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BBC HomepageSkip to contentAccessibility HelpYour accountLiveNotificationsHomeNewsSportWeatheriPlayerSoundsBitesizeMore menuMore menuSearch BBCHomeNewsSportWeatheriPlayerSoundsBitesizeCBBCCBeebiesFoodClose menuBBC NewsMenuHomeIsrael-Gaza warCost of LivingWar in UkraineClimateUKWorldBusinessPoliticsCultureMoreTechScienceHealthFamily & EducationIn PicturesNewsbeatBBC VerifyDisabilityWorldAfricaAsiaAustraliaEuropeLatin AmericaMiddle EastUS & CanadaIs Canada vulnerable to foreign interference?Published1 hour agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Toronto Star via Getty ImageImage caption, Canadian member of parliament Michael Chong learned through media reports that China allegedly targeted himBy Nadine YousifBBC News, TorontoThe allegations kept mounting in Canada: Election-meddling by China, an Indian-backed assassination on home soil, and a campaign to harass Iranian dissidents. Is Canada especially vulnerable to foreign interference?Michael Chong said it did not take long for him to become a target of Beijing.In testimony before US lawmakers on Capitol Hill last year, the Canadian Conservative politician described how an alleged intimidation campaign against him was born after he spoke out against China’s human rights record in parliament.He said that a Chinese official in Canada began gathering details about his relatives living in Hong Kong shortly after, and that a smear campaign against him was launched on China’s most-popular social media platform, WeChat.”My experience is but one case of Beijing’s interference in Canada,” he said. “Many, many other cases go unreported and unnoticed, and the victims suffer in silence.”Canada launches inquiry into foreign interferenceThe alleged targeting of Mr Chong, which first became public when intelligence reports were leaked to Canadian media, unleashed a fierce debate in the country around its vulnerability to foreign interference and the safety of its citizens.On Monday, he and others will begin testifying before a public inquiry that will look into Beijing’s meddling in Canada, especially its alleged efforts to sway the country’s last two federal elections by backing certain candidates.China has denied any interference and the allegations have soured relations between Beijing and Ottawa. While the inquiry will focus on claims of election interference by China, Russia, India “and other foreign actors”, experts say the problem of foreign meddling in Canada is much more complex and widespread. Solving it, they say, demands a restructuring of the political and social DNA of the country, which has long-failed to prioritise matters of national security. “Generally speaking, we have been neglecting national security, intelligence, law enforcement, defence, and so on,” Thomas Juneau, a political analyst and professor at the University of Ottawa, told the BBC.While it is tough to determine whether Canada is uniquely vulnerable compared to its allies, Mr Juneau argued that other countries have done a far better job in addressing the issue.An outdated system that is slow to adaptOne glaring problem, Mr Juneau said, is the out-of-date act governing the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (csis). It is almost 40 years old, designed with the Cold War in mind, “when the fax machine was the new thing”, he said. Because of this, he said, the nation’s primary intelligence agency has been limited in its operations, focused on sharing information solely with the federal government.This means possible targets are often left in the dark. That was spotlighted by Mr Chong’s story. He only discovered that he had been an alleged target of Beijing through the media, despite csis having monitored threats against him for at least two years.Canada has since launched public consultations into how the law governing csis can be amended to better inform and protect individuals who could be a target.The source of Canada’s security complacency, argued Richard Fadden, a former csis director and national security advisor to two prime ministers, is that Canada has lived in relative safety, largely protected from foreign threats by its geography: the US to the south, and surrounded by three oceans.”I mean, nobody is going to invade Canada,” he said. Canada’s allies – like the US and Australia – have been quicker to adopt certain tools to help catch bad actors, such as establishing a registry of foreign agents and criminalising acts that can be classified as interference.In December, Australia convicted a Vietnamese refugee who was found to be working for the Chinese Communist Party, thanks to a law it passed in 2018 that made industrial espionage for a foreign power a crime.Such laws are not only important for charging and convicting culprits, but can also help educate the public and deter other nations from interfering, said Wesley Wark, a leading Canadian historian with expertise in national security.Diaspora groups are especially vulnerableMr Wark said the country’s diverse population has also made it a convenient target for foreign states.”We are a multicultural society and we have gone to great lengths over decades to preserve and protect that,” he said.But diaspora groups, especially those vocally opposed to the