Wednesday, September 01, 2010

Down the memory hole : Two accounts of domestic terrorism

Out of the many many published accounts of Canada's newest domestic terrorism case, two appear to have disappeared down the memory hole.

Last night the Globe and Mail published a story on authorities apprehending the child of the so-called fourth terror suspect, Awso Peshdary. He's the one who was arrested Friday and interrogated for six hours, released, and immediately re-arrested on domestic assault charges dating back to April as a result of police having bugged his house for the last six months. That G&M story read :
Authorities seize child of man targeted in terror probe

The six-month-old daughter of Awso Peshdary is in custody of Children's Aid Society after police, unable to make terrorism case, lay charges of domestic assault.
The G&M included a link to a blog supportive of Peshdary which gave an account purportedly of Peshdary's wife going to the Elgin Police Station to inquire after her husband, being interrogated for five hours without a lawyer present, being coerced into making statements against her husband, and having her child apprehended. Is all this true? We don't know. 660 News reported the child being apprehended today.

But even if Peshdary is accused of assault and uttering threats to his wife, I thought, why apprehend her child from her while he is locked up?

I posted a link to both the G&M story and the blog account on the Bread and Roses forum last night where it was read and commented on by regulars, but by 11:26 this morning deBeauxOs reported at BnR that the G&M story was missing.
Gone. 404ed down the memory hole.

Now the G&M is notorious for rewriting their online copy so we waited for the new version to appear. Dr Dawg reported a new version, which incidentally is minus the phrase "unable to make terrorism case", but now it too is gone, as is the blog post purporting to be Mrs. Peshwary's account of events. Dawg has cached copies of the revised G&M story and the missing blog post : Abuse.

Last night at BnR, Pogge quoted the following from the original G&M account :

After al-Qaeda’s attacks in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, Canadian police were given extraordinary powers to temporarily arrest suspected terrorists when a solid criminal case failed to materialize. Police were also given powers to compel individuals to testify against alleged terrorist associates.

Parliament voted against extending those powers in 2007. Now, the Conservative government hopes to revive them, meaning MPs are about to embark on a renewed debate as to whether counterterrorism agents have sufficient powers to deal with people on the periphery of a suspected plot.

As Pogge said last night, this is today's installment of Things That Make You Go "Hmmmm".
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