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The provincial government has not laid criminal charges against the director of a terrorist organization almost six months after being asked to by Vancouver police.
On Wednesday, the B.C. Prosecution Service confirmed it was still reviewing a report from the Vancouver Police Department on 44-year-old Charlotte Lynn Kates.
“This process is continuing and I am unable to provide a timeline for completion,” said spokesperson Damienne Darby.
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Darby did provide Postmedia News with a copy of the prosecution service’s hate crimes policy.
VPD spokesperson Sgt. Steve Addison said police provided the report to prosecutors in June, two months after Kates was arrested at a rally at the Vancouver Art Gallery organized by Samidoun.
Samidoun was declared a terrorist organization by Canada and the U.S. on Oct. 15 on the grounds that it raises money for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) — an organization outlawed in the U.S. since 1997 and Canada since 2003.
Kates is one of three directors of Samidoun, which is registered at an east Vancouver address and has been active in Vancouver and Europe since the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, protesting Israel’s retaliatory actions.
In April 2023, the VPD opened a criminal investigation into Kates claiming she made hateful comments at the art gallery protest, calling the attack by Hamas on Israel “heroic and brave” and leading demonstrators in a chant “Long live Oct. 7.”
Kates was arrested and ordered not to attend any more protests, rallies or assemblies until an October court date.
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