On Sunday, a community centre in Montreal hosted a Palestinian prisoners speaking event that celebrated convicted terrorists involved in stabbings, murders and a failed suicide bombing. The event was organized by the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), a group with documented ties to terrorist entities.
Three days prior, two government departments and the centre’s administration were contacted by a lawyer warning them that the event posed a serious risk of promoting hatred and glorifying terrorism, to which none of the parties responded.
National Post has obtained a copy of a letter sent by lawyer Neil Oberman to Immigration Minister Lena Diab, Culture Minister Marc Miller and Charles Fillion, general manager of Centre St. Pierre community centre, warning them about the event and its organizers’ affiliations.
The letter asked Diab to “ensure that any foreign nationals scheduled to speak at or participate in this event — in particular any individuals described as ‘released political prisoners’ — are denied entry to Canada or refused the issuance of any visa or travel authorization.”
Oberman argued that, “Given the documented connections between (Palestinian Youth Movement) and entities designated as terrorist organizations by Canada (the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Samidoun), and the express purpose of this event to glorify individuals who were imprisoned for acts of violence, there are reasonable grounds to refuse entry to these individuals.”
He asked Miller to contact the centre immediately to demand the cancellation of the event, noting that the federal government invested nearly $8 million in the building in 2024.
“Permitting this venue — sustained by millions of dollars in taxpayer funds — to host events organized by groups with documented ties to listed terrorist entities, and which glorify individuals imprisoned for acts of terrorism, is a gross misuse of public resources and a betrayal of the values that federal community infrastructure funding is intended to promote,” wrote Oberman.
The letter further stated that the community centre has “a responsibility — both moral and contractual under the terms of its federal and provincial funding agreements — to ensure that its facilities are not used as a platform for the promotion of hatred or the glorification of terrorism.”
According to Oberman, as of Tuesday morning, neither the government nor the centre had responded to the letter.
PYM describes itself as a transnational movement committed to the “full liberation” of Palestine “from the river to the sea.” PYM rejects the Oslo Accords and the Palestinian Authority, and describes itself as a “vehicle for commitment, political cohesion and sacrifice to organize our people against the forces of Zionism.”
