been revealed that more than 700 IRGC members ore operatives are in residence in Canada. How they were able to enter, and how they are entitled to be resident in Canada is the Liberal government's little mystery, not to be shared to the public.  Who might ever have imagined that Canada has anything in common with a country governed by human-rights-abusing, terrorism-enabling, peaceful population protesting slaughterers?  

 

 

"Prime Minister, there’s a fine line between engaging the Iranian regime to further our interests - which you already have the tools to do under Canada’s controlled engagement policy, versus opening a mission, conferring legitimacy on a regime that brutally murdered more than 30,000 people just months ago. And a regime Canada has rightly designated a supporter of terrorism."

"If the clerical military dictatorship wants more structured engagement, it should take demonstrable steps towards earning that. Like actually divesting the uranium it enriched for warheads it continues to produce, ending its terror network also operating in Canada, and ending the repression of its own people."

"Having any Iranian presence in Canada would be a national security threat. Period."

Shuv Majumdar, Conservative Member of Parliament for Calgary Heritage  

 

"For the past several days, our reporters and several of Gaza’s most prominent anti-Hamas activists have been subjected to an intense campaign of surveillance and intimidation by Hamas." 

"And we’re hearing about many activists who have been effectively placed under house arrest by Hamas. They’ve made it clear their number one goal is to prevent any anti-Hamas demonstrations from taking place in Gaza."

"What the world doesn't really know, is that there is a strong opposition movement inside Gaza today that's developing against Hamas."

"A lot of people are fed up from the war, fed up from Hamas's wrong choices, and they want to protest [demanding that Hamas disarm, and leave the Strip] in order to stop the war, to stop the Israeli attacks, and to rebuild Gaza."

"[At least half of Gazans want Hamas out], so they  can get a better future, a better life. [The same number were in retrospect] unhappy with the October 7 attacks." 

Hadeel Oueiss, editor-in-chief, Jusoor News 

 

"Hamas was much better prepared than we were [they were tipped off]."

"[Hamas has] the weapons, the force and the means to intimidate people. They threatened families and reportedly paid money to influential clan leaders to publicly announce that they would disown any family member who participated in t he demonstration."

"[The opposition movement wants Hamas to disarm] so that reconstruction can begin ... [and] living conditions can improve."

Mohammad Hussein Lafi, protest organizer 

Members of Hamas cracking down on Gazans. Photo: Screenshot from X account of Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib

 

"The situation in Gaza is very difficult. They are kidnapping people and threatening people. The level of terror is high."

"There are fatwas calling for killing and fatwas declaring people infidels in the mosques, and calls saying the protest movement has been postponed."

"Things are very difficult. Since the morning, they’ve been arresting people and kidnapping people from the streets. Things are very bad."

Name withheld by request 

 

"[Hospitals across Gaza had been turned into] makeshift police stations, interrogation sites, and torture centers."

"Families are being threatened, people placed under house arrest, and Hamas’s al-Qassam brigades [the forces responsible for October 7] have been fully mobilized to reinforce police and intelligence units with explicit shoot-to-kill order."

"[The mainstream media has failed to report on the campaign] apparently because Israel is not involved – so no Jews, no news."

"This is what the abandonment of Palestinians in Gaza looks like. Shame on all who stay silent in the face of jihadi, ISIS-like violence against the very people they claim to champion."

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, humanitarian activist originally from Gaza, now living in the U.S.

 

"The fact that organizers announced the protest weeks in advance made it easier for Hamas to prepare, intimidate people, pressure families, and silence the movement before it reached the streets."

"In Gaza, protest movements have often been more successful when they were organized quietly and appeared suddenly."

"This time, the early announcement gave Hamas the time and pretext to suppress it."

Ahed al-Hendi, senior fellow, Center for Peace Communications  

To all Western media, including pro-Palestine outlets: right now, thousands of Palestinian civilians are taking part in massive anti-Hamas protests across the Gaza Strip. Stand with them. Carry their voices. Don't abandon them. Ihab Hassan 

 

Hadeel Oueis, a U.S.-Syrian-based journalist, editor of Arabic-language Jusoor News reporting on Middle East news, has been informed by many dissidents in Gaza through phone interviews that the mass protest dubbed "Day of Rage" scheduled to take place on June 26, with the demand that Hamas disarm and step down, had their plans crushed before they even took to the streets. Although smaller protests elsewhere proceeded in some areas, organizers were warned by the terror group that anyone among the would-be demonstrators attempting to join would be subject to violent reprisals. 

