Government removes all mention of ‘Sunni’ and ‘Shia’ extremism from terrorism threat report

By Stewart Bell and Abigail Bimman

The government has again revised a report that is supposed to update Canadians on the major terrorist threats they face, removing all references to Islamist extremism.

While the report, first released in December, had initially identified attackers “inspired by violent Sunni Islamist ideology” as the main terrorist threat to Canada, that line has now been cut.

All mentions of “Sunni” and “Shia” extremism were also taken out of the annual report, along with section headings on both types of terrorism.

READ MORE: Sikh Indian minister slams Trudeau Liberals over ‘knee-jerk’ changes to terrorism report

The so-called Islamic State, Al Qaeda and their regional affiliates use terrorism to promote their versions of Sunni Islamist extremist ideology, while Hezbollah is a Shia extremist group.

But Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale told reporters Thursday he wanted the terrorist threat report to use language that “did not impugn or condemn an entire religion.”

“The issue here are people who engage in terrorist activity that actually defies the precept of their religion, so to allow their deviant behavior to be a criticism of a total religion or a total culture is just wrong,” he said.

“The idea, the objective here is to get language which is precise, which focuses on the issue that is being reported on in a clear and accurate way that does not impugn an entire community or an entire religion that is not responsible for the terrorist behavior.”

WATCH: Conservative MP Pierre Paul-Hus said Thursday he wants to find out why the Liberals erased references to “Sunni” and “Shia” extremism from the government’s annual terrorism threat report

full story at https://globalnews.ca/news/5230488/government-removes-sunni-shia-from-terrorism-threat-report/

Categorised in: Canadian News