Muslims leaders say anti-Palestinian discrimination is casting a chill on free speech
By Canadian Press on August 6, 2025.
OTTAWA — Schools and employers are linking Palestinian culture with terrorism and retaliating against people who are speaking out about the war in Gaza, a new report suggests.
“Many Canadians have paid an unfair price,” York University professor Nadia Hasan told a Wednesday news conference on Parliament Hill.
Hasan leads the university’s Islamophobia Research Hub, which released a report that says public and private institutions are violating the speech rights of those speaking out against Israel’s war in Gaza.
The report urges all levels of government to officially recognize anti-Palestinian racism and to pursue training on how to detect and prevent discrimination against this community.
The report cites cases of law students, teachers and medical professionals facing occupational investigations or reprimands for speaking out about the war in Gaza. The report says many of those people were later cleared of wrongdoing.
It cites the University of Ottawa’s decision to suspend Dr. Yipeng Ge for posts a Jewish colleague said were meant to undermine the existence of Israel; the school later reinstated him. The Canadian Press has asked the university for comment.
“The silence of many of our institutional leaders was really harmful,” Hasan said.
“It set a tone. A lot of people interpreted it as a threshold for what’s tolerable in their workplaces, in their educational spaces.”
The report says that students have been being bullied or officially punished for wearing a traditional kaffiyeh scarf or for posting a Palestinian flag on social media.
“Students are being denied the ability to mourn their family, to mourn the death of their family members, just because they are Palestinian,” said Nihad Jasser of the Association of Palestinian Arab Canadians.
“We want our children to grow up proud of who they are. We want them to celebrate their Palestinian heritage with dignity and pride.”
She said there appears to be a “Palestine exception” in place for policies on diversity and inclusion.
“Institutions in our society will support all human rights — except Palestinian rights … all cultures except Palestinian culture,” Jasser said.
Amira Elghawaby, Ottawa’s special representative on combating Islamophobia, said governments’ weak pushback against incidents of anti-Muslim hate risks emboldening those bent on violence.
“Many of these are shocking in and of themselves. Taken altogether, they point to a system of oppression,” she said. “These dangerous trends must be interrupted before doing further harm.”
The report also calls on Ottawa to crack down on foreign interference targeting Muslims in Canada.
They noted a March 2024 analysis by Meta, the parent company of Facebook, that found evidence of “anti-Muslim and Islamophobic narratives directed at Canadian audiences” originating from Israel.
The Israeli government has denied any involvement in the campaign, which used AI-generated profile pictures and sought to garner Canadian media coverage that could link antisemitism with on-campus protests.
Wednesday’s report also argues that corporate leaders have failed to call out Israeli policies causing mass death and hunger in Gaza.
The report notes that the Royal Bank of Canada issued a statement of support for Jewish Canadians after the Hamas attack on Israel in 2023 but “did not go further to include the rising civilian casualties and displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.” A bank spokeswoman said it “won’t be providing further comment.”
The report also notes that Scotiabank donated to both the United Jewish Appeal and the Red Cross response in the Middle East, but did not take note of the situation facing Palestinians. Scotiabank has been asked to comment.
Conservative MPs have pushed back on the idea of officially recognizing anti-Palestinian racism. The House of Commons justice committee called for such a move last December.
The Conservatives said that recommendation would introduce “new and complex categories that risk complicating the conversation and fostering division rather than unity.”
The Conservatives cited the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, which argued that anti-Palestinian racism could be used as a shield for groups calling for the destruction of the State of Israel.
“The endorsement of APR is an attack on Jewish identity (and) undermines the important work of combating antisemitism,” CIJA said.
Hasan said that Canada should be able to tackle both anti-Jewish and anti-Palestinian hate “through a good-faith engagement with impacted communities.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 6, 2025.
Dylan Robertson, The Canadian Press
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I acknowledge that all Muslims are not the radical Islamists who call for the genocide of the Jews. There are many peace loving Muslims in our country and I have the pleasure of knowing some.
I disagree with some of the statements made and I would first state: this is Canada, do not bring your strife from your country to ours, burning our flag, calling for the genocide of the Jews, saying ‘death to Canada’ and ‘we are Hamas’. The radicals are doing this and they have broken criminal codes in this country under hate speech and terrorists laws. I heard their protest cries and saw their disrespect for our laws in Canada and public property.
I also witnessed a call ot arms, so to speech as this group set up a camp to revolutionize young minds.
Last year at McGill university in Montreal:
#Revolt4Rafah, the Gaza Solidarity Encampment at McGill launched the Revolutionary Youth Summer Program.
The post went of to say “We pledge to educate the youth of montreal and redefine McGill’s “elite” institutional legacy by transforming its space into one of revolutionary education. The daily schedule will include physical activity, Arabic language instruction, cultural crafts, political discussions, historical and revolutionary lessons.”
Also, over the last 20 years we watched Christian prayers banned from schools, while special rooms were set up for Muslim prayers for the Muslim students. Can you tell me where the discrimination is here?
Even the UN has openly acknowedged now that the Gaza Health Authority civilian death totals are not accurate and statements from Hamas, a terrorist organization said themselves a few months ago the numbers were inflated to gain international support.
Israel has confirmed over 30,000 Hamas members have been killed in the fighting! Statistics from the Gaza Health Authority (GHA) says close to 60,000 now dead, but doesn’t state how many were civilian non-combatants and how many were Hamas or other terrorists. Last year when the totals were around 30,000 by the statements of the GHA, the UN stated that around 10,000 were not proven. Take those averages of inflated numbers and now with the 60,000 take away 20,000 to get a more realistic number and then take away the over 30,000 terrorists combatants Israel states it killed and you have 10,000. How many died from accidents, disease, or the terrorists killing them for not complying?
There is much more to this picture and the Palestinians have mastered using the media to spread disinformation for their cause, using Al Jazeera ( Qatar government owned and Qatar funds terrorists ) Associated Press in the Middle East, which no longer can be trusted and even the BBC is know for misinforming the public on this important issue where, yes, people are dying!
Israel didn’t ask for this war and several times over a few decades Israel has agreed to a 2 state solution, but the Palestinians refused, stating that they are going to kill all the Jews and take back the land lawfully given to them by the Balfour and UN agreements. The Jews are Indigenous to the land!
The biggest propaganda machine for the war comes from Palestine, not Israel.
I welcome all peoples to Canada, if your intent is to come and live in peace and respect all peoples, and obey our laws, but the protests I witnessed crossed the line and the threats and assaults toward the Jewish students was unacceptable.
To say you are being discriminated against holds no weight from what I can see! This is Canada, not the Middle East!