Faisal Bhabha, an associate professor of law at Osgoode Hall Law School at York University in Toronto, said Cooley “should be seriously considering a civil action for malicious prosecution and unlawful detention by the police.”
“It appears there never was a basis for the charge to be laid. Any alleged basis was clearly improper and quite likely discriminatory,” Bhabha said. “The laying of the charge would have had a chilling effect on the free exercise of Charter rights in the city and across the country. Therefore, the police should investigate to determine how such an error was made.”
I’m glad this has been partially rectified, and I do hope there’s a little settlement for any lost wages and a LOT of policy re-vamping here.
If he truly was supporting a cause merely of Palestinian independence - let alone a restoration of proper boundaries and safety from continued invasion - then I don’t see where this is more than hate-filled prosecutorial over-reach.
In their defence, though, there’s been a concerted effort to conflate a religion with a government, and that’s as wrong a bandwagon for us to jump onto as much as it is disenfranchising the thousands of people living there but practicing a different system of beliefs (or none at all). It’s the start to an exciting internal purge based on beliefs from a people who should know better. Personally.