 

One of the protest group's organizers, Mohammad Hussein Lafi described his arrival at a designated gathering point in central Gaza: it was already filled with Hamas security forces openly displaying their weapons. He was informed that cellphones had been confiscated from anyone suspected of being part of the protest movement; some among them physically assaulted and detained. A year earlier Lafi, a graduate of the Faculty of Physical Education at Gaza's Aqsa University, was arrested by Hamas accused of speaking out against the October 7 attacks among his friends.

 

He was "severely beaten and tortured during detention", which convinced him that an end must come for Hamas's rule in Gaza. With the scheduled protest deferred due to threats, a more discreet 'soft protest' took place on Friday at 10:00 p.m. that saw Gazans banging pots and pans, and whistling for an hour from within displacement camps and tents in response to an online call by organizers. An ad hoc demonstration the following day independent of organized plans took place by others.  

 

A funeral procession nearby planned protest sites took place with mourners carrying signs reading "God willing, Hamas out", "We are not pawns", and chants of "enough with the destruction" also took place. Hamas, according to Mustafa Asfour, a Gaza activist living in the U.K. for four years and one of the June 26 demonstration organizers, "launched a media campaign to discredit the movement, accusing it of betrayal and targeting anyone" participating. 

 

In the days leading up to the planned protest, Hamas pressured prominent families "to hold press conferences denouncing the June 26 movement"'; pro Hamas media then circulated statements presuming to be the names of major clans with the claims they opposed the protests. "Many of these families later issued official statements saying they had never released such declarations and rejecting the statements attributed to them", explained Mustafa Asfour. Threatening phone calls were received by families with warnings not to allow their children to participate, and displaced people were informed anyone who joined the protests would b e expelled from the camps.

 

NGO silence, argued Asfour, has emboldened Hamas. He and others had reached out, he explained, to Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, drawing their attention to the planned protests, warning against repression. Their efforts bore no fruit. Other than for the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, no response was ever received, but the Center's response was four lines to say the "matter raised by you is under follow-up"; a stock, non-committal response. 

 

Ms. Oueis accuses Hamas of making everyday life for Gazans miserable through aid diversion, heavy taxation and a harsh crackdown on dissent. In "The worst days of hunger and lack of food in Gaza", she said, residents were interviewed who alleged that Hamas "Hijacked every truck that came with food to Gaza, stored it in its own storage, stole this aid that's coming from international organizations, and kept it." The aid was handed out selectively "only to their soldiers", and pro-Hamas communities; those lacking a fighter in the family "won't get aid".

 

Hamas "captured and arrested" close to 200 activists and dissidents since the start of the ceasefire last fall, many accused of collaborating with Israel; some tortured to death. One of Jusoor's reporters was arrested, beaten "very badly and left unable to walk. He's paralyzed because he made this coverage, anti-Hamas coverage from Gaza", emphasized Ms. Oueis. Her reporting team interviewed Gazans who were tortured for posting criticism of Hamas on Facebook.  

 

Palestinian Hamas stand guard on the day of the handover of hostages held in Gaza since the deadly October 7 2023 attack, as part of a ceasefire and a hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, February 22, 2025. REUTERS/Hatem Khaled/File Photo

  

"Most of the Islamists of Gaza are pro-Hamas. Many deeply religious Muslims [are among those calling for change], a lot of the people who are going to protest and taking initiative in spreading the word against Hamas are religious Muslims [who reject Islamist politics."

"[Some Gazans openly argue that] It's time to stop the wars between Israel and Palestinians, and it's time to have peace with Israel." 

Hadeel Oueiss, Jusoor News

 

"[My motivation for helping with demonstrations is the] belief that civilians in Gaza have the right to express their voices peacefully, and to demand dignity, safety, and a better future."

"[The world should know that they demand] accountability, and the right of people to have a voice in decisions affecting their lives."

"I lost my home during the war, like many other families in Gaza. My experience, like many Palestinians here, has been shaped by years of difficult circumstances, but also by a strong sense of community and the desire to build a better future."

Kareem Joudeh, 30, formerly of northern Gaza, displaced to central Gaza, working with World Central Kitchen 

Hamas stand guard on the day of the release of Keith Siegel, a US-Israeli dual national hostage held in Gaza since the deadly October 7, 2023 attack, as part of a ceasefire and a hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Gaza City, February 1, 2025. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

"He said he was from Yemen and a Houthi."

