At the Sexual Assault Centre at The University of Alberta in Edmonton last week. Samantha Pearson, who until a couple of days ago served as the center’s director, signed an open letter, which, among other things, questioned the veracity of accounts that reported that Hamas committed acts of sexual violence during the October 7th attacks on Israeli civilians.

The University of Alberta has fired Samantha Pearson, the director of the Sexual Assault Centre after she signed an open letter penned by ousted Ontario MPP Sarah Jama that calls into question whether Israeli women were subjected to rape and sexual violence during a Hamas attack on Oct. 7.

I wish the horrific scenes of dismembered bodies that had been brutally raped, images that are seared into my soul and the souls of first responders who witnessed the massacres’ devastating aftermath, hadn’t happened. I wish that those women and girls who were assaulted and then escaped or left for dead were not having to carry the crushing weight of this trauma. I wish I had not seen videos of Israeli hostages being taken off a truck in Gaza with telltale signs of sexual assault – blood dripping down from their private areas and soaking their ripped pants