Ex-KKK leader featured on Muslim group's website
An undated photo of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, who is featured in the video address on the website of the Canadian
AFP / Getty Images Files
An undated photo of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, who is featured in the video address on the website of the Canadian
Stewart Bell, National Post · Apr. 10, 2011 | Last Updated: Apr. 10, 2011 10:56 PM ET
A Canadian Muslim group is making no apologies for its Internet site, which features a video address by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.
In the 12-minute video on the Canadian Shia Muslims Organization website, Mr. Duke espouses conspiracy theories about what he calls “Zionist running dogs.”
Nowhere does the website say that Mr. Duke is the founder of the Louisiana Knights of the KKK and one-time Grand Wizard of the white supremacist group.
Asked about the video, the Markham, Ont.-based Muslim group responded with an email saying it would not discuss the matter unless the press reported on “the Islamaphobic [sic] hate propaganda going on here in Canada.”
The video was still posted on the site on Sunday.
The Canadian Jewish Congress said it believed there were grounds to lodge a complaint to police over the website, which it said may be in violation of Canada’s hate laws.
“It’s hard to believe that in 2011, there would be any credible or faith-based group that would embrace the most despicable neo-Nazi in North America, David Duke,” said Bernie Farber, CEO of the Jewish congress.
“What really is startling is that if anyone within this Islamic organization would just sit down for a moment and listen to what David Duke says ... maybe they would take a second sober thought as to whether this is the kind of guy that they want to embrace.”
In the 1970s, Mr. Duke attempted to spread the Klan into Canada. He was an associate of Canadian far-right leaders Wolfgang Droege and James McQuirter, who established a KKK chapter in Toronto that fought non-white immigration.
Mr. Duke later served briefly in the Louisiana House of Representatives but now runs websites with a racial tone such as whitecivilrights.com, which calls Ernst Zundel, the German neo-Nazi leader deported from Canada in 2005, a “political prisoner.”
The Canadian Shia Muslim Organization was incorporated in 2008 to “support multiculturalism” and “interfaith dialogue.” Federal records list the directors as Munir Hussain Syed, Riaz Husain and Syed Fayyaz Mehdi Rizvi.
The group’s address is a postal box in Markham. It has no phone listing. In its literature, it calls itself “a grassroots organization of Canadian Shia Muslims that operates above racial, gender and ethnicity considerations.” Its stated aim is to “represent all Canadian Shia Muslims to promote and ensure their participation in religious and political arenas of the Canadian society.” |
