Letter: "No apology demanded or received from RCMP"

I was present at the meeting at the A Division of the RCMP on 26 Aug. 2010 which happened to be the 15th day of Ramadan. The meeting was called a day after the RCMP and Ottawa Police arrested two of the three so-called Project Samossa suspects on terrorism-related charges.

The meeting was held under the National Security NCR Community Outreach Program which has been ongoing for the past ten years. The Ottawa community and all the police forces including the RCMP, OPP and the Ottawa Police have been working very hard together to ensure the security and safety of all Canadians at all times. At this meeting, members of the First Nations, Jewish, Asian, Sikh, Tamil communities, as well as several members of the Ottawa Muslim community were present.

The panel of officers giving an update and answering questions included: Commanding Officer Francois Bidal, Chief Superintendent Serge Therriault, Superintendent Denis Roberge, Ottawa Police Chief Vern White, Dr. Anna Gray and OPP Chuck Kaiser. Multi Cultural Liason Officer L. W. Wayne Russett was co-coordinating and MC-ing the meeting.

At no time was an apology for the arrests asked for by anyone present, nor was any apology given by any officer of the RCMP or the Ottawa Police.

The question raised during the presentation was: “Since the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the RCMP had been investigating the three individuals for over a year, why were the arrests not made before or after Ramadan?” When one of the officers from the panel explained, all of us accepted the reason given for their swift action. 

Salma Siddiqui should be sure of her facts before spinning stories. She represents herself and no one else in the Ottawa Muslim Community. She is not a prominent member of any of the numerous Muslim organizations of Ottawa. She should stop talking on behalf of the Muslim Community. The Muslim Canadian Congress is based in Toronto and Salma has become the vice-president of the Congress recently. She does not represent the Muslims of Ottawa at all.

She keeps using the word “Islamists” repeatedly which is a very offensive word to all the peace loving, law abiding Canadian Muslims. 99.9% of us are very hardworking and in reality very progressive Muslims who follow the peaceful religion of Islam and we are very patriotic to Canada and proud to be Canadians.

Nazira (Naz) Tareen
Ottawa