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Farhat Hashmi told to leave Canada
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/images/2006/07/18/20060718_002.jpg By Khalid Hasan
WASHINGTON: Farhat Hashmi, founder of the ultra-conservative Al-Huda centres, who moved to Canada nearly two years ago with her family has been told by Canadian immigration officials to leave the country but so far has failed to do so.
A letter sent to Hashmi and her family by a Canadian immigration official as far back as 30 September 2005 says, “We regret to inform you that we are unable to approve your request. You are required to leave Canada immediately. Failure to depart Canada may result in enforcement action being initiated against you.”
According to an exclusive report in Maclean’s, a popular Canadian magazine, “Days after that stern letter, which has yet to be followed up by a removal order that would permit the federal government to force her from Canada, Lorne Waldman, a high-profile Toronto immigration lawyer … filed an application for leave and for judicial review on Hashmi’s behalf. That application, should it succeed, would lead to a review of the case. Yet the legal gambit does not supersede the official’s request that Hashmi and her family leave Canada, where she continues to live and to teach.” Hashmi is operating classes attended by upscale, generally idle and mostly affluent Pakistani women and impressionable teenagers. Her reactionary teachings, which many see as bordering on retrogressive interpretations of Islam, have set a challenge to liberal sections in the Muslim Canadian community in Toronto, which is already trying to cope with increasing difficulties triggered by the recent arrest of 17 youngsters, almost all Pakistanis, on terrorism charges.
Her first work permit in Canada was denied because of an error in the application. Her second — which like the first was based on an invitation for employment by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) — was denied because at $43,500, the proposed salary exceeded the amount allowed to religious teachers, who are expected to work on a volunteer basis and are permitted only a small stipend.d.
Wajid Khan, MP for Mississauga-Streetsville, told Maclean’s that he could not support Hashmi. “If she’s been asked to leave the country, she should leave the country.” The federal government, he added, should move to have her returned to Pakistan. “I don’t understand why they haven’t taken action so far,” he stated. Hashmi arrived in Canada in October 2004 with her husband, Idrees Zubair, also an Islamic scholar educated at the University of Glasgow, and two of their children. In interviews with immigration officials, court documents show, Hashmi said “her focus is to liberate and educate the Islamic women.” She calls herself an “Islamic feminist” whose teachings provide women a voice in their families. Still, she instructs them to “listen to your husband - he’s your leader.”
