In the News: Anti-Radicalization Centre Dismisses Researcher

The Centre for the Prevention of Radicalization Leading to Violence (Centre de prévention de la radicalisation menant à la violence or CPRMV) has dismissed one of its researchers because of the tendentious nature of an article he coauthored in a Toronto newspaper. The CPRMV was set up by the city of Montreal. The article Quebec needs to confront its Islamophobia problem in the Toronto Star was coauthored by Hicham Tiflati. Mr. Tiflati was dismissed from the CPRMV because the article was considered to be an exaggeration, falsely implying that racism is more prevalent in Quebec than elsewhere.

The dismissal of Tiflati is good news because he apparently has Islamist sympathies. He works for a school which has links to the Muslim Brotherhood and is financed in part by an Islamist government. Furthermore, his dubious comments about the Charlie Hebdo massacre in January 2015 imply a certain sympathy for the perpetrators of that terrorist attack.

Furthermore, the Rassemblement pour la laïcité (Alliance for Secularism) had written a letter to Montreal mayor Denis Coderre only weeks before, expressing concerns about the fact that individuals with Islamist tendencies were working in a centre whose mandate is to prevent radicalization.

See also: Texte controversé sur le Québec: un centre antiradicalisation se distancie d’un chercheur (Controversial article about Quebec: an anti-radicalization centre dismisses a researcher), Gabrielle Duchaine et Vincent Larouche, La Presse, 2015-12-19