Jesse Kline
National Post, Aug. 21, 2024
“Hamas is not a terrorist organization. Islamic Jihad is not a terrorist organization. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine is not a terrorist organization. Hezbollah is not a terrorist organization,” she told a jubilant crowd of terrorist sympathizers. “These are resistance fighters. These are our heroes.”
There are some awards that should give recipients pause and make them reconsider their life choices. Like receiving a Razzie Award for worst actor, a Grand Cross of the German Eagle from the Nazis or a human rights award from the Islamic Republic of Iran. But for Canadian terror apologist Charlotte Kates, the Iranian regime’s recognition of her anti-Israel campaign is considered a badge of honour.
Kates is the international co-ordinator of the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, a registered Canadian non-profit that was founded by members of, and is closely associated with, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which Canada recognizes as a terrorist entity.
Samidoun is also responsible for organizing and funding many of the vile anti-Israel protests that have taken place on Canadian streets since October 7.
Readers may remember Kates as the woman who stood in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery in April, shouting “Long live October 7!” and praising the massacre in which 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, were brutally raped and murdered, and over 250 were taken into captivity, where many remain to this day. Kates was arrested as part of a hate-crime investigation and released on the condition that she not attend any rallies, pending a court date in the fall. But that did not stop her from boarding a plane to Tehran, where she — along with five other individuals, including slain Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh — received an Islamic Human Rights Award for her “anti-Zionist activities” earlier this month.
Platformed
A couple days later, Kates appeared as a guest on Iranian TV, clad in a hijab and appropriately spaced from her male host, where she blamed “Zionist organizations and political officials” for her arrest and opined about the “lie of so-called western democracy and concern for human rights.”
Iran, of course, has one of the world’s most dismal human rights records. This is the country where, in 2022, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was arrested and subsequently murdered for improperly wearing a headscarf in public. The government crackdown on the ensuing protests resulted in hundreds of deaths, tens of thousands of arrests and numerous executions. … [To read the full article, click here]
