Canada’s state broadcaster CBC recently sat down for an interview with Hasan Piker, an American political streamer, where CBC’s Erica Johnson met with him to discuss his “massive popularity” and to deliver Piker’s negative remarks regarding Alberta separatism.
Now, CBC is under fire from Canadians, who fund CBC for over $1 billion in taxpayer funds, for failing to challenge Piker on his most outrageous views, including his history of justifying leftist violence and promoting Islamic terrorism.
Piker, known online as HasanAbi, is a far left-wing Twitch streamer who has made several outrageous and extreme statements, including:
- “America deserved 9/11, dude” – this 2019 statement critiqued US foreign policy and drew massive backlash and led to temporary Twitch/YouTube restrictions.
- Piker mocked US Representative Dan Crenshaw’s war injury. Piker stated that “This guy…literally lost his eye because some mujahideen – a brave fu**ing soldier – fu**ed his eyehole with their di**”. Piker praised the insurgent who injured Crenshaw as “brave”, which was deemed deeply insensitive to veterans. Crenshaw is a Republican Congressman and former Navy SEAL who lost his right eye serving his country due to an IED blast during his third deployment to Afghanistan in 2012, resulting in a permanent injury.
- Calls for violence against landlords & capitalists: Pike railed against landlords, with statements like “Kill them. Kill those motherfu**ers in the street” and “you need to be shanking these motherfuck**s and letting their fu**ing intestines writhe on-stage”.
- Pike dismissed the October 7, 2023, reports of sexual violence against Jewish victims as “rape fantasies” or “rape hallucinations”.
- Praise for Hezbollah and related groups, with statements including “Overall, what’s my favorite flag? Hezbollah…It’s actually a dope flag” with an AK-47 motif.
While political speech is protected in the United States, many of Piker’s statements have led to platform penalties and advertiser scrutiny, as well as being nearly roundly condemned. Piker is the nephew of Cenk Uygur, a left-wing political commentator and founder of The Young Turks.
Many Canadians are publicly questioning why their taxpayer-funded dollars are being allocated to platform such an extremist on CBC state-funded media – especially in the context of Alberta separatism.