government of their country of origin, have naturally become a target.British Columbia lawyer Ram Joubin has had a first-hand look at the threats facing dissidents in Canada, particularly those from Iran. While investigating people with ties to the Iranian regime who call Canada home, Mr Joubin said he has heard from Iranian-Canadians who say they have been followed and harassed by regime agents in their own communities.”We’ve had death threats, knock-on-the-door type of death threats,” he said. “And then we have a lot of people with their families in Iran being threatened because they engaged in some sort of activism.”Csis has previously said it is aware of alleged intimidation attempts. The Iranian government has not commented publicly on these allegations. In Mr Joubin’s experience, reporting these incidents to officials like the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) has been a challenge, especially when additional work is needed to establish a credible criminal or civil case.Both the RCMP and csis were criticised after the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh separatist that was killed in June in British Columbia, which Canada has alleged was done with the involvement of Indian government agents – something India denies. Prior to his death, Mr Nijjar had said that police were aware he was a target of an assassination plot. Questions were raised about whether something could have been done to stop his killing after the FBI said it was able to foil a similar assassination plot in November against another Sikh separatist leader in New York City. Image source, Bloomberg via Getty ImagesImage caption, Richard Fadden says Canada is only now coming to terms with its vulnerability to foreign meddlingMr Fadden said the events of 2023 represented a seismic shift in Canada’s psyche, forcing the country to finally confront the issue of foreign interference.”Despite a deep reluctance on the part of the government to hold a foreign inquiry, they were compelled to do it,” Mr Fadden said. “I think if there hadn’t been that shift, we wouldn’t have an inquiry.”The inquiry, led by Quebec appellate judge Marie-Josée Hogue, will be conducted in two phases, ending with a final report in December that will include recommendations on what Canada can do to deter future interference.Some have expressed concern about the inquiry’s short mandate, and whether its recommendations will be wide-ranging enough and implemented as Canada inches closer to an election year that could see a change in government.But in the meantime, Mr Fadden and others said they believe urgent action is needed.”There are two big issues: there’s interference in our elections,” Mr Fadden said. “But there’s also interfering and scaring members of the diaspora in this country, which is a very serious matter.””We have a responsibility to protect people who are in Canada, and I don’t think we’re doing as good of a job on this as we could be.”Related TopicsChinaCanadaMore on this storyCanada launches inquiry into foreign interferencePublished7 September 2023US must work with Canada to stop China meddling – MPPublished13 September 2023The long fight for justice over downed plane in IranPublished8 January 2023Top StoriesThree US troops killed in Middle East drone attackPublished4 hours agoDisposable vapes to be banned over fears for children’s healthPublished8 minutes agoPost Office chairman had to go – BadenochPublished3 hours agoFeaturesBBC confronts man who abused boy in secretive Christian churchKey UN Gaza aid agency runs into diplomatic stormWho invented butter chicken? 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[ad_1] A public inquiry launching on Monday could be a reckoning in the country on national security matters.
![BBC HomepageSkip to contentAccessibility HelpYour accountLiveNotificationsHomeNewsSportWeatheriPlayerSoundsBitesizeMore menuMore menuSearch BBCHomeNewsSportWeatheriPlayerSoundsBitesizeCBBCCBeebiesFoodClose menuBBC NewsMenuHomeIsrael-Gaza warCost of LivingWar in UkraineClimateUKWorldBusinessPoliticsCultureMoreTechScienceHealthFamily & EducationIn PicturesNewsbeatBBC VerifyDisabilityWorldAfricaAsiaAustraliaEuropeLatin AmericaMiddle EastUS & CanadaOneFour: How drill music trailblazers have divided AustraliaPublished17 hours agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Tristan Stefan EdouardImage caption, OneFour members (L-R) Spenny, Celly and J Emz on the set of their new music videoBy Hannah RitchieBBC News, Sydney”We’re not a gang. We’re a music group,” J Emz says, unflinchingly.”We’re a business.” The OneFour frontman is speaking in a small, hard-to-find recording studio wedged behind a refrigerator supply store in industrial outer Sydney.It’s here that Australia’s most successful hip-hop act is finalising their new single.The question I’ve asked J Emz – does OneFour have gang links? – has long stalked the group.To fans, the rappers are pioneers: five Sāmoan-Australians from one of Sydney’s poorest postcodes who have used their explosive sound to give voice to millions of marginalised young people. But to police, OneFour is a threat to community safety, to be managed and contained. For years, they have blocked the group from performing at home by arguing their music incites violence – triggering a