"First thing I told her [991 call-operator ] was I'm being attacked because I'm visibly Jewish and this fellow is threatening to kill me!"

"I dodged all the projectiles he was throwing at me, blocked him with my arms. I've go lesions and scratches on both arms."

"Some people are telling me I should have knocked the guy out. I said, 'Absolutely not. Then I could be arrested and he would go free, and I would be the bad guy'. So I deliberately just stayed 10 or 15 feet away."

"I evaded him and blocked with my arms. And then he just kept, you know, with his obscenities."

Joseph Bitton, Toronto real estate agent/lawyer 

Toronto Police

 

 He's Abdulkadir Al-Jelani, a 58-year-old resident of Toronto and he doesn't like Jews. His conception of civilized behaviour is that when he spots someone nearby whose accoutrements betrays him as a Jew, that signals an opportunity to threaten, spew racist vitriol, thrash the hated Jew, and throw blunt-force objects with the intention of causing death. Jews are not supposed to fight back, to protect themselves. That's what has given Israel a bad name among those of its neighbours who believed that mass militarized assaults could destroy it. FLASH!! Jews fight back!!

 

Mr. Bitton's reaction was to keep his attacker at bay, and his intention was to have him arrested for criminal assault with prejudice. Knowing very well that as in past standoffs between Jews and their consummate haters, the roles were somehow reversed when police entered the scene, going easy on the Jew-haters, berating the Kippah-clad Jew who, they contended, aroused the violent antipathy of the attacker by his very provocative Jewish presence. 

 

Mr. Bitton came away from the encounter with cuts and bruises;  his injuries could have been much, much worse. But the real injury was inspired by the realization that despite that he was in Toronto, in an urban setting, surrounded by scores of other people, none among them were interested in interceding on his behalf, not even to give him the encouragement of their empathy that an innocent man who had done nothing to fire up an instant opponent, was in danger. It was the very fact that even though countless others were about, he was alone.  

"Nobody lifted a finger."

"There were dozens and dozens of witnesses at the bus stop, on the bus, at the other location across the street, at the original location."

"The only one single person that stepped out to help me was one retail tenant from the property that I manage, and he knows me."

"He came out when the guy was swinging this pylon, and tried to put distance between us and get the guy to stand down."

 Joseph Bitton 

He did have the presence of mind to immediately dial 911 as the attack commenced. He was going about his legitimate business as a manager of a commercial property. Readily identified as a Jew, given his kippah, he heard from the man who attacked him: Jews are "baby killers committing genocide". And because his attacker identified a man he had no knowledge of, other than that he was a Jew, he was prepared to kill him, in a virtuous act of defending the children's lives that Jews are purportedly so anxious to take. 

 

The social blight that this man and those who believe and think and react as he does represents a mass psychosis, one fed by an almost-instinctive cultural-rooted belief in the evil that is world Jewry represented by the State of Israel. Describing the attack with the hate-demented attacker picking up garbage-day trash and building debris including a brick, metal brackets and a tree branch, the attack, said Mr. Bitton lasted 35 minutes.

 

That included pursuit of the man attempting to flee, whom he followed from a distance of 10 to 15 feet, boarding a bus after him, following when he ran through a rear door, crossed the street and boarded another bus driving in the opposite direction. Mr. Bitton was determined to see the man arrested for assault (and attempted murder), alerting both bus drivers not to pull away, but to await the arrival of police.

 

Eventually, the attacker ran to a laneway behind an automotive repair shop, the while continuing to throw rocks and bricks, until police arrived. Eight police officers cornered the suspect at a dead end, handcuffing him and placing him within a police cruiser. Footage from eight property surveillance cameras helped police to identify the suspect, charged with three counts of assault with a weapon and one count of uttering death threats.

 

What remains is for the police to finally acknowledge that this represented a racially-motivated assault, however, police plan to 'investigate' the incident as a 'possible hate-motivated crime'. Should a criminal offence like an assault be construed as having been motivated by bias, prejudice or hate, the officer in charge may decide to consult with the Crown for sentencing purposes, recognizing hate as an aggravating factor upon conviction.   

When the police grabbed him, he kept saying 'I didn't do anything!'"

"They saw the guy doing everything, throwing the pylon at me, and swinging at me, and throwing things at me."

Joseph Bitton 

The Toronto Police Service is making the public aware of an arrest made in a suspected hate-motivated Assault with a Weapon investigation.

