The Federal Court of Canada validated the decision of the Immigration Division (ID) of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada which denied a Palestinian man refugee status in Canada because of his affiliation with the Fatah terrorist organization.

Akram Muslih Anteer, a permanent resident of Sweden, joined Fatah when he was 10-years-old and recently worked with high ranking Fatah officials in the Jenin area, including the head of Fatah, Ata Abu Rumeila.

Fatah is the main Palestinian faction of the PLO, and its leader – Mahmoud Abbas – governs the Palestinian Authority.

The ID found that “it had been established that it is likely that Fatah did not entirely disassociate itself from acts of terrorism against the Israeli state even after renouncing armed struggle and that the most notorious faction within Fatah, the AAMB (Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades), did not exist separately from Fatah as a whole.”

“The documentary evidence is clear that Fatah engaged in acts of violence and terrorism both before the denunciation of terrorism in 1989 and, through the AAMB, during the Second Intifada from 2000 to at least 2007.”

Anteer did not dispute his connection to Fatah but argued that unlike the AAMB, Fatah is not listed on many countries’ lists of proscribed terrorist organizations, including Canada’s, and therefore should be viewed differently.

The ID issued a removal order against Anteer returning him to Sweden.