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Quebec’s premier wants to ban public prayer after protests block traffic and challenge secularism
The sight of Muslim men kneeling on the ground in prayer on city streets, often during pro-Palestinian demonstrations and sometimes blocking traffic, all while being shielded by Montreal police (SPVM) officers, has reached its limit, according to Quebec Premier François Legault.
“I see people on their knees in the street praying,” he said. “I don’t think it’s something we want to have here.”
Asked if he would legislate against it, he replied, “It’s what we’re looking at,” and has mused about using section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms—the notwithstanding clause—to do so.
At a Dec. 6 scrum capping a parliamentary session rife with debates, scandals and revelations about religious school funding, intrusion of religion in Quebec public schools, the launch of 17 school investigations and students praying in Laval high school classrooms, Legault told reporters that he and his government intend to “send a very clear message to the Islamists… We’re going to fight, and we’re never going to accept that people try not to respect Quebec’s fundamental values” of secularism and gender equality.
The topic is an especially sensitive one in Montreal. The administration of Mayor Valérie Plante has included Islamophobia in condemnations of antisemitism, regardless of context; Plante has also referred to a firebombed synagogue as a mosque, and elected officials have repeated Plante’s familiar refrain that Montreal is “a city of peace.” Her point person for public security, Alain Vaillancourt, did not respond to queries from The CJN.
The CJN asked Montreal police how many infractions, if any, have been issued to individuals or groups obstructing traffic to engage in street prayer during the nearly 400 demonstrations over the last 14 months. There has been no official or public confirmation of how many traffic-blocking prayer incidents have occurred. (The CJN has tallied seven.)
The SPVM is facing mounting criticism over a conspicuously lax approach to raucous protests, including permitting demonstrators to violate a Quebec court injunction outside a synagogue on Nov. 5 and asking Jews and other citizens to vacate the public domain to avoid incitement of protesters. “There is no law or bylaw prohibiting public prayer on the island of Montreal,” they said, adding that police “adapt operations according to the context of each situation, taking into consideration the safety of all.”
Rabbi Reuben Poupko of Montreal’s Beth Israel Beth Aaron Congregation told The CJN, “When it comes to conflict in Montreal between law and order and peace, police often choose peace, and that leaves our community feeling exposed.”
Montreal Police Brotherhood president Yves Francoeur could not say how many incidents have occurred, confirming to French-language radio that activities blocking traffic are subject to the Highway Safety Code. “We have the power to ask them to stop, to move, to free up the road. If they persist, we have the right to arrest them,” he said. He reiterated that the union was among the first organizations to support Bill 21, Quebec’s secularism law, noting street prayer “doesn’t have its place in Montreal; it doesn’t have its place in Quebec.”
Liberal MNA André Morin is the Official Opposition’s critic for immigration, integration, secularism and justice, and suggested Legault is trying to deflect and distract Quebecers from a “difficult session” and the CAQ government’s record $11-billion deficit.
“He hasn’t yet adequately explained exactly what the problem is that he’s trying to fix,” he told The CJN. “Religion is not illegal in Quebec and is protected by the Canadian and Quebec Charters. For a premier to say we need to forbid prayer in public spaces is a big statement and a big step.”
Morin says there’s already a wide range of legislation applying to street prayer, including the Quebec Highway Code and municipal bylaws. “But we have to be careful. Yes, there is an Islamist movement in Quebec, a political ideology, but not all Muslims are part of that.”
The Jewish Community Council of Montreal did not respond to The CJN’s request for comment, but the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) posted on social media, “It is not acceptable to see our public spaces privatized by groups of radical militants praying for the martyrs of Islamic terrorist groups and the death of Zionists. We salute Premier François Legault for his leadership.” CIJA said it will work with partners and the government “to arrive at legislation that will put an end to this assault on our common Quebec values.”
Legault sounded adamant. “When we want to pray, we go to a church, to a mosque, but not to public places,” he said, his salvo coming three days after a pro-Palestine group called for a rally in support of “One Solution, Intifada Revolution” at Montreal’s famed Notre Dame Basilica on the day marking Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception.
That Dec. 8 rally, attended by several dozen demonstrators, saw a few dozen men kneeling and praying in unison without incident, while others walked around with flags, some masked. A few people stood across from them in front of the church in opposition to the protest. At least one was reportedly asked to move by Montreal police, but The CJN could not confirm that.
