Nearly 2,000 sign petition to keep Holocaust denier out of Canada
What is the true intention of the event that invited him?
By JTAAn Al Quds demonstration against Israel, marches through London on September 13, 2009(photo credit: CARL DE SOUZA/AFP)
MONTREAL — An online petition launched by B’nai Brith Canada aiming to prevent an American Holocaust denier from speaking in Toronto has garnered nearly 2,000 signatures.Kevin Barrett, who has called the 9/11 attacks an “inside job,” is due to address the city’s annual Al-Quds Day rally on Saturday. Al-Quds is the Muslim name for Jerusalem, and the annual march during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan is generally a call for the destruction of Israel.In the petition, B’nai Brith demanded that Canada’s Border Services Agency keep out Barrett.“Inviting a notorious Holocaust denier to this event demonstrated once and for all that Al-Quds Day is not a mere ‘anti-Israel’ event, but rather a hate rally designed to demonize and denigrate Canada’s Jewish population,” B’nai Brith Canada CEO Michael Mostyn told The Canadian Jewish News.Barrett, a teacher at the University of Wisconsin in Madison until 2006, was barred from Canada in 2015. At the time, he reportedly referred to the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris as a “false flag” operation.“Barrett has repeatedly questioned the murder of six million Jews by Nazi Germany,” B’nai Brith said.