Thursday, October 4, 2018

This charity has had three separate run-ins with the law for potentially funding an armed militant group.

Published
1 day agoon
October 3, 2018

Islamic charity fined three separate times over concerns it ‘provided resources’ to violent armed militants

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As reported earlier this week, the Islamic Society of North America-Canada (ISNA-Canada), a major Canadian Islamic organization which operates mosques and has an annual reported revenue of $3.1 million has been suspended for one year and fined by the CRA following an audit that raised concerns it had “provided resources” that may have been used to support armed attacks, according to a recent Global News report.

It now seems that this was not the first time ISNA-Canada has had problems with the Canadian government over its potential funding of terrorist groups. In fact, ISNA has had its charity status revoked in 2013 and again in 2017 for allegedly funding Pakistani groups connected to dangerous militants.

In 2013 the group sent $280,000 to an alleged terrorist-linked organization, in 2017 it misspent again and this time allowed the donors to a non-charity status organization to receive $ 340,000 in tax-returns, and finally, in 2018 another $136,000 was again sent to an alleged terrorist organization.
Given the repeat problems of allegedly funding terrorist groups is spread across three separate cases, it is certainly interesting to see the most recent case end in a one-year suspension effective Sept. 12 and a $550,000 penalty.

A real political angle

Perhaps most interestingly, this now puts the meeting between Liberal cabinet minister Ralph Goodale and the group into an awkward political grey zone.

While Justin Trudeau did speak at an ISNA event, it occurred before their first revocation in 2013. Minister Goodale, on the other hand, met with the group in 2017 after their 2013 charity status revocation.

Given Trudeau gave a full speech to ISNA in 2013, you would assume that the Minister would have known about the potential funding of terrorist activity soon after.