U.K. politician George Galloway flies to Toronto on Saturday after court decision

[JohnyCanuck]

Eighteen months ago, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Jason Kenney blocked then-British MP George Galloway from Canada, labeling him a terror supporter and a national security risk. At the time, Galloway was scheduled to appear in four Canadian cities on a speaking tour called "Resisting War: from Gaza to Afghanistan."

Galloway and his supporters protested, saying the move was a crass political attempt to silence criticism of Canadian foreign policy on Afghanistan and Palestine. Weeks before the ban, Galloway had led a humanitarian aid convoy to Gaza as part of an international campaign to break Israel's illegal blockade.

This week, after Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley issued his 60-page decision on the matter, Galloway and his supporters were fully vindicated.

But you wouldn't know it from reading the mainstream media's response to the decision. Most headlines declared that Galloway "lost" his appeal because the judge dismissed the case. Justice Mosley ruled that, since Galloway had not been denied entry into Canada at the border, a final decision on his admissibility had not been made. This meant that Justice Mosley had no decision to overturn. Consequently, Justice Mosley dismissed the case, but not before agreeing with every other claim made by Galloway and his supporters. This is what most mainstream media seems to have missed.

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But the ruling also raises some very troubling questions.

The most alarming concern is the way in which the government continues to exploit Canada's so-called anti-terror legislation to stifle dissent. This is a long-standing criticism of Canada's post-9/11 restrictions on civil liberties. Legal experts have pointed to the vague and undefined language of anti-terror laws that allows for the broadest possible interpretations of "terrorism."

http://rabble.ca/news/2010/09/what-galloway-court-decision-means-free-speech-canada