Democracy & Civil Society

“Hi, I’m Ala from Bethlehem. I do upcycling.” A friendly man in his early thirties, the curly hair bound to a plait, greets the camera. It is the first scene of the Indiegogo-Crowdfunding video Ala Hilu created to start his project: a workshop dedicated to upcycling in the Bethlehem area. For this he needs space and tools. Why upcycling? “Trash …

Winnipeg’s Islamic Social Services Association (ISSA) on Monday issued a new handbook to help prevent Canadian Muslim youth from being influenced by extremist groups and become foreign fighters in the Middle East. The book was unveiled by the ISSA in conjunction with several Muslim organizations and with input from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). According to ISSA President Shahina …

The Canadian government is set to introduce a new law that will make it harder for immigrants to obtain Canadian citizenship. As things stand, a person needs to be physically present in the country for 1,095 days of the four years from their application date. If the remainder of Bill C-24, introduced by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Chris …

Muslims in Paris gathered on Friday to answer the call by Muslim leaders to condemn the “barbarism” of the Islamic State (IS), as flags all over France flew at half-mast after the beheading of a French citizen. Muslims in the country rallied to denounce the execution of Herve Gourdel, a 55-year-old mountaineer, this week by extremists in Algeria with ties …

As a part of a report called ( A State of Mind ) Lebanon in Number Introduction Access to reliable data on socio-economic and political issues in Lebanon has been a rare and seasonal privilege, more often than not restricted to private circles. As a result, statistics offering a quantitative perspective on current affairs have been largely absent from the …

Muslims in the city of Fort Saskatchewan have been the target of communal attacks this week as communal tensions grew following the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. A home used by the members of the local Muslim community once again had to be cleaned up after it was vandalized with anti-Islam slurs for the second time in the week. Speaking …

This year an Index released showing the most “miserable countries in the world in 2013  ” . The “Misery Index” is adding together a country’s unemployment and inflation rates, The higher the number, the more “miserable” the country is. Its method was created by Arthur Okun, the American economist who was a chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers …

Bosnian-Canadian Imam Zijad Delic, doing press rounds for his new book “Canadian Islam: Belonging and Loyalty” preaches the idea of the integral relation between Islam and Canada. The once-controversial imam, now seen as a progressive leader, said that Canada and Islam “complement” one another. “There is no contradiction”, he said. His new book comes hot on the heels of rising …

The Palestinian Festival Ottawa, the first Palestinian Festival in Ottawa, is set to take place from August 29th to 31st. The festival is run by a group of twenty odd volunteers led by the Marwan Abdalla. Abdalla, speaking to The Muslim Link, was only thinking of “having it at City Hall” when he was planning the festival. Fortunately for him, …

By Ghina Dajani, CAI Research Fellow The third in a four-part series analyzing the 2011 census data by Statistics Canada; this report shows the distribution of Canadian Arabs by citizenship, immigrant and generational status, as well as the languages spoken by Canadian Arabs.[1] Citizenship and Immigration in the Canadian Arab Community As previously demonstrated inreports outlining immigration rates of Arabs …