The president of the Islamic Society of Markham on the recent surge of hate-motivated attacks against Muslims
In the early morning hours of April 6, the congregation of the Islamic Society of Markham began trickling into their mosque for dawn prayers. Suddenly, a non-Muslim man drove into the parking lot at high speed, almost running over one worshipper. For the next six minutes, the intruder hurled Islamophobic hate speech and threats at congregation members and security personnel from his vehicle before leaving the property.
He had already come to our mosque, actually. Two weeks earlier, he threw a beer bottle at our security team and abused us verbally. We filed a police report, but he had been standing just beyond the frame of our security cameras, so they couldn’t charge him. We were concerned when he came back, but we weren’t too fearful. We were prepared.
The number of hate-motivated incidents targeting Muslims in the GTA spiked during Ramadan, and shortly beforehand, a woman wearing a hijab was threatened by a man wielding a knife inside a Vaughan subway station. What do make of the timing? In response to the attack on your mosque, the National Council of Canadian Muslims is calling on the Ontario government to pass the, which was proposed after the hate-motivated killing of a Muslim family in London two years ago. It would create a systemic approach to tackle Islamophobia, with measures that include dismantling white supremacist groups and establishing a unit to investigate inadequate responses to hate crimes.
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