Canada declares the Proud Boys a terrorist group

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TORONTO — Canada on Wednesday declared the Proud Boys a terrorist entity, adding the far-right group to a list that includes al-Qaeda, ISIS and al-Shabab inan effort to crack down on “ideologically motivated violent extremism,” described bythe country’s public safety minister as the “most significant threat to domestic security.”

The announcement by Public Safety Minister Bill Blair cameless than a month after some Proud Boys joined the violent mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol after attending a rally by then-President Donald Trump in the hope of overturning the presidential election. Five people, including a Capitol Police officer, died in that attack.

It also followeda warning last week by the Department of Homeland Security about the heightened threat of “ideologically motivated violent extremists with objections to the exercise of governmental authority and the presidential transition” and “perceived grievances fueled by false narratives.” Continue reading.

Research predicted this wave of right-wing domestic terrorism. Republicans tanked the report.

Then-Homeland Security Secretary Janet NapolitanoA in 2013. Credit: Mario Tama, Getty Images

Then-Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) blasted Janet Napolitano for insulting “American citizens who disagree with the direction Washington Democrats are taking our nation.”

Last year, a white-nationalist army veteran was charged with second-degree murder after he drove a car into a group of nonviolent protesters in Charlottesville, Va., killing one and injuring 19. Earlier this month, a far-right-wing army veteran shot and killed two people at a Tallahassee, Fla. yoga studio.

According to a new report posted Sunday by the Washington Post, the yoga studio victims were among at least 20 people who have been killed this year in the United States in suspected right-wing attacks (compared to “just one fatal attack in 2018 that may have been motivated by left-wing ideologies.”) This comes amid an “uptick in right-wing terrorism,” as the report puts it. The FBI has documented this phenomenon as an increase in hate crimes.

Some of the blame for the rise in right-wing terrorism has been assigned to President Donald Trump’s racist rhetoric and his “both sides” excuses for white nationalism. Some of it may go to his administration’s decision not to fund Countering Violent Extremism programs. But some of it precedes Trump and goes back nearly a decade.

View the complete November 26 article by Josh Israel on the ThinkProgress.org website here.