SONYA FATAH

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

SONYA FATAH
TORONTO — Taliban attacks against Canadian and other foreign troops in Afghanistan are a legitimate response to invasion and the Harper government should bring its troops home, according to the Muslim activist who served CSIS and the RCMP as a key informant inside an alleged Toronto terror plot.

Mubin Shaikh was both hailed as a patriot and derided as a betrayer of Islam when he admitted to his role, in a series of media interviews a month after 17 men and boys were arrested in early June on terror-related charges.

Some of his supporters may be surprised to learn Mr. Shaikh’s views on the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“Canada out of Afghanistan, now,” he declared in an interview this week. The Harper government, he said, “is endangering the lives of Canadian soldiers to meet objectives that cannot be attained. You know the last one who conquered Afghanistan? Alexander the Great — 300 BC. All right. You think you can do it? Okay, well. Get ready.”

He was also critical of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. It is the United States, he said, that is the root of the problem there. And of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s characterization of the Israeli military response against Lebanon as “measured,” he said: “Killing Canadian citizens of Lebanese descent is not a measured response.”

If those views appear to contradict his actions, Mr. Shaikh has an explanation: It is a matter of faith and honesty.

He is keen on maintaining his in-dependence from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the RCMP, for whom he has worked for two years.

He said he is still owed money by the authorities.

He is not a pawn, he said, he is merely on the side of truth. He revealed his identity as an informant in the Toronto 17 case because he felt it was important for Muslims and non-Muslims to know that most of them are on the same side, he said.

“I told [officials] to say that the community helped. How come nobody’s saying it? We’re the best partners in the war on terror. Law enforcement is losing credibility among the Muslims. It’s time to gain it back.”

The Mounties did not bite, he said, so he decided to take matters into his own hands.

RCMP officials were not pleased when he went public about his role. He received a call from his minder. “Shaikh, Shaikh — when were you going to tell us?” he recalled being asked.

His life, it turns out, was not at risk. “Because,” he said, “Muslims are not like that. Muslims are not going to attack my wife and kids.”

His wife, Joanne Sijka, 28, a Canadian of Polish descent and a convert to Islam, was his sole confidant. Mr. Shaikh said he discussed every decision with her and did nothing without her support.

“He knows the community and he knows what people are like,” Ms. Sijka said in an interview with The Globe and Mail. “He knows the difference between what people say and what people mean.”

Mr. Shaikh is expected to be a witness in the Crown’s case against the 17 men and boys who were arrested June 3 on allegations of plotting to attack targets in Southern Ontario and Ottawa. (An 18th was arrested in early August.) The allegations have yet to be tested in court.

Since the day of the arrests, Mr. Shaikh said, he has not received a single threatening phone call. That is despite the fact that his address, phone number and father’s mosque were known to the Toronto 17 and their families. But no one called him. And, he said, he received no indirect messages. Partly, that is because he — and his father — have credibility with Muslims in Canada, according to Mr. Shaikh.

“People in the community know the work that I have done and my family has done, behind the scenes, free of charge.”

Last week, Mr. Shaikh took children to see Pirates of the Caribbean, hung out at a Tim Hortons in his neighbourhood and helped with funeral arrangements for community members at the Noor Mosque, where his father is president. Five weeks after he revealed himself, and despite being savaged by young Muslims in blogs and on Internet discussion sites since then, Mr. Shaikh said he is still convinced he did the right thing.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Once-rebellious Polish-born teen traded Doc Martens for Islam and wed a Muslim activist 

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

SONYA FATAH
TORONTO — Joanne Sijka met Mubin Shaikh at York Memorial Collegiate Institute in west Toronto when she was in Grade 9. He was in Grade 11.

It was her Doc Martens boots that caught his attention, he says. Their circles overlapped: The Polish-born girl and the Canadian-born boy were introduced through friends. But it was not until after high school that they got to know each other.

She has now been married for eight years to Mr. Shaikh, a Muslimactivist who served CSIS and the RCMP as a key informant inside an alleged Toronto terror plot.

She was in a state of constant rebellion during high school, Ms. Sijka, 28, said in an interview with The Globe and Mail yesterday.

In 1995, she worked the concession stand at the Cineplex Odeon Eaton Centre in downtown Toronto.

“Joanne was this very slight, goth chick with long, dyed-black hair and wire-rimmed glasses,” said Dawn Calleja, who worked with Ms. Sijka that summer.

“She wouldn’t take crap from anyone — not her managers, customers or co-workers. She was very clever. . . .

“After her shift, she’d take off her purple bow tie and apron, and put back on her black clothes and huge black boots for the subway ride home.”

Ms. Calleja said Ms. Sijka shaved her head at least once. On that occasion, she got a dragon tattooed on the back of her skull.

Ms. Sijka’s journey toward Islam was not inspired by her husband.

Searching for answers, she first wanted to be a psychologist but found the discipline soulless, she said, and turned toward spirituality and Eastern religion.

One day she went to a bookstore and was drawn to a collection of poems by Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi, a 13th-century Persian poet and Sufi mystic. “I read his poetry,” she said, “and I thought, ‘Okay, look, he’s talking about me.’ ”

Of her wild, partying days, Ms. Sijka said: “Everything was always empty. You know, I’ve had lots of fun. I lived life. But I was always empty. There was always something missing. I can’t say that now. . . . I know my God is always there.”

Mr. Shaikh and Ms. Sijka married in December of 1998, after she converted to Islam.

For their honeymoon they spent the last 10 days of Ramadan in the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina and then went to Egypt, where Mr. Shaikh fondly remembers touring the pyramids on horseback.

Ms. Sijka’s relationship with her parents, which she said was more or less severed when she was a teenager, has changed in recent years.

“After I had my first child, I realized what it was like to be a mom.”

She called her mother and apologized for the earlier years. And, she said, she has never had a better relationship with her parents than she does today.

The couple now have three children, the eldest six years old. A fourth is on the way.

In September of 2005, Ms. Sijka accompanied her husband to support sharia, Islamic law, at a demonstration against the use of religious tribunals to settle family matters. She wore an abaya — a long outer garment that covers the body — with a veil. Only her eyes were visible.

She did not always cover herself, she said. After her marriage to Mr. Shaikh she covered her hair only in the presence of his father. She began covering her head for cultural rather than religious reasons.

She took to wearing the abaya and veil five years ago and said she believes it is an individual choice.

“There is no compulsion in religion.”

Popularity: 8% [?]