complex debate about art and censorship.Violent or visionary? OneFour is made up of J Emz (Jerome Misa), 25; his brother Pio “YP” Misa, 22; Spencer “Spenny” Magalogo, 25; Salec “Lekks” Su’a, 27; and Dahcell “Celly” Ramos, 28.They are the undisputed faces of Australian drill music – a subversive style of hip-hop that tells unfiltered stories of crime, poverty and social dislocation by people who have lived it. Their songs have accrued more than 150 million streams and focus on their experiences growing up in Mount Druitt, a Sydney suburb which has long been the subject of stories about struggle and unemployment, not art.But it’s a melting pot of diverse communities, littered with family-run businesses, busy churches and mosques.Image source, NetflixImage caption, J Emz (centre) says OneFour tells authentic stories of western Sydney”A lot of people were embarrassed to say they were from Mounty growing up. I never was though, I wore it on my sleeve,” J Emz tells me.”It’s home, it’s family. Everything I do in life refers to where I’m from.” OneFour formed in 2014. Their name is a nod to that year and – police allege – the notorious Mount Druitt street gang NF14, which has been in an ongoing war with 21 District, a rival gang from the nearby suburb of Parramatta.But it was a local Mormon church choir that first brought them together as kids, J Emz explains.And it shows up in their music – which often juxtaposes heavy rap verses with soothing gospel-like vocals. Their breakout moment came in 2019 with The Message, a high-octane track that went viral within days, earning the group praise from rap titans including Dave and A$AP Ferg.In the track’s video, dozens of young Pasifika men rally around OneFour at Mount Druitt’s courthouse. Smoke billows as lyrics like “retaliation is a must, ain’t no maybes, ifs or buts” slap in time to the beat.But one now-infamous line also caught the attention of police: “21 what, but one got knocked, ha! I guess that makes them 20.”Police said it referenced the recent murder of a 21 District member and argued that OneFour’s lyrics were inciting violence.Image source, NetflixImage caption, OneFour’s songs have been streamed over 100 million times on SpotifyThe group was soon being monitored by two elite police units – Strike Force Raptor, created to hunt underground criminal networks, and Strike Force Imbara, which investigates gang feuds. “I’m going to use everything in my power to make your life miserable, until you stop doing what you’re doing,” Sergeant Nathan Trueman from Raptor told the ABC in 2019, in a recorded voice memo addressed to the rappers. A years-long campaign to block OneFour from performing has followed, leading to the cancellation of a national tour, repeated raids on the artists’ homes, and pressure on streaming services to shun their tracks. “Just as police do not tolerate public acts of violence, they also won’t tolerate any behaviour – including music – that clearly incites and provokes retribution and other violent behaviour,” NSW Police said in a statement to the BBC.OneFour maintain their lyrics “spread awareness of what life is like in western Sydney” and that social commentary is not a crime.”We make music about our life experiences and what we’ve had to go through,” J Emz says. “It’s [frustrating] that people that don’t even know you or want to understand your story, want to shut you down.” But a series of violent incidents involving several of the group’s members have complicated the picture and increased police scrutiny. All except Spenny have criminal records for drug, robbery, or assault charges. In 2019 Lekks, Celly and YP were jailed for a pub brawl in which YP wielded a chair leg and Celly hit a man with a hammer – an incident allegedly triggered by a racist slur. Image source, Tristan Stefan EdouardImage caption, J Emz and Spenny were the only members not in prison when OneFour launched their EPThe three were ultimately given maximum sentences of between four and eight years. It’s not something the group shies away from though, instead using songs like Welcome to Prison to explore the cycle of violence and incarceration that has plagued their community. “I was taught from young that I’d get caught up in the system didn’t listen, and that’s how I got done,” YP raps in one verse. J Emz is convinced that music is their only path to a different life. “It’s a type of therapy… after releasing certain songs, there’s a burden, a weight off our shoulders.”And criminologists say the argument that the group’s music incites violence doesn’t stack up.”The idea that we can draw this correlation that people are more likely to offend because of these lyrics is a bit ludicrous – it’s simply not played out in the statistics,” says Professor Murray Lee from the University of Sydney. “The way police are approaching OneFour is completely counterproductive because it feeds into the narrative of them being outlaws. And it’s that authenticity that sells their music.” ‘This ain’t Home and Away’Some of hip-hop’s most iconic artists have butted heads with police. NWA’s run-ins with US law enforcement in the 1980s inspired their critically acclaimed album, Straight Outta Compton, but it also led to a cease-and-desist order from the FBI.More recently, the UK’s Metropolitan Police has