US and Canada list Samidoun as a terrorist group

​FILE PHOTO: Police officers stand at the entrance to a building during a raid in Berlin-Friedrichshain. Security forces have searched several properties in Berlin, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein in connection with the ban on the terrorist organization Hamas and the international network Samidoun in Germany.
FILE PHOTO: Police officers stand at the entrance to a building during a raid in Berlin-Friedrichshain. Security forces have searched several properties in Berlin, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein in connection with the ban on the terrorist organization Hamas and the international network Samidoun in Germany.
Paul Zinken/dpa via Reuters Connect

The United States and Canada both moved Tuesday to designate Samidoun as a terrorist entity, following Germany, which banned the group last year, and the Netherlands, which banned it last week. Samidoun, which is also known as the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, is headquartered in Vancouver and is accused of having links to and advancing the agenda of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which is already listed as a terrorist group.

The listing means that governments in both countries can freeze assets belonging to the group and prevent them from banking, for instance.

Calls for Samidoun to be listed increased after a rally in Vancouver on Oct. 7, the anniversary of the terrorist attack on Israel, where a masked woman led a crowd in chants of “death to Canada, death to the United States, and death to Israel,” and Canadian flags were burned.

Prosecutors are weighing whether to file hate speech charges against one of the group’s leaders over an earlier rally.

In Canada and the United States, rallies against the war in Gaza have inflamed tensions, and antisemitic incidents have increased dramatically.

On Tuesday, Israel released a report warning that antisemitism in Canada is on the rise and that Jewish places of worship, community centers, and day schools have been targeted. On Saturday morning, a Toronto Jewish girls’ day school was shot at for the second time. Nobody was hurt, and students have returned to class, but the community is fearful.

More from GZERO Media

Russian President Vladimir Putin could talks with President Donald Trump as early as this week. Artem Priakhin/SOPA Images via Reuters Connect
Artem Priakhin/SOPA Images via Reuters Connect

US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will discuss America’s 30-day ceasefire proposal this week after Ukraine endorsed the plan last Tuesday but Putin torpedoed it with a list of conditions.

President Donald Trump looks on as military strikes are launched against Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis over the group's attacks against Red Sea shipping, at an unspecified location in this handout image released March 15, 2025.

White House/Handout via REUTERS

The United States launched widespread strikes on the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen on Saturday, killing 31 people and injuring another 101 — mostly women and children — as it targeted military sites and a power station in the rebel group’s southwest stronghold.

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before boarding Air Force One as he departs from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, on March 14, 2025.

REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

On Saturday, a judge pulled the plug on President Trump's plans to expel Venezuelans supposedly linked to gangs, temporarily blocking the White House from using a law from 1798 to do so. The judge ordered the administration to turn around any planes that were already en route, but more than 200 Venezuelans reportedly landed in El Salvador after the ruling.

Listen: In seven short weeks, the Trump administration has completely reshaped US foreign policy and upended trade alliances. Will China benefit from US retrenchment and increasing global uncertainty, or will its struggling economy hold it back? On the GZERO World Podcast, Bill Bishop, a China analyst and author of the Sinocism newsletter, joins Ian Bremmer for a wide-ranging conversation about China—its domestic priorities, global administration, and whether America’s retreat from global commitments is opening new doors for Beijing.

German Chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz speaks to the media after he reached an agreement with the Greens on a massive increase in state borrowing just days ahead of a parliamentary vote next week, in Berlin, Germany, on March 14, 2025.
REUTERS/Axel Schmidt

Germany’s election-winning center-right Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union, led by Friedrich Merz, and the Social Democrats have reached a preliminary agreement with the Green Party on a deal to exclude defense spending from the country’s constitutional debt break and establish a dedicated $545 billion fund for infrastructure investments.

A Russian army soldier walks along a ruined street of Malaya Loknya settlement, which was recently retaken by Russia's armed forces in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict in the Kursk region, on March 13, 2025.

Russian Defence Ministry/Handout via REUTERS

The Russian leader has conditions of his own for any ceasefire with Ukraine, and he also wants a meeting with Donald Trump.

Mahmoud Khalil speaks to members of the media about the Revolt for Rafah encampment at Columbia University on June 1, 2024.

REUTERS/Jeenah Moon

The court battle over whether the US can deport Mahmoud Khalil, the 30-year-old Palestinian-Algerian activist detained in New York last Saturday, began this week in Manhattan. Khalil, an outspoken activist for Palestinian rights at Columbia University, was arrested Saturday at his apartment in a university-owned building at Columbia University by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, and he is now being held in an ICE detention center in Louisiana.