Canada: Police search for suspect after hate graffiti painted on Toronto mosque

By Barry Ellsworth

TRENTON, Canada (AA): Vandalism at a-area mosque marks a “frightening escalation of Islamophobia” stemming from unfounded that the mosque is an agent of the Iranian government, the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) said Thursday.

The vandalism last week at the Imam Mahdi Islamic Center in Thornhill took the form of hate-motivated graffiti written in Farsi. The mosque has also received bomb threats and worshipers have been threatened, according to the NCCM.

But it is just one of the hundreds of examples of anti-Muslim incidents across Canada sparked by anti-government demonstrations in Iran after a woman was arrested for allegedly violating the country’s dress code and died in police custody, said the Muslim group.

“The Muslim community in Canada has been victim to over 1,000 Islamophobic messages on Twitter alone in just these past few days,” NCCM wrote Thursday on Facebook. “These include death threats, threats of violence, and consistent harassment. Enough is enough. This must stop.”

Independent journalist tweeted that anti-Iran protesters in Canada are targeting mosques and sending death threats.
@ShenazKermalli “Here’s how the protests in Iran are playing out in Canada, home to one of the world’s largest Iranian diaspora communities: -The phrase ‘Death to priests’ was spray painted on to a mosque wall in Toronto. -Someone said it’s mandatory to bomb a mosque attended by Iranian Muslims.”
“Hateful rallies have taken place outside mosques in British Columbia; Muslim students on campus are being harassed and threatened; a non-Iranian man at an Iran solidarity rally in Vancouver was stabbed (by a fellow person at the rally) because of his ‘ties’ with Tehran. And a press conference organized by NCCM to talk about this today had to be cancelled because of security concerns. Racism and Islamophobia come in all forms.”

 

NCCM held a news conference Thursday to “address recent Islamophobic vandalism and threats directed at the community” and to demand that officials help curb the hate that is wrongly directed toward Canadian Muslims because of ongoing protests in Iran.

“Once again, the Islamic community is being pushed into the spotlight for all the wrong reasons,” said Nadia Hasan, Chief Operating Officer at NCCM.

Police have an image of the graffiti writer that was captured on security camera and have issued a description of the suspect. Authorities appealed to the public to come forward with information related to the incident.

Additional report by The Muslim News

[Map of Canada by CIA Factbook/Public Domain]

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