Canada cuts funding to anti-racism program after ‘vile’ tweets published

Lead consultant Laith Marouf tweeted a series of offensive antisemitic messages, spurring the federal government to cut funding to the initiative.

Canada’s federal government has cut funding to an anti-racism initiative after one of the program’s main consultants was found to have written a series of “reprehensible and vile” tweets.

The minister of diversity, Ahmed Hussen, said on Monday that his department had cut funding to Montreal-based Community Media Advocacy Centre (CMAC), which had received more than C$133,000 (US$103,000) in funding from the heritage department to develop a project on combating racism in broadcasting.

Laith Marouf, listed as senior consultant at the CMAC, was recently discovered to have tweeted a series of offensive messages, many of which were antisemitic.

“You know all those loud-mouthed bags of human feces, a.k.a. the Jewish White Supremacists; when we liberate Palestine and they have to go back to where they come from, they will return to being low voiced bitches of thier (sic) Christian/Secular White Supremacist Masters,” said one post by Marouf, who has since locked his Twitter account. A previous account used by Marouf was suspended by Twitter.

Hussen said in a statement that “antisemitism has no place in this country” and that he had directed his department to determine how such tweets were initially missed during the vetting process.

FULL STORY 

Canada cuts anti-racism program after lead consultant’s ‘vile’ tweets surface (Guardian)

Photo: Laith Marouf (CBC)