On the federal side, the reaction was swift, with Immigration Minister Marc Miller suggesting Legault is picking on Muslims, and Justice Minister Arif Virani cautioning Legault about using the notwithstanding clause to override Canadians’ rights.
There are also questions if such a move can potentially prevent Jews from holding outdoor Shabbat celebrations, block men from gathering to put on tefillin, and ban menorah lightings, already facing restrictions in some Canadian municipalities.
“Most people agree that if the Quebec government comes out with any legislation, it will be targeted towards the context that is most problematic,” for example, street demonstrations and traffic blocking incidents, said Rabbi Poupko, adding Jews faced a similar quandary when the government started talking about Bill 21, which banned the wearing of religious symbols by many public employees. “We all know where this is coming from and the context,” he said. “The target of this legislation is not the Jewish community. We know that we are collateral damage in this.”
Rabbi Poupko says when streets are blocked by protesters praying, it is being used as a political tool. “Everyone understands these impromptu prayer services are not done as pious acts of devotion. It’s an attempt to intimidate, to express a form of Islamist supremacism, and when you weaponize prayer, this is the consequence. The radicals have weaponized prayer to disrupt, to demonstrate power.
“I can’t have a picnic in the street, but that doesn’t mean that the government is trying to starve me. I can go eat at home. And it’s not an infringement on someone’s freedom of expression or freedom of religion not to be allowed to pray in the street.” Banning this activity from public streets is not an act of discrimination or anti–freedom of expression, he says. “It’s pro-traffic.”
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association has expressed alarm about the increased use of the notwithstanding clause by all governments, including Legault’s intentions, and has launched a campaign to alert Canadians to the dangers posed to the Charter by its repeated use and suggested more robust and stringent guardrails for its use.
Quebec’s bishops are concerned about the erasure of people and communities of faith from Quebec’s public spaces. Assembly of Quebec Catholic Bishops president Mgr Martin Laliberté said such a prohibition would be unenforceable and “off the mark in promoting peaceful co-existence in a secular state.”
If a religious group gathers for purposes other than prayer, “Will we then try to ensure that no prayers are recited during a food drive or before a friendly meal? How can we identify a prayer, and above all, why would we try to do so? Praying is not dangerous.”
Indeed, says Liberal critic Morin, “If you’re just praying in the park, is that something the Premier of Quebec will forbid? What François Legault is trying to do is very difficult, but it’s on him to explain.”
Laliberté noted that practices targeted by such a prohibition are not all public actions of religious people, but those of minority religious groups “perceived as different, and, for this reason, threatening to Quebec identity.” He said the rights involved are recognized by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 18: “Freedom to manifest his religion or belief, alone or in community with others, in public or in private, in teaching, practice, worship and observance… it is essential to act with great caution, in order to respect the rights and dignity of all people.”
During the Bill 21 debates, Poupko says many people were willing to “’take the hit’, while others were standing on principle and said we can’t tolerate anyone taking away any rights.” Even if damage wasn’t so grave from Bill 21, he says, “it’s cold comfort for those who want to stand on principle. I really get that.”
But he’s confident any legislation will address behaviour to focus on “prayer that obstructs,” and was quick to add that “Jews don’t obstruct traffic to pray—at most we’ll go to the park for tashlikh for a few minutes, and we’re not talking here about a guy standing in the corner of an airport. Jews praying never obstruct traffic, unless you count the aisle on an El Al flight.”
The National Council of Canadian Muslims posted: “Imagine living in a country where the government can come after you for clasping your hands and praying for a loved one in a hospital waiting room. This is extremely concerning! The time is fast approaching when Canadians will be forced to grapple with the weakness of our charter rights and look for ways to protect ourselves from liberticidal government overreach. As we await the promised legislation, we will be consulting with communities across the country and preparing to stand up for the rights of all Canadians.”
Imam Adil Charkaoui of Montreal, who publicly called for the death of Zionists and enemies of Gaza a few weeks after the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas terrorist attack in Israel—but ultimately faced no charges owing to religious exceptions to hate speech in Canada’s Criminal Code—dismissed Legault’s comments. Muslims don’t need anybody’s permission to pray, he stated on social media. It is a right protected by Quebec and Canadian Charters and conferred by Islamic scripture: “The whole earth has been offered to me as a place of prayer and as a means of purification. So anyone in my community at the time of prayer can perform it wherever he is.”
