Liberal MP Dosanjh threatened on Facebook

Liberal foreign affairs critic Ujjal Dosanjh says he has received a threat on the social networking website Facebook and that it is under investigation by police.

Dosanjh, who also served briefly asthe NDPpremier of British Columbia between 2000 and 2001, is no stranger to threats. Heonce received a severe beating in 1985 for his outspokenness on Sikh violence in the Punjab during the Khalistan separatist movement.

The MP, who represents Vancouver South,said the most recent threat came in an e-mail on Facebook at the end of July.

He said he reported the recent threat to police, along with one that was contained in an editorial in May in a Punjabi newspaper.

An RCMP spokesperson in Vancouver would only say that the Facebook threat is under investigation.

Dosanjh said the most recent threat contained a name and some pictures.

"It has a name on it and some pictures, but we don't know whether any of those pictures are of the individual who sent this,"he said from his Vancouver home.

"And we don't know without investigating with the [internet] server where it came from, and the police can do that if they believe they need to follow it up."

A couple of the pictures in the e-mail show some people and a building that was demolished during the Golden Temple uprising in Amritsar when Indian police battled withmilitant Sikhs.

This spring, Dosanjh was critical of a parade in Surrey, B.C., that celebrated Sikhism because it also appeared to honour militants, including an alleged Air India bomber, Talwinder Parmar, who died fighting for a separate Sikh state in Punjab.

The April 7 Vaisakhi festival and parade attracted thousands of people, including prominent B.C. and federal politicians.

Video of the parade shows floats with portraits of Sikh "martyrs," including Parmar, who RCMP believe led the group that planted a bomb on Air India Flight 182 from Toronto in 1985, killing 329 people.

The editorial threat came after "my denunciation of the parading of Mr. Parmar and others. These are people who are very substantially, in terms of the evidence being led, connected to the Air India tragedy.

"The glorification of violence is not appropriate at all."

Dosanjh said the threats are a concern.

"When one gets a threat it does cause you personal concern for yourself and your family. But more importantly, what does it say about society where these kinds of individuals can [issue threats?]."