Charge city man with hate crime: Bezan

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This article was published 26/06/2015 (4041 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — A Manitoba MP says a Winnipeg man who sympathizes with the Islamic State terrorist group should be charged with a hate crime.

James Bezan, MP for Selkirk-Interlake and parliamentary secretary to the minister of defence, was reacting to comments made by Aaron Driver to the CBC Wednesday.

Driver told the CBC the shooting death last fall of Cpl. Nathan Cirillo at the National War Memorial in Ottawa was justified.

“I think if a country goes to war with another country, or another people or another community, they have to be prepared for things like that to happen,” Driver said. “And when it does happen, they shouldn’t act surprised. They had it coming to them. They deserved it.”

Bezan said those comments are inciting hatred against a person or group of people, and police should investigate accordingly.

“Here’s an individual that definitely still very much believes ISIS has the right to incite others within Canada to act,” said Bezan. “I think that’s despicable. He is definitely inciting hatred against people.”

Bezan said existing hate laws are enough to arrest him and try him.

“You can’t go out there and spew hate comments like this,” he said.

Driver was detained earlier this month for more than a week because of his public support for Islamic State. He has been on a CSIS watch list for months because of his social media activity and has had several Twitter accounts suspended.

He wasn’t charged with any crime and was released after eight days when he agreed to abide by 25 different conditions, including wearing electronic ankle monitoring, abiding by a curfew, not having any weapons or passports, and not having any computers or tablets.

Driver, 23, grew up in a Christian, military family that moved around Ontario and the Prairies, and he converted to Islam as a teen.

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca