An organization with non-profit status in Canada made social media posts celebrating designated terrorist entities and glorifying the death of Hamas militants as martyrs fighting against the Jewish state of Israel.
The Samidoun Prisoners Solidarity Network is a self-described Palestinian prisoner advocacy group operating in Canada. It has a tax-exempt non-profit status with the Canadian Revenue Agency despite its reported ties with the Marxist-Leninist terrorist group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
The group advocates for the freeing of Palestinian prisoners, most of whom are from the PLFP. However, on social media and at protests, they also celebrate deadly attacks on Israel, such as the international coordinator for Samidoun in Canada calling the deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7 “heroic.”
This week, the international organization celebrated Abu Shujaa, the commander and co-founder of the Tulkarem Brigades, a branch of the Quds Brigades, the military arm of Hamas, calling him a hero and a Martyr ascending to paradise due to his militancy. The Israel Defence Forces claimed they killed Shujaa, also known as Mohammed Jaber, along with four other militants in a large-scale operation in the occupied West Bank on Thursday.
“Glory to the Martyr, Abu Shujaa, the resisting hero, leader of the Tulkarem Brigades, rising as a martyr in confrontation with the invading Zionist regime forces, battling the illegitimate occupier until his last moments. The martyrs are immortal; the revolution lives,” the group posted on X.
The group’s Toronto contingent shared a similar post showcasing Shujaa’s militancy. The Toronto branch also mourned the death of PFLP leader Abu Ali Mustafa on the anniversary of his death, making sure to note to its audience that he was killed “using US-made and US-provided helicopter-fired missiles.”
Samidoun’s Ottawa chapter shared a photo celebrating black-bloc-clad Irish socialists holding a PFLP flag on the anniversary of the founding of the terrorist group.
There are numerous other instances of public support on social media for terrorist groups across the international group’s regional chapters, such as the New York, New Jersey chapter calling the king of Jordan a traitor for intercepting weapons that Hamas would use to kill Jews in Israel.
Friday morning, Samidoun Vancouver, the organization’s Canadian headquarters, called on the public to help engage in a blockade-style protest in Delta, B.C., blocking access to the headquarters of Maersk, a Danish shipping company the non-profit says supplies military equipment to the US. A representative from the Delta Police Department emailed True North to say that after police arrived on the protest scene, the demonstrators were not blocking roadways.
The RCMP and the CRA indicated that they would respond to True North’s request to comment at a later date regarding potential criminal code violations and the organization’s status as a non-profit, respectively.
The international coordinator of Samidoun’s Canadian branch, Charlotte Kates, recently travelled to Tehran, Iran, where the recently designated terrorist group, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, granted her an Islamic Human Rights Award for her activism. In her acceptance speech, Kates, who was arrested for hate speech after glorifying the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, called one of the leaders of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, a martyr.
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs has been campaigning to have Samidoun designated as a terrorist entity, as it is in Israel, for around four years now. Samidoun has also been banned from operating in Germany.
“Samidoun is unabashedly out there, flaunting their ties to the PFLP, and they’re not even hiding it,” David Cooper, the Vice President of government relations at CIJA, told True North in an interview. “They feel they’re operating in a Canadian political environment right now. That gives them impunity.”
Cooper said he wasn’t surprised by the recent slew of terrorist glorification by the organization, saying they have been operating in such a way for years.
“There’s so much affiliation with different terrorist organizations, and they don’t seem to be trying to hide that. In fact, I would say they’re celebrating their affiliations,” Cooper said.“I think it’s really concerning that they can do that with impunity in Canada.”
CIJA argues that Samidoun should be listed under Section 83.05 (1) (b) of the Criminal Code of Canada, which states that an entity that knowingly acted on behalf of or at the direction of an associate terrorist entity can also be designated as a terrorist.
“They’re bragging about using PFLP material in their (Strategy for the Liberation of Palestine) seminars,” Cooper said. “We feel they’ve crossed the threshold, and they should be placed on the (terrorist) list.”