Ayatollah Crocodile Lecture in Waterloo University Cancelled

Protest shuts down clerics' (Murderers') visit

WATERLOO, Ontario (May 29, 2007)
Dozens of irate protesters yelling "shame," "murderers" and "terrorists" shouted down a Waterloo meeting last night that was intended to build peace.

About 50 protesters stood around the meeting hall at Conrad Grebel University College waiting for the dialogue between Mennonites and Muslim clerics from Iran to begin.
Police from Waterloo Region and Toronto, Waterloo firefighters, paramedics and University of Waterloo police were called in in anticipation of protests.

They arrived around 6 p.m., winding down their operations by about 9:10 p.m., after most protesters had left the Conrad Grebel parking lot.

Dozens of Toronto officers remained on standby throughout the evening, staged in a nearby parking lot, but weren't required to assist Waterloo police, Waterloo regional police Insp. Bryan Larkin said.

"Everybody has a democratic right to protest," Larkin said. "The underlying issue here is public safety, and our role here was to maintain the peace."

They shuffled around and held aloft a gruesome photo gallery of torture victims, hangings and firing squad executions they say were taken in Iran.

But less than a minute into a talk by a Shiite Muslim cleric from the Imam Khomeini Education and Research Institute in Qom, Iran, the barrage of shouts erupted.

One by one at first, then hitting a crescendo of chanting "Down with the Islamic Republic of Iran!"

Rev. Brice Balmer, moderator of the meeting tried to calm the loud crowd.
"This is a religious conference," he pleaded.
But it was to no avail.

The verbal salvos kept flying from around the room while more than 100 people in the audience calmly waited for the meeting to continue.

After about 10 minutes, and some failed attempts to negotiate for the protesters to have their say, organizers called off the meeting.

Members of the panel rose from their table on the stage and headed for a side door -- the cat-calls turned into cheers.

"We made our point" said Rahmen Nejati, one of the more vocal protesters. "They are not welcome in Canada."

[....]
The conference will continue.

"We expect that there will be a heavy police presence to make sure that that happens," she said.
Larkin said police will monitor the upcoming closed sessions as the conference continues.

(h/t to Winston)

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