Federal security officials meet local Somali-Canadians

Representatives from Canada's security agencies met with members of Ottawa's Somali community Thursday night in an event that's part of a program the government describes as, "Working together to keep Canada Safe and Secure."

In this case they also wanted to keep it quiet, and refused to allow reporters into the meeting.

"We don't want this to go to public. I mean it's just about building relationships really, and dialogue. And we're talking about very interesting issues," said Farah Aw-Osman, of the Canadian Friends of Somalia.

The meeting was part of a Public Safety Canada program called a Cross-Cultural Roundtable on Security, which was formed in 2005 by the federal government to fight terrorism and hate crimes in collaboration with the concerned communities.Representatives from the RCMP, the Department of Justice, the Canada Border Services Agency and Canada's spy agency CSIS attended the meeting.

This comes just a month after top security officials admitted that at least 20 Toronto-area youths have been recruited by a Somalia-based militant group, al-Shabaab, which produces recruitment videos for jihad, and may have links to al-Quaeda.

Not everyone in Canada's Somali community applauds these roundtable meetings.

"It's good for the community to work more closely with law enforcement, but as we do that we have to make sure that we don't create an unfairly negative perception of the community, as a community that is teeming with radicals, when that is surely not the case," said Ahmed Hussen, president of the Canadian Somali Congress.

Hussen said many in the community were furious when a poster for a similar event last December showed young Somalis with assault rifles.

Reports from Thursday night's meeting will be sent to the highest levels of government including Minster of Justice Rob Nicholson and Minister of Public Safety Vic Toews.