blamed London’s drill scene for fuelling gang crime, and requested the removal of hundreds of music videos from social media.But in Australia – where rap artists have often failed to find success – there has “never been a campaign targeting musicians like this”, says culture journalist Osman Faruqi. “It’s a similar situation to what NWA experienced. The key difference being that the US grappled with these questions about music and censorship 40 years ago, and has largely arrived on the side of artists.”Faruqi argues that OneFour’s struggle cuts to the core of a bigger debate about who is permitted to tell stories in Australia “and make a living out of it”.It’s even become the subject of a Netflix documentary about the group, called Against All Odds, after their EP.Director Gabriel Gasparinatos says OneFour’s raw talent first drew him in, but it was police efforts to “shut them down” and the competing narratives about what the group represented that kept his camera rolling.Image source, Tristan Stefan EdouardImage caption, J Emz says the group is keen for new artistic challenges”Australia loves to celebrate an underdog or a criminal – Ned Kelly is a national icon, our unofficial anthem Waltzing Matilda is about a sheep thief. So, it was kind of fascinating that the public didn’t get behind OneFour in the same way,” he explains.”There’s an element of it motivated by race, part of it is class. There’s also a stigma around a place like Mount Druitt – maybe people wanted to avoid promoting that version of this country, but it’s a far more accurate depiction of Australia today than the surfy, sun-kissed lifestyle we market.”It’s a conversation OneFour is also having through tracks like This Ain’t Home and Away – which contrasts the idyllic beach-loving lifestyle of Australia’s most popular soap with the neglected corners of Mount Druitt.Faruqi adds: “There would be people now in parts of south London, or Chicago who know more about Mount Druitt than they do about Bondi Beach, and that is a fascinating by-product of the success of Onefour.” The next chapter On the set of OneFour’s new song – Freedom of Speech – J Emz, Spenny and Celly are the only members present. YP is still serving his prison sentence and Lekks has recently been deported to New Zealand. The mood is polite yet focused, as the three quietly rehearse their verses. Extras arrive dressed in police uniforms, for a scene involving the burning of a mock-up cop car.Their manager Ricky Simandjuntak is nearby, as are creatives from Mount Druitt running everything from the cameras to the choreography.”We’re not competing with other Australian artists, we’re competing with Drake, BTS, Blackpink – that’s the standard we’ve got to work to,” Simandjuntak tells me.Image source, Tristan Stefan EdouardImage caption, Celly, J Emz and Spenny are fronting OneFour’s new music videoHis gaze returns to Celly, whose voice has long appeared on OneFour’s tracks in the form of prison phone calls. Now Celly is learning to adjust to his newfound fame while also trying to integrate back into society.”People see gangs as reckless groups who come together to commit crime,” Simandjuntak continues. “Often these are kids who are getting picked on or hurt who band together to protect one another. That mentality served them when they were younger, but now they’re learning a different way.”But there are reminders that not everything is in their control. A few weeks after I visit OneFour on set, headlines are made when Sydney police arrest two men who had allegedly accepted a contract to murder all the group’s members except Lekks. Police said an “organised crime network” that had “conflict” with the rappers could be behind the plot, which had been foiled. They did not elaborate further and OneFour declined the BBC’s request to comment on the matter. On the day of the arrests the group posted a cryptic video on Instagram set to 50 Cent’s track Many Men (Wish Death), before later removing it. But for now, OneFour’s next step is to support rapper The Kid LAROI on his Australia tour next month.It will be a chance to test the limits of their relationship with police, which the group says is slowly improving.With the group’s sound having given life to a thriving drill ecosystem across Australia, J Emz says OneFour is now ready to evolve and extend themselves artistically. “Everyone’s seen and heard our drill music. We’re capable of more than that,” he says. “We’re artists. We’re musicians. And I feel like the world will know that soon.”Related TopicsDrill musicAustraliaMore on this storyAustralia police foil alleged plot to kill rappersPublished11 JanuaryDrill music ‘increasingly used in court cases’Published13 January 2021Instagram ‘wrong’ to take down drill music videoPublished22 November 2022Top StoriesUN in aid plea after staff accused of Israel attackPublished2 hours agoLive. ‘It just wasn’t working’: Badenoch on Post Office chairman’s departurePost Office chairman asked to step downPublished50 minutes agoFeaturesWho invented butter chicken? Creamy dish centre of court battleWhen Louis Vuitton tries to make you change your brand nameAuschwitz film was ‘like Big Brother’ in house next to campKuenssberg: What do voters think of party leaders? 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