 Farhat Hashmi, founder of the ultra-conservative Al-Huda centres, who moved to Canada nearly two years ago with her family has been told by Canadian immigration officials to leave the country but so far has failed to do so. A letter sent to Hashmi and her family by a Canadian immigration official as far back as 30 September 2005 says, “We regret to inform you that we are unable to approve your request. You are required to leave Canada immediately. Failure to depart Canada may result in enforcement action being initiated against you.”
| "Pack your shit and get out!" |
According to an exclusive report in Maclean’s, a popular Canadian magazine, “Days after that stern letter, which has yet to be followed up by a removal order that would permit the federal government to force her from Canada, Lorne Waldman, a high-profile Toronto immigration lawyer ... filed an application for leave and for judicial review on Hashmi’s behalf. That application, should it succeed, would lead to a review of the case. Yet the legal gambit does not supersede the official’s request that Hashmi and her family leave Canada, where she continues to live and to teach.” Hashmi is operating classes attended by upscale, generally idle and mostly affluent Pakistani women and impressionable teenagers. Her reactionary teachings, which many see as bordering on retrogressive interpretations of Islam, have set a challenge to liberal sections in the Muslim Canadian community in Toronto, which is already trying to cope with increasing difficulties triggered by the recent arrest of 17 youngsters, almost all Pakistanis, on terrorism charges. |