The post Quebec’s premier wants to ban public prayer after protests block traffic and challenge secularism appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The Trump administration has imposed sweeping sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, citing the UN official’s lengthy record of singling out Israel for condemnation.
In a post on X, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions under a February executive order targeting those who “prompt International Criminal Court (ICC) action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives.” He accused Albanese of waging “political and economic warfare” against both nations and asserted that “such efforts will no longer be tolerated.”
“Today I am imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt [International Criminal Court] action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives,” Rubio announced on X/Twitter.
“Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated,” declared the Trump administration’s top foreign affairs official. “We will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defense.”
Rubio concluded: “The United States will continue to take whatever actions we deem necessary to respond to lawfare and protect our sovereignty and that of our allies.”
The decision to impose sanctions on Albanese marks an escalation in the ongoing feud between the White House and the United Nations over Israel. The Trump administration has repeatedly accused the UN and Albanese of unfairly targeting Israel and mischaracterizing the Jewish state’s conduct in Gaza.
Albanese, an Italian lawyer and academic, has held the position of UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories since 2022. The position authorizes her to monitor and report on alleged “human rights violations” by Israel against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Last week, Albanese issued a scathing report accusing companies of helping Israel maintain a so-called “genocide economy.” She called on the companies to cut off economic ties with Israel and warned that they might be guilty of “complicity” in the so-called “genocide” in Gaza.
Critics of Albanese have long accused her of exhibiting an excessive anti-Israel bias, calling into question her fairness and neutrality.
Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize Hamas’ attacks on the Jewish state.
In the months following the Palestinian terrorist group’s atrocities across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Albanese accused the Jewish state of perpetrating a “genocide” against the Palestinian people in revenge for the attacks and circulated a widely derided and heavily disputed report alleging that 186,000 people had been killed in the Gaza war as a result of Israeli actions.
The action comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Washington, where he has received a warm reception from the Trump administration. Netanyahu has been meeting with US officials to discuss next steps in the ongoing Gaza military operation.
Gideon Sa’ar, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Israel, commended the Rubio announcement with his own post on X/Twitter, exclaiming: “A clear message. Time for the UN to pay attention!”
The post US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations
US President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
The Trump administration escalated its showdown against Harvard University on Wednesday, reporting the institution to its accreditor for alleged civil rights violations resulting from its weak response to reports of antisemitic bullying, discrimination, and harassment following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 massacre across southern Israel.
The US Department of Education (DOE) announced the action on Wednesday. Citing Harvard’s admitted failure to treat antisemitism as seriously as it treated others forms of hatred in the past, the DOE called on the New England Commission of Higher Education to review and, potentially, revoke its accreditation — a designation which qualifies Harvard for federal funding and attests to the quality of the educational services its provides.
“Accrediting bodies play a significant role in preserving academic integrity and a campus culture conducive to truth seeking and learning,” said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “Part of that is ensuring students are safe on campus and abiding by federal laws that guarantee educational opportunities to all students. By allowing anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination to persist unchecked on its campus, Harvard University has failed in its obligation to students, educators, and American taxpayers.”
The DOE, McMahon added, “expects the New England Commission of Higher Education to enforce its policies and practices, and to keep the Department fully informed of its efforts to ensure that Harvard is in compliance with federal law and accreditor standards.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Harvard’s Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism has acknowledged that the university administration’s handling of campus antisemitism fell well below its obligations under both Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its own nondiscrimination policies.
In a 300-plus-page report, the task force compiled a comprehensive record of antisemitic incidents on Harvard’s campus in recent years — from the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee’s endorsement of the Oct. 7 terrorist atrocities to an anti-Zionist faculty group’s sharing an antisemitic cartoon depicting Jews as murderers of people of color. The report identified Harvard’s past refusal to afford Jews the same protections against discrimination enjoyed by other minority groups as a key source of its problem.
Coming several weeks after President Donald Trump ordered the freeze of $2.26 billion in federal research grants and contracts for Harvard, the task force report found it was “clear” that antisemitism and anti-Israel bias have been fomented, practiced, and tolerated not only at Harvard but also within academia more widely.”
The university is now suing the federal government over the funding halt.
President Trump has spoken scathingly of Harvard, calling it, for example, an “Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institute … with students being accepted from all over the world that want to rip our Country apart” in an April post to his Truth Social platform.
