Facebook posts were reply to propaganda against Islamic State: migrant
VANCOUVER — Facebook posts that allegedly supported lone-wolf terrorist attacks were part of a mission to counter the western media’s propaganda machine against the Islamic State group, a British Columbia man says.
Othman Hamdan told an Immigration and Refugee Board hearing Wednesday that mainstream journalists were reporting a one-sided account of a United States-led alliance of western and Middle Eastern countries that began air strikes against the Islamic State group, also known as Daesh, in August 2014.
“The alliance was being defeated,” the construction worker from Fort St. John told the board about his posts from early 2015, before he was arrested in July that year on charges of encouraging murder, assault and mischief for terrorist-related purposes, and for encouraging others to carry out a terrorist act.
Hamdan was acquitted following a trial in B.C. Supreme Court that focused on 85 Facebook posts but immigration officials then arrested him on grounds that he posed a danger to Canadians.