Backers defend controversial sign
Supporters say billboard honours freedom
Trevor Wilhelm
The Windsor Star
Sunday, August 12, 2007
One of the people responsible for a controversial billboard depicting Hezbollah's leader said he did it to honour freedom fighting families back home -- and it's their Canadian right to do so.
"In Canada we want peace," said Hussein Dabaja, a Lebanese-born Hezbollah supporter. "We're not trying offend anybody. We have freedom of speech. It's a free country. We can do anything. Every Lebanese in Canada has somebody that died in Lebanon, the freedom fighters. Who is Hezbollah? Our brothers, our family, our parents, our friends. We came to Canada and they stayed there to fight."
The billboard went up Friday at the corner of Wyandotte Street East and Marion Avenue, and immediately drew fire from the Windsor Jewish Community Centre, the Lebanese Christian political group Kataeb and others.
Among other Lebanese leaders, the sign prominently depicts Hassan Nasrallah, the head of the political and military group representing Shia Muslims. Hezbollah, considered a terrorist organization by the Canadian government, was created in 1982 primarily to resist the Israeli occupation of Lebanon that lasted two decades.
"The sign shows the Lebanese community finally got a chance to express their feelings about what is going on, to show respect," said sign supporter Ayat Choukeir. "Before we were Canadians we were all Lebanese. To see a part of Lebanon in our city makes us really happy."
Dabaja said the billboard was not meant to be an anti-Jewish statement.
"People who have something against the billboard don't like Hezbollah and they don't want peace," he said.
Dabaja said he's one of a number of local Lebanese community members who had the idea about seven months ago, after discussing other options to honour people back home that included a candle light vigil.
He said community members and leaders of organizations representing about 700 people settled on the billboard plan. Dabaja said support from people has swelled since the sign went up, including some who stopped by Sunday to take pictures.
He said several of Windsor's Lebanese citizens will do what it takes to keep the sign up, short of violence.
"The whole community is not going to let anybody take it down," said Dabaja. "It's going to stay up until the last minute. If someone comes to take it down, they're ready to fight for it, to protect it to be up there. We're not trying to offend anybody."
Dabaja said honouring those fighting in Lebanon means a lot to many people, including himself.
He said Israeli soldiers took his brother Rhitham, then a 19-year-old Hezbollah member, from their parents' Lebanon home in 1985. He was jailed and tortured for the next decade, said Dabaja, until he died in jail in 1995.
Hezbollah guerrillas also saved his vacationing son last summer in Lebanon, after a bomb levelled the school he was hiding in, during fighting between Israel and Lebanon.
Honouring those people is what the billboard is about, he said.
"People living here have family back home and they're fighting, trying to protect their country," said Dabaja. "They wanted to respect them, honour them."
Others rallying in support of the billboard echoed that sentiment.
"This sign means to me remembrance for the people who are looking for peace in the Middle East," said Zouelfikar Haidar. "It's a point of view. It's paper on the board. It's not a weapon. Hezbollah is part of the Lebanese people. However Hezbollah does it, there is a country occupied and people defending their country. I agree with that, because we've been waiting 25 years for the United Nations to get our land back."
Dabaja said he believes the sign wouldn't have sparked such controversy if Canada's government hadn't labelled Hezbollah a terrorist group.
"The reason for the problems, the responsibility is the Canadian government," he said. "The Canadian government made the Lebanese feel the government is against them. Canada needs to fix the mistake it made and take Hezbollah off the terrorist list. They labelled Hezbollah as a terrorist without having respect for the Muslim people."
That is hard for many Lebanese to swallow, he said.
"They keep talking about Nasrallah" said Dabaja. "Nasrallah for us is a red light. It is like saying Jesus is bad."
source
Yep only in Canada, This shit has to stop now. I don't give a flying *uck if these "peoples" rights are stepped on.
CKA Uber 
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