In recent weeks, however, both Trump and McMahon had commended Harvard’s constructive response in negotiations over reforms the administration has asked it to implement as a precondition for restoring federal funds. The requested reforms include hiring more conservative faculty, shuttering diversity, equity, and inclusion [DEI] programs, and slashing the size of administrative offices tangential to the university’s central educational mission.
The administration has since changed its tone in the wake of a report by The Harvard Crimson that interim Harvard President Alan Garber has said “behind closed doors” that he has no intention of doing anything that would make Harvard more palatable to conservatives.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism issued Harvard a formal “notice of violation” of civil rights law. Charging that Harvard willfully exposed Jewish students to a flood of racist and antisemitic abuse both in and outside of the classroom, it threatened to strip whatever remains of Harvard’s federal funding.
“Failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard’s relationship with the federal government,” wrote the federal officials comprising the multiagency Task Force. “Harvard may of course continue to operate free of federal privileges, and perhaps such an opportunity will spur a commitment to excellence that will help Harvard thrive once again.”
In Wednesday’s announcement, US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Harvard’s conduct “forfeits the legitimacy that accreditation is designed to uphold.”
“HHS and Department of Education will actively hold Harvard accountable through sustained oversight until it restores public trust and ensures a campus free of discrimination,” he said.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks
IDF operating in southern Lebanon. Photo: IDF Spokesperson
Israeli forces uncovered and destroyed Hezbollah weapons caches in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, as a new report indicated that despite ongoing U.S.-led efforts to secure a disarmament deal, the Iran-backed group is making repeated, largely concealed attempts to rebuild its military presence in the area.
Troops carried out several operations targeting Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon on Wednesday morning, destroying weapons depots, explosives and multibarrel launchers concealed in forested terrain, the IDF said, in violation of the November ceasefire, which requires Hezbollah to withdraw its forces 20 miles from the Israeli border.
A new report released this week by the Alma Research and Education Center found that Hezbollah is focused on rebuilding in three areas: operational deployment, weapons acquisition, and financial recovery.
“Hezbollah didn’t give up its resistance narrative and motivation,” Alma’s director, Lt. Col. (Res.) Sarit Zehavi, told The Algemeiner.
“It wants to rebuild its capabilities and infrastructures, whether it’s the villages that will be used as human shields or the military infrastructure in South Lebanon and in Lebanon in general.”
According to Zehavi, Hezbollah is attempting to return Radwan fighters to positions south of the Litani River as part of a wider plan to restore its elite forces to operational readiness. The IDF on Monday killed Radwan commander Ali Abd al-Hassan Haidar in a targeted strike. The action came hours after US Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack met with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Beirut to discuss a long-term deal that would include an Israeli withdrawal and complete disarmament of Hezbollah.
Barrack described the Lebanese response to the proposal as positive. Later, he issued a blunt warning to Hezbollah in response to a vow by the terror group’s leader, Naim Qassem, not to lay down its arms. “If they mess with us anywhere in the world, they will have a serious problem with us,” Barrack said in an interview with Lebanese news network LBCI. “They don’t want that.”
Zehavi said it was premature to predict the outcome of the diplomatic efforts. She warned that the challenge of disarming Hezbollah remains enormous and emphasized that the Lebanese Armed Forces have not demonstrated the capability or willingness to confront the group.
“It’s too soon to be optimistic or pessimistic,” she said, noting that no firm commitments have emerged from the Beirut talks.
Hezbollah’s efforts to smuggle and manufacture weapons have been complicated by both Israeli strikes and the regional realignment over recent months. While Israeli strikes have disrupted many supply routes, according to Zehavi, Syrian authorities have intercepted far more Hezbollah-bound weapons than the Lebanese Army, which claims to have uncovered 500 arms caches but has provided no evidence.
The financial front marks the third aspect of Hezbollah’s rebuilding effort. Last week, the group halted cash payments to Shiite civilians whose homes were damaged in the war, citing liquidity problems. Zehavi attributed the shortfall to disruptions in Iran’s funding networks — an outcome of the 12-day war against the regime in Tehran — and said the constraints would likely hamper Hezbollah’s ability to compensate its base and sustain operations.
“I hope they will continue to have problems with the cash flow, that way it will be very difficult for them to recover,” she said.
The post IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.