It is alleged that:

• on Tuesday, June 30, 2026, at approximately 12:10 p.m., the accused, without provocation, approached the victim in the Jane Street and Lawrence Avenue West area
• the accused yelled anti-Israeli slurs and then picked up rocks and other items from the street and repeatedly threw them at the victim while uttering death threats
• the victim sustained minor injuries
• it is believed that the victim was targeted because of their religious attire

On Tuesday, June 30, 2026, at approximately 12:20 p.m., Abdulkadir Al-Jelani, 58, of Toronto, was arrested and charged with: 

1. Three counts of Assault with a Weapon
2. One count of Uttering Death Threats

He is scheduled to appear in court at the Toronto Regional Bail Centre, at 2201 Finch Avenue West, on Wednesday, July 1, 2026, at 10 a.m., in courtroom 105.

Anyone with information is asked to contact police at 416-808-3505, Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS (8477), or at www.222tips.com.

When suspected hate-motivated offences are reported to police, the investigation is led by the Hate Crime Unit (HCU).

If it is alleged a criminal offence was committed (such as assault or mischief) and it is believed to have been motivated by bias, prejudice or hate, the officer-in-charge may consult with the Crown. If a person is charged and convicted of the offence, the Judge will take into consideration hate as an aggravating factor when imposing a sentence.

Wilful promotion of hatred and advocating genocide are hate propaganda (hate speech) offences which require the Attorney General’s consent to lay charges. These charges are often laid at a later time.

Toronto Police Service 

 

 

"Despite numerous pleas over many, many months by many different people there has been a very careful effort to provide no context for the Palestinian displacement whatsoever."

"From what I’ve seen from the website, it is a very one-sided, biased narrative that is not befitting a national federal museum." 

Gail Asper whose father Israel Asper founded the Museum of Human Rights

 

"It is difficult to understand how telling the story of Palestinian displacement in 1948 while omitting the simultaneous expulsion of 850,000 Jews from the Arab states can be viewed as anything other than politically motivated."

"In response, the museum has only made a vague commitment to exploring that story as part of a broader exhibit on displacement at some time in the unknown future."

"But the stories are not severable — they occurred at the same historical moment."

Letter of Resignation from CMHR Board, Mark Berlin, McGill law professor, human rights lawyer

Protesters rally outside the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, June 26, 2026. (Credit: Izzie Helenchilde)

 

In 1948 when Arab armies joined forces to attack the nascent Jewish state following the UN's 1947 Partition Plan for Palestine declaration, offering an opportunity for both Jews and Arabs to declare their sovereign state intentions, Jews moved directly to form their sovereign nation as a reborn-from-antiquity Israel. Palestinians had chosen to reject the opportunity, in the process refusing Israel's right of existence.

An estimated 750,000 Arab Palestinians fled the fledgling Israel, persuaded by surrounding Arab states to leave, planning to return once the combined Arab militaries had destroyed the Jewish state-that-would-be.

 

When the motley collection of Jewish kibbutz farmers, Holocaust survivors, former refugees and members of the Jewish resistance, hurriedly formed into a new army for a new state somehow, miraculously foiled the Arab League's plan of extinction, leaving the Arab armies to themselves flee, the unexpected debacle was declared by the defeated Arabs to represent a catastrophe, a "Nakba". That word was immediately adopted by the self-exiled Arabs now calling themselves Palestinians to describe the advent of Israel's existence, on Judean ancestral land, that the 'Palestinians' claimed as their very own.

 

While some of the 750,000 Arabs who fled Israel may have been propelled by fear of Jewish threats, most were convinced by Arab leaders they would return triumphant to take possession of the entire geography once Israel was destroyed. At the same time, there were hundreds of thousands of Arabs who made no move to leave, and remained where they were, becoming citizens of Israel, while still calling themselves Palestinians. During that period, Arab countries where Jews had lived throughout the diaspora for millennia were exiled, their properties confiscated, some 850,000 Arabized Jews from Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Libya.

 

While Palestinians, aided and abetted by the United Nations, became permanent 'refugees', demanding a right of return and the dissolution of Israel, their Jewish counterparts from Algeria, Tunisia and elsewhere, found refuge in Israel and other destinations around the world. Their loss has never been internationally acknowledged, while that of the Palestinian Arabs became a legendary injustice to be used as a cudgel against Israel. That Palestinian Arabs today make up over 20% of the Israeli population does not stop the compassionate left from labelling Israel an apartheid state, happy to chorus Palestinian propaganda.

