Thornhill’s Kent in hot water over refugee Tweet

Apologized and deleted Tweet

Yorkregion.com
Sept. 10, 2015
By Simone Joseph

Thornhill riding Conservative candidate Peter Kent says he made a mistake when he shared information on Twitter earlier this week that turned out to be false.

A former foreign affairs and environment minister in Stephen Harper’s government, Kent shared photos Tuesday of a man who appears to go from being an ISIS fighter to being a refugee in Europe.

Kent’s tweet pointed to the photos as “a chilling reminder of why prudent/detailed refugee screening is essential“, he wrote.

The Conservative candidate later said he regrets the tweet and deleted it.

“It is an embarrassment. It was a bruise to the credibility of that message,” he said Wednesday.

“It was a reminder of how snap decisions on social media must not be taken.”

He later posted a statement correcting the tweet. He wrote the correction after Globe and Mail columnist Tabatha Southey linked him to a BBC article that debunked the images.

The BBC article explained the man in the photos was the subject of a profile by the Associated Press news agency and that he used to be a Free Syrian Army commander. Photos of the man appeared on The Atlantic website soon after the AP story was published. On that page, this man is identified as a “Syrian former rebel commander”, with no references to his role in the Free Syrian Army. The Free Syrian Army, formed in 2011, opposed the Syrian government during the civil war. The army became a leaderless resistance of local fighters.

When photos of the man were circulated on Twitter and Facebook, the details of his fighting in Syria became mixed up and he was incorrectly labelled an ISIS fighter.

Kent pointed out that he merely wanted to highlight the need to properly screen refugees.

He admitted he didn’t do his due diligence in tracking down the origin of the tweet.

His statement read: “Stand corrected on retweet passed on by trusted source. Still maintain need 4 prudent screening.”

In a phone interview, he said the tweet was sent to him by “a reliable colleague”.

Canada needs to carefully screen people during this time of “massive migration”, he said.

Kent pointed out it is important to keep in mind the big issues in this election, including the economy and security both at home and abroad.