Leaked Documents Make Clear Qatar’s Financing of Muslim Brotherhood Organizations in Canada

Posted on www.ahram.org.eg on 18 May 2019.

Filed by Islam ‘Azzam.

(Translated from the Arabic by Barry Webb)

The book Qatar Papers was recently published in France by the authors Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot.  This book contains documents that were leaked from a Qatari government office, and it nails down the names and dates and conclusion of the direct payments by Qatar to organizations connected with the international Muslim Brotherhood in Europe.  Moreover, the book also noted the existence of similar documents pertaining to North America.  So, this was the thread that Tom Quiggen, the Canadian researcher and author, grasped on to in order to be able to obtain a single copy of these documents.  And, according to what Quiggen affirmed to al-ahram, it is these documents that affirm the Qatari government’s payments to Muslim Brotherhood-linked organizations in Canada and the United States.

In spite of the fact that Quiggen, so far, has refused to give the details about the names of the Canadian persons and entities connected with facilitating the arrival of these funds for the Brotherhood organizations in Canada, and these are organizations some of which the Canadian government had previously placed on lists of banned groups and organizations and which finance terrorist organization outside of Canada, nonetheless Quiggen agreed to grant al-ahram the right to publish some of the information which he obtained in the documents.

Quiggen affirmed from the beginning that the documents make it clear, with evidence, what he had previously gathered from his previous researches connected with eight organizations that are calling for “political Islam” in Canada.  Moreover, the documents affirm the involvement of nine prominent Canadian politicians in the facilitation of millions of dollars to enter Canada to finance organizations that publicly encourage violence.  The documents point out that the Canadian politicians embroiled in this belong to the three major political parties in Canada, and these are the Liberal Party, the opposition Conservative Party, and the Progressive Democratic Party.

As for the organizations that have obtained financing from Qatar, Quiggen affirmed that all of them are organizations specific to Islamic cultural centers, mosques, and Islamic schools in all of the Canadian provinces.  But the most important thing is that these organizations do not at all deny their relationship with political Islam both within Canada and overseas.  But what is most astonishing is that these organizations, via their official websites in the English language, are calling for “radical Islam” and encouraging the killing of non-Muslims, as well as domestic violence.  And, among these documents is a notorized document for financing in Canada one of the projects Yusuf al-Qaradhawi presented to the Qatari government.

In asking Quiggen as to the possibility of the Canadian government being aware of the existence of these documents, Quiggen answered that they most certainly do know about them.  So, it is sufficient to say that one of the political names involved in the facilitation of the entry of these monies into Canada is none other than a current minister in the Federal government.

When al-ahram asked Quiggen as to whether Canadian law does not prohibit the foreign financing of civilian organizations, Quiggen said that that is true, but it does prohibit the financing of extremist organizations, and it prohibits the financing of organization that might have some relationship with terrorism.

As for what Quiggen thought the Canadian government’s reaction would be after the documents are published, he expressed his belief that the preliminary response would be an attempt to discredit the allegations and cast doubt on the credibility of the documents, but after that they will have to admit to the fact that millions of dollars have entered Canada to finance extremism and terrorism.

He added that Canada is a Democratic country that holds in high esteem the value of personal freedoms for the enacting of laws for monitoring the financing of groups suspected of links to terrorism and extremism.  And, it is incumbent upon the government to take several measures for monitoring this financing and to identify their sources and to ban them if the matter requires it.  This is what the previous government did, but with the arrival of the current federal government four years ago these measures have been negated for unknown reasons.

Quiggen said that there was a law drafted to ban the financing of religious organizations by entities outside of Canada but the discussion of this law in Parliament was cancelled in spite of the fact that it was a logical matter and internationally acceptable.  For example, if Canada wanted to finance the construction of a mosque or a church in a country like Qatar, the Qatari law would prohibit that.

What Tom Quiggen said about the way the current Canadian government deals with organizations that support political Islam and calls for violence raises a lot of questions, especially given what we know about one of the big Canadian Engineering companies in the City of Montreal, namely the company implicated in the scandal of the Canadian prime minister being dragged into the investigation proceedings regarding corruption which the judiciary launched some months ago concerning the activities of this company when it sold one of its headquarters in a commercial neighborhood in the center of Montreal to the Canadian institute for Islamic culture in a deal completely financed by Qatar al-khairiyya (Qatar Charity) which is a Qatari government entity.  The value of the deal approached 11 million Canadian dollars.

Perhaps this matter is purely coincidental, but if we take into consideration that the company’s  activities depend upon its participation in numerous projects in the Middle East and the Arab Gulf area, then the matter stirs numerous suspicions regarding the current prime minister’s support for this specific company.

COMMENT:  Egypt’s state sponsored newspaper al-ahram was interested in this story because Egypt is trying to exterminate the Muslim Brotherhood both domestically and internationally.  Much of the monies that Qatar sends to MB affiliates in the U.S., Canada, and Europe end up financial illegal MB activities in Egypt.  As if to punctuate this fact, a tourist bus was bombed this weekend near the pyramids.

On the U.S. front, we can all hope that the Trump administration can use these documents proving that CAIR, ISNA, etc. are being financed by a foreign government as the smoking gun needed to shut them down.  As for Canada, as long as the Obama clone not so true dough is sitting in the PM office . . . lot’s of luck.

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