TORONTO — A student accused of running an anti-Semitic website has been “de-registered” by York University, a school spokesperson said.
“He is no longer a student at York,” Keith Marnoch, the university’s associate director of media relations, told The CJN last week.
But he said Salman Hossain wasn’t formally expelled.
“Expulsion… can have academic [implications]… attached to it. We basically just removed him as a student from York,” Marnoch said, adding that this was a university decision.
Hossain has been accused of running Filthy Jewish Terrorists, an Arizona-based website that refers to Jews as “diseased and filthy,” “the scum of the earth,” “fanatic, genocidal maniacs,” “psychotic” and “mass murderers.”
The site also said “a genocide should be perpetrated against the Jewish populations of North America and Europe.”
York suspended Hossain last month and ordered him to appear before a disciplinary panel.
When asked why Hossain wasn’t de-registered earlier, Marnoch said “we had to look at what we were doing in a detailed way to make sure everything was appropriate, but we are satisfied that we did what we needed to do.
Hossain is still the subject of a hate crimes investigation, according to the Ontario Provincial Police, because it’s illegal in Canada to support or promote genocide, as well as communicate statements other than in private conversation that willfully promote hatred against an identifiable group.
Ontario’s attorney general declined to press criminal charges last year against Hossain, saying the Bangladeshi-Canadian was undergoing rehabilitation with an imam.
Bernie Farber, CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress, thinks removing Hossain as a student was long overdue.
“This is something we believe should have happened a long time ago. It was the only real option that York had,” he told The CJN.
“[This move] creates a safe environment for Jewish students and faculty at York. It sends a very clear message. While freedom of speech and academic freedoms are cherished values, there is a line drawn in the sand. Advocating the murder of a specific group of people terribly crosses that line.”
— With files from JTA
