Headchoppers in Canada. Can you say "Muslim?" The NYT can't. But the picture tells you. The way to judge the spin on the Canadian terrorist coverage is to imagine how this would have played in 1999 if they had discovered a group of Ontario Militiamen planning something similar.
Details of Canadian Plot Emerge
By CHRISTOPHER MASON
The wife of a suspected terrorist, center, was mobbed by reporters outside the Ontario Superior Court of Justice building in Brampton.
BRAMPTON, Ontario, June 6 — Canadian officials today began formally charging the 12 men and 5 teenagers arrested over the weekend as suspected terrorists, and bail hearings were scheduled for them, as some details emerged about the crimes they are accused of plotting.
Gary Batasar, a lawyer for Steven Chand, one of the arrested men, said that an 8-page synopsis presented in court by prosecutors described plans to blow up the Canadian Parliament's buildings in Ottawa, storm the studios of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, demand the release of Muslim prisoners, and behead hostages if the government did not comply.
He said Mr. Chand and several others in the group were also accused in the synopsis of wanting to behead the Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper.
"The allegations are very serious," Mr. Batasar said.
At the hearings in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice building in Brampton, a suburb at the western edge of Toronto, officials took up the cases of the detainees one at a time, in a process that seemed likely to last all day. Some were set to return to the courthouse on June 12; others were given later dates.
The detainees appeared in court in standard-issue prison attire, gray pants and white T-shirts, under fairly tight security, though the extraordinary measures seen over the weekend — with police sharpshooters stationed on rooftops — were not in evidence today.
Mr. Baltasar said that defense lawyers had not been allowed to meet with their clients without guards present. "It's unprecedented in Canadian history," he said, adding that the policy infringed his client's right to counsel. "This is not Guantanamo, this is Toronto," he said.
The judge overseeing the hearings declined to rule on the matter, saying that it was up to prison officials.
Scores of people, most of them with unrelated business at the courthouse, waited outside in long lines for clearance to enter the building. Anyone who appeared to be Muslim or who seemed to have a connection to the terrorism case was quickly mobbed by the reporters and television crews on the scene. Most refused to respond to questions; a few complained about ethnic stereotyping by the news media.
Donald F. McLeod, a lawyer for Jahmaal James, one of the men arrested in the terrorism case, complained to reporters about the conditions under which his client and others were being held. He said they were being kept under 24-hour supervision, had not been allowed to make phone calls and were able to speak to visiting relatives only through thick Plexiglas.
nytimes.com |
