Man Attacks Muslim Schoolgirl's Headscarf With Scissors In Canada: Intensified Anti-Muslim Attacks
29 January 2018Islamophobia Watch
A 12-year-old girl was assaulted in Toronto Friday by a man who twice tried to
cut off her headscarf with scissors and then fled, police said.
Khawlah Noman told reporters that she was walking to school with her younger
brother when the man came at her with scissors.
'He tried cutting (off) my hijab two times,' she said. 'I felt really scared
and confused. I didn't feel comfortable that people are doing this.'
Police described the assailant as an Asian male wearing a black hoodie and
glasses. He was said to be about 20, nearly 6 feet tall and with a medium
build.
Authorities are investigating the incident, which occurred at about 9 a.m.
(1400 GMT) near the Pauline Johnson school in Toronto's east side, police
spokeswoman Katrina Arrogante told AFP.
Constable Jenifferjit Sidhu told a news conference that Noman had turned and
confronted her assailant, making loud noises to scare him off and then she ran
away with her little brother in tow.
Afterward, according to Sidhu, the girl noticed a 12-inch cut from the bottom
up on the back of her headscarf.
She and her brother joined a group of other students also walking to school,
for safety, but the siblings became separated from the group and from each
other at an intersection crossing.
At that moment, less than 10 minutes after the first assault, the same man
suddenly returned. Smiling, he allegedly tried again to cut off her hijab,
before fleeing.
'This is a cowardly act of hatred. It does not represent who we are (as
Canadians),' Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne said in a Twitter message.
Meanwhile, Toronto District School Board spokesperson Ryan Bird told CBC that
they are working closely with the police and are offering support to Noman and
her family.
'We must stand firm in our support of this young girl who was assaulted simply
for wearing a hijab,' she said.
The school serves nearly 300 kindergarten to grade six students 'of diverse
cultural and socio-economic backgrounds,' according to the local school board.
More than two-thirds speak a language other than English at home.
Like the rest of the world, Islamophobia has become a problem in Canada. There
has been a surge in Islamophobic attacks in the country and mosques have been
targeted. In January 2017, a gunman killed six people attending prayers at a
mosque in the French-speaking Quebec City.
The Canadian statistical agency, Statistics Canada, found that there was an
increase of reported hate crimes against Muslims in Canada from 2014 to 2015,
from 99 incidents to 159, an increase of 60 percent.
Canada continues to be shaken by intensified anti-Muslim attacks
ix months after a deadly shooting at a Quebec City mosque, its president's car
was deliberately set on fire, officials said on Wednesday. These incidents
come as nationalist or right-wing extremists in the Canadian province have
become more vocal against immigration and Muslim community. The rise of the
anti-Muslim far-right in the West is something even Canada, host to over 1
million Muslims, is experiencing.
'Another hateful act' targeted the mosque and its president Mohamed Labidi in
addition to 'a long series' of other incidents, the Islamic Cultural Center of
Quebec said in a statement.
The fire was set on Aug. 6 but was only made public on Wednesday in order to
allow police to investigate.
Mosque officials and the mayor linked the fire to an Aug. 4 announcement of
the upcoming opening of the city's first Muslim cemetery.
'It would be a strange coincidence' if the two were not somehow related, said
Quebec City mayor Regis Labeaume.
Police are not ruling out any motive, whether it was a hate crime against
Muslims or just a random act of vandalism, said police spokesman Jean-Francois
Vezina.
Labeaume had championed the new Muslim cemetery as a sign of support for
Quebec City's relatively small Muslim community following an avowed white
supremacist's killing of six worshippers at a local mosque in January. The
'increase in hateful gestures' toward the Muslim community in Quebec City is
'worrying,' he commented.
In June, a group left a pig's severed head at the entrance of the mosque
targeted by the lone gunman. Police are investigating these incidents but no
suspects have been named so far.
The Canadian statistical agency, Statistics Canada, found that there was an
increase of reported hate crimes against Muslims in Canada from 2014 to 2015,
from 99 incidents to 159, an increase of 60 percent. The agency also found
that hate crimes against Catholics also rose by more than 33 percent, however
Jews remain the most persecuted religious group in the country, making up
nearly half of all victims.
The membership numbers of far-right groups in Canada might not be skyrocketing
but they are steadily increasing nonetheless. While being accused of being
Neo-Nazis and neo-Fascists, they do not in fact fly swastika banners, perform
the Roman salute in rallies or do much of anything that would fall under the
category of something like 'white supremacist' activity, they are do however
hold a very hard stance against Islam.
Much like Geert Wilders in The Netherlands, they are critical of Islam, saying
that it does not comply with Western values. They are in-fact more radical
than the civic nationalist Marine Le Pen and her Front National in France.
While there are currently no viable political parties in Canada which threaten
the establishment like the Front National or Wilders' Party for Freedom, they
do have some public and online presence. While the situation in Canada might
sound like it's increasingly volatile, the numbers say that such activities in
Europe and the United States are much, much more widespread both online with
boots on the ground.
©
EsinIslam.Com
Add Comments