This article originally appeared in the National Post. Below is an excerpt from the article.
By Joe Adam George, November 18, 2025
In a development that went largely unnoticed, Liberal MP Salma Zahid recently tabled a petition in the House of Commons urging the federal government to admit members of Jamaat-e-Islami — Bangladesh’s largest Islamist party. The petition noted that in the past, some members of Jamaat-e-Islami had been deemed inadmissible to Canada on security grounds. However, it argued that the group “has engaged in democratic processes and governance in Bangladesh” and that members seeking asylum in Canada are “law-abiding citizens who uphold democratic values.” It urged the government to ensure they receive “fair and just treatment.”
What Zahid and the petitioners conveniently overlooked, however, is that Jamaat-e-Islami is inseparable from a long history of Islamist extremism, terror-financing, and some of the worst mass atrocities committed in modern history. So brutal were the group’s crimes during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War that it became only the second political organization after Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party to face an international tribunal for war crimes. Although Jamaat-e-Islami was outlawed in Bangladesh in 2013, the ban was lifted following last year’s ouster of prime minister Sheikh Hasina. Russia remains the only country to ban the group as a whole, while India has only proscribed its branch in the disputed state of Kashmir.
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