|
British anti-mosque lawyer speaks in Ottawa despite protests
A controversial British lawyer gave a speech in Ottawa despite protests from groups who oppose his opinion, which is that mosques should not be built in non-Muslim areas.Gavin Boby spoke in front of 40 people at the central branch of the Ottawa Public Library Monday evening as protesters stood outside the building. Boby is known for using zoning regulations to try to stop mosques from being opened in areas he considers "non-Muslim." Before the speech, he said he does not want Islamic views to dictate certain neighbourhoods. He said, "Increasingly what we are seeing now is self-declared Muslim areas where you get Muslim patrols saying you can't walk a dog, wear a skirt." A group that claimed it wants to "stop Muslims from taking over neighborhoods" organized Bobys speech. The Ottawa police hate crimes unit also monitored the talk. Ihsaan Gardee, executive director with the Canadian Council on American-Islamic relation, said the library should have cancelled the visit. However the library said it only rented the auditorium out to the group and it made the group organizing Boby's speech sign an agreement not to violate criminal or human rights laws. Some groups were not happy with the decision to let Boby speak. Gardee said, "By affording someone like this who has this kind of message, a publicly-funded taxpayer venue, it adds and gives a credibility to their message, which I don't think is something that should be considered lightly." Library board chairwoman Jan Harder said she received hundreds of emails demanding the event be shut down, but she echoed the library's sentiment it can only be stopped if a law is broken. She said it is important to preserve freedom of speech. Posted by: ryuge 2013-02-05 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=361636 |