Abbas Kassam

Senior Fellow, Blogger

Counsel

Fasken Martineau Dumoulin LLP

Abbas Kassam is an experienced Intellectual Property lawyer at Fasken Martineau Dumoulin LLP in Toronto. His practice primarily focuses on litigating intellectual property and public law disputes.

He has acted as counsel on matters before the Federal and Ontario courts addressing issues of intellectual property, freedom of expression and privacy. He is a strong proponent of the right to hold opinions and to seek, receive, and share information and ideas.

Abbas has a law degree from the University of Toronto and previously served as a judicial law clerk to the Honourable Justice Russel Zinn of the Federal Court.

Blog November 5, 2020

Prophet Cartoons and Free Expression

France’s obsession with depicting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad is back in the news following the murder of middle school teacher, Samuel Paty last month for showing his students a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad from the French magazine Charlie Hebdo. Following the gruesome murder by an 18 year old Russian immigrant, French President Emmanuel Macron called the incident “a typical Islamist terrorist attack” and praised Mr. Paty as the "face of the republic" and a person who "believed in knowledge."

Abbas Kassam

Censorship

Blog February 3, 2020

Political boycotts are protected expression in Canada

Dr. David Kattenburg is a wine lover and activist. Recently, he merged these two passions together by litigating the issue of whether political boycotts are a form of Charter-protected expression. Specifically, in a judicial review before the Federal Court, Dr. Kattenburg challenged the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s decision to maintain the labeling of wines produced by Israeli settlers in the West Bank as “Products of Israel”. In the evidence before the Court, Dr.

Abbas Kassam

Censorship, Freedom of Expression & Its Limits

Blog January 28, 2019

Winning the battle but losing the war: Your Ward News conviction a win against hate?

The editor and publisher of Your Ward News willfully promoted hatred against Jews and women. This is both a plainly obvious conclusion to draw after a 30 second review of the "paper" and the decision of a recent criminal case against the editor and publisher. While much of the public response to the conviction has celebrated it as a victory against hate, history may prove otherwise.

Abbas Kassam

Freedom of Expression & Its Limits