 

And it is Palestinian propaganda and the functioning aggressive ill-will of its slanderous campaign to delegitimize Israel and convince the global community that Israel is committing 'genocide' against the Palestinians when it is the Palestinian leadership that has for 70 years incited their population to 'resist the occupation', an 'occupation' necessitated by the patterning of the leadership toward martyrdom in convincing their youth, both male and female of their duty to kill Jews, to destroy the Jewish state, to reclaim 'Palestine', 'from the river to the sea'.

 

That is the packaged message weaponized in the Nakba exhibition at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights which was originally dedicated to educating the public about the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust. The very genocide that President Mahmoud Abbas mocked and minimized in his doctoral thesis at the Patrice Lamumba University in Russia. The leader of the West Bank whose martyrs' fund pays the families of Palestinian murderers of Jews as rewards, along with those imprisoned in Israeli jails for crimes against Israel in its 'Pay for Slay' program.

 

Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present’ exhibit at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg, June 26, 2026. (Credit: Izzie Helenchilde).

 

What the public visiting the exhibit, Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present will see is the juxtaposition of the exhibit against that of the original Holocaust memorialization of a historic tragedy of intense proportions that ended in the death of almost half of the world's Jewish population; most of the Jewish-European diaspora. That is the meaning of genocide. The Nakba exhibit pretends to equate Palestinian trials and tribulations caused by their insistence that murdering Jews will restore the land they claim to be theirs, not that of the Jews of Israel, with the immeasurable loss of Jewish lives through the state channels of an ancient hatred. 

 

"Around 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced during the creation of the State of Israel", the displays proclaim in a perspective that suits the purpose of damning Israel for victimizing Arab Palestinians. That historically, the term Palestinian was always interpreted as Jews living in that area of the Middle East, later shared by others who had migrated to the area by Arabs from Egypt, Syria and Lebanon looking for opportunities, and devout Christians wanting to live where their faith resonated, that designation was totally co-opted by Arabs now claiming the title of Palestinians.

 

Jewish prophets, their burial grounds in memoriam, place names, histories, cultural traditions, history, have all in turn been co-opted by Arab Palestinians claiming all to be theirs. The refusal to recognize and acknowledge Israel's right of existence, the never-ending plaints of victimhood, the inversion of truth and reality, somehow seem to resonate with an international community seasoned by latent leftist 'compassion' for a people whose uncompromising fealty to violence as a solution to all their problems never seems to be recognized by 'progressives'.

 

A memory box containing artifacts and recorded personal stories at the ‘Nakba Past and Present’ exhibit at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, June 26, 2026. (Credit: Izzie Helenchilde)

 

In Canada, the Liberal-led government that equates 'Islamophobia' with Antisemitism despite that it is largely the former that commits the latter, and enjoys intoning that immigration groups while adding to Canada's vaunted multiculturalism -- certainly not homogeneity -- must leave their heritage animosities behind when they become Canadian, simply chooses to overlook fact, preferring fiction. That same government has enabled over the past decade and more, the immigration, refugee acceptance and migrant haven claims to people Canada, with groups whose cultures and values are averse to Canada's. Yet their numbers are such that to offend them represents ballot box suicide.

 

That same government has willingly surrendered its obligation under the law to ensure equality and security for all its demographic population groups, in favour of abandoning the human rights of a smaller minority group for the encouragement of a larger minority group, irrespective of outcome. The result being that the Canadian Jewish population now finds itself under constant threat by the venomous actions of some segments of a vocal threatening, Jew-hating Muslim population, guided by Palestinian students on study visas in Canada.

 

When the Nakba exhibit can publish such incendiary statements as "Following the Hamas attack that killed about 1,200 people on October 7, 2023, Israel launched a large-scale military campaign in Gaza. Today, more than 240,000 people have been killed or injured, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health and UN agencies", without the realization that these figures, the omission of the fact that a terrorist group on Canada's own terror list, Hamas, is being quoted, leaving a public to digest these misconstrued statements as fact, Canada's government itself is complicit in furthering the agenda of Palestinian public relations. 

 

The situation is agonizingly blasphemous, taking place at the very institution in Winnipeg meant to ensure that the world not forget history as it was, the most dreadful human  tragedy enabled by lack of interest or any method of intervention to interrupt a Fascist death-cult from its Final Solution to destroy the lives of world Jewry by a dominant threat to world peace that almost succeeded in installing itself as a world-leading totalitarian presence of ubermensch in command of human rights everywhere. 

 

Gail Asper protested the exhibit ‘Nakba Past and Present” at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, June 26, 2026. (Credit: Izzie Helenchilde)

 

Canadian Justice: Ease off on Abusers, Leave the Abused to Fend for Themselves

"The only way to make myself feel safe was to remove myself and get as far away from the threat as possible."

"I feel safer here [Mexico] because the person that attacked me does not live here. That's just basic common sense."

"I feel safer because I'm very far away. ... It could have been Germany, it could have been Peru, it could have been the USA." 

Anne Welyki, The Elevate Report 

 

"All eight charges, five in the provincial and three in the federal were stayed against my ex."

"I can't say his name, because it will forever be known as 'alleged' abuse."

"I can't live in Canada anymore, because it's not safe for me." 

Cait Alexander, now resident in California

The caption for this photo posted to X on June 5 reads: "Thank you Pierre Poilievre for taking the time to chat. I would have loved the opportunity to share in detail why I left Canada and how I believe it can be fixed." (Credit: Lioness0817/X)

 

The infamously intractable issues of violence against Canadian aboriginal women has been a matter of shame, but not much mystery in the matter of 'Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women' in Canada. With government vowing time after time that this tragic civilizational assault against the most basic of human rights for women of Indigenous heritage must stop. This is an issue well enough known, that for the most part injuries and deaths and absences of aboriginal women are the result of a cultural abomination, when they are victimized by none other than their intimate partners, aboriginal men.

 

In Canadian jurisprudence it has become a fait accompli that when judging aboriginal men for crimes they must  be viewed through the prism of colonialist trauma. Prison sentences meted out to aboriginal men who commit crimes and are convicted of those crimes must take into account their aboriginal backgrounds and the assumption that they are victims of racism, poverty and lack of opportunities in the white society that colonized Canada thus victimizing the Indian tribes already settled in the country. In penalizing Indigenous men to a lesser degree than their crimes warrant, Indigenous women are doubly victimized.

Assembly of First Nations

 

But this uneven application of the law has also been extended to include people of colour as well as migrants without status. Indigenous men and Blacks are over-represented in Canadian prisons despite that they represent a minority in Canada. Their penchant for committing crimes against society is higher than other groups in society, including the majority. That their numbers are over-represented in comparison to their minority numbers within the population is viewed as a fault in Canadian society, rather than as a possible reading that these groups tend to gravitate in greater numbers to the commission of crimes.

 

To sentence a migrant, refugee or undocumented person in Canada to a prison term long enough for them to be incarcerated in a federal prison is  to consign them to a removal order by Canadian Border Services, leading judges to opt for lesser sentences through the compassionate lens of 'fairness' to a presumed underdog. Invariably all too frequently those who commit criminal acts tend to take advantage of the situation, where bail is also readily available, enabling them to return to the commission of criminal acts resulting in minimal punishment.

 

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre happened to describe an encounter he had with a woman from Vancouver who left the country for her personal safety under duress. At Vancouver International airport the woman had approached Mr. Poilievre to briefly inform him that she had left Canada to escape from an attacker. "You're my favourite Canadian", she told him. Then she described her reason for leaving Canada.  "I said I'd like to come home, and he said, in return 'We're going to get you home'," she later explained during an interview on the podcast The Elevate Report.

 

For his part, Mr. Poilievre mentioned the encounter with an anonymous woman when he responded to a question during a Vancouver press conference about public safety. "I met a lady at the airport the other day who told me that she moved from Vancouver to Mexico so that she would feel more safe", he stated. Online mockery over the statement was quick to follow. Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association wrote on social media: "Of all the things that did not happen, this one did not happen the most."

 

Doubts over the veracity of Mr. Poilievre's statement was raised again when a reporter, after speaking to World Cup fans in Vancouver relayed to him that they felt "pretty safe"; that "data shows that Mexico is far more unsafe than Vancouver". Mr. Poilievre was not to be shaken; he responded that the encounter at the airport really had occurred, that "there are a lot of women who frankly feel very unsafe in Canada today. And there are cases we've had of women testifying before parliamentary committees that they have left Canada because their partner, their violent partner, has been released from prison despite crime after crime after crime." 

 

End Violence Everywhere

Cait Alexander who had testified to the Status of Women Committee in 2024, founded the group End Violence Everywhere. She had been brutally beaten by an intimate partner who was freed on bail the following day. She lives now full-time in California.  

"I left the country for certain reasons and I'm upset about it. I love my country."

"Do you think this would be my first choice. Or do you think I would rather be at home with my friends and family?"

Anne Welyki