Halifax resident Laura Valadka said a stranger gave her a note that said "rape gangs" were coming to her neighbourhood.
Halifax resident Laura Valadka said a stranger gave her a note that said "rape gangs" were coming to her neighbourhood. The note suggested a search for the phrase "rape gangs" on the website Gatestone Institute. Searching for variations of the phrase yielded more than 800 results on the website.
Response from the Gatestone Institute:
Dear Friend,
In what has got to win the prize for the saddest, most stupid and most alarming incident related to Gatestone Institute, police in Halifax, Canada have launched an investigation and are searching for an unnamed suspect whom they seek to question. The man's crime? According to CTV News network, the man allegedly passed a note to a woman, which recommended that she visit the Gatestone website and look up our coverage exposing Britain's horrific child sexual grooming gangs.
Who would have thought 10 years ago, or even five years ago, that urging someone to read meticulously researched and fact-checked analyses of current affairs on the website of a respected think-tank such as Gatestone could be considered a crime in Canada -- one of the oldest democracies in the world?
What does this say about the state of freedom of speech in the Western world today? What has become of our liberties and right to hear facts, however "inconvenient"? These are heavy, serious questions, and people of goodwill should debate them civilly.
This is Gatestone's answer: We will continue working around the clock to research, analyze and keep you informed about the threats we face today. Censorship (both overt and covert) by Google, Facebook and Twitter continue to escalate, as do assaults on our freedom of speech, physical security, and right to be informed. These information-blackouts can only have the most harmful long-term effects on our civilization.
