The Liberal-appointed Human Rights Commissioner, Birju Dattani, resigned from his role after an investigation by the Justice Minister revealed he failed to disclose several key activities during the application process for the position.
The investigation found that Dattani had used a pseudonym, “Mujahid Dattani,” under which he engaged in activities and made public statements that were critical of Israel.
These activities raised concerns among Jewish stakeholders and questioned his impartiality as a human rights commissioner.
The report criticized Dattani for not listing “Mujahid Dattani” as an alias on the official forms required during the application process.
The report concluded that “Mr. Dattani intentionally omitted the reference to ‘Mujahid Dattani’ on the Background Check Consent Form (and elsewhere) and at no time in the application or interview process disclosed that, in the past, he had used the name ‘Mujahid Dattani’.”
The report further stated that, “In our view, Mr. Dattani was thoughtful and deliberate about when he chose to use one name versus another whether in writing, on Twitter, or when participating in speaking engagements.”
The report, released Monday by Justice Minister Arif Virani, also noted that Dattani authored a paper discussing terrorism as a strategy.
As per the abstract of Dattani’s paper, he stated, “Contrary to conventional wisdom (which is far more convention than it is wisdom), terror is not an irrational strategy pursued solely by fundamentalists with politically and psychologically warped visions of a new political, religious or ideological order. It is in fact, it is a rational and well calculated strategy that is pursued with surprisingly high success rates.”
Dattani has since stated he does not ever condone terrorism.
Dattani also retweeted an article titled “Palestinians are Warsaw Ghetto Prisoners of Today,” which he’s since deleted. He stated regret over reposting the article and said he does not agree with claims made within it.
Anti-racist steps down for racist comments
The development is the second time a high profile figure has stepped down over anti-semitic allegations.
In 2022, a staff member working under Diversity and Inclusion Minister, Ahmed Hussen, informed the Prime Minister’s Office about the disgusting tweets posted by the ‘anti-racist’ Laith Marouf.
Marouf was on public record on Twitter saying, “You know all those loud-mouthed bags of human feces; the Jewish White Supremecists; when we liberate Palestine and they go back to where they came from, they will return to being low voiced bitches of their Christian/Secular White Supremacist Masters.”
