Legislating for What Women Wear Is Ludicrous. Let’s Stick to Core Issues – UKIP

April 23, 2017 Article

We are saddened to see that the Leader of UKIP, Paul Nuttall has said that UKIP will attempt to ban the niqab or the full face veil as part of its general election manifesto.

Citing integration and security risks, his focus on the niqab is a cheap ploy to play on the fears of some within communities, as an easy way to win votes.

The reality is that the number of women who wear the niqab in the United Kingdom is unknown and may well be very small. Yet, at a time when the nation needs to heal divides, such policy making is unwelcome and highly divisive. Furthermore, in the end, is it the place of the State or Government or political parties, to judge what a woman can and can’t wear? The answer to that is simply, no.

Our data and our information has also shown time and time again, women who wear the niqab or the face veil, suffer more aggressive anti-Muslim hate incidents and more incidents. Surely, now is the time to stop focussing on these women and try and ensure that we bring people and communities together, rather than building up grievances?

We believe that now is the time to steer away from the politics of what women wear and focus on the policies and principles that can provide opportunities to communities. In the end, what someone wears is their choice. If through their choice, they self-limit their futures then that is something that they have decided for themselves. Ensuring that there are employment opportunities, housing and access to goods and services are where the real policy battles are to be had. Let us stick to those areas which require focus and attention.

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Categories: ban, face veil, Manifesto, Niqab, Opinions, Paul Nuttall

Social Media Algorithms Promote Far Right & Islamist Groups in the UK

April 14, 2017 Article

The Times has just completed a detailed investigation into the way that advertising and pay per view clicks fund extremist and other content on the Internet and in the last few days they have also highlighted how child pornography and other activity, including the promotion of extremist material, has taken place inadvertently through the algorithm systems set up by social media companies.

We complained to a social media company about 8 weeks ago about how their algorithms were promoting far right and Islamist material to members of Muslim communities in the United Kingdom. In particular, Islamist material was being promoted to individuals who had an interest in Islam, Muslims and facets related to both and the algorithms were inadvertently strengthening such groups who promote a world view of political Islam at the expense of the rights of others communities and with narratives that include a ‘war being waged on Islam’ and where Muslims are the ‘victims’ of the West. Some of these groups have also wavered on what is terrorism and when it takes place in our country.

We would urge social media companies to ensure that their algorithms do not support groups who are against universal values of human rights, pluralism, free speech, democratic values and the right to question and dissent in communities. These are fundamental values and the last thing we want is for society to be shaped by a set of algorithms who know nothing about the context and nature of groups.

We will continue to make the case on such issues and we will continue to move forward constructively on such matters with social media companies.

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Categories: algorithm, Instagram, Islamism, Islamist, Opinions

No more baseball bats – National Front no longer taboo for French youth

March 14, 2017 Article

Just a few years ago, it was hard to find students willing to admit to being National Front cardholders. When a journalist went looking for members of the FNJ youth movement during the last presidential election campaign, most would agree to speak only if their names were withheld.

Five years on, young activists supporting Marine Le Pen’s election bid say they no longer have anything to hide, as she cruises to an expected first place showing in the first round next month.

“It just provides for lively discussions,” said 21-year-old economics student Corentin Corcelette, who, far from keeping his views secret, says he talks about the rollercoaster presidential election with friends of all political persuasions on campus.

Sitting in the same car as they drove around Lyon to put up “Marine President” posters, 20-year old biology student Remi Berthoux was also happy to give a reporter his name. He joined the FN two years ago, he said proudly, “to defend France’s values”.

Once consigned mainly to the shadows, young National Front supporters have come out into the open, as voters their age have lined up behind Le Pen. Daily polls by firm Ifop consistently show her earning nearly a third of the youth vote in the first round, easily beating any of her opponents, although she is still forecast to lose in a second-round run-off in May.

She fares better among voters under 25 than she does among the population at large, often by a margin as high as 7 percentage points. That is a big reversal from her first bid for the presidency five years ago, when her 15 percent share of the youth vote was around 3 points below her overall tally.

DETOXIFYING BRAND

Winning over young voters has been an achievement for Le Pen’s campaign to detoxify the National Front brand.

In the past, when the Front’s FNJ youth wing put up posters, “they would do so in the middle of the night,” said Sylvain Crepon, a researcher at the University of Tours who studies the French far right.

“They carried baseball bats to protect themselves and would often be with skinheads,” he said. “Now they can do it in broad daylight, which shows people have grown more accustomed to the FN. It’s become more acceptable.”

There was not a baseball bat or skinhead in sight on the early evening last month when a group of nine clean-cut young men including Corcelette and Berthoux put up Le Pen posters in the streets of Lyon and on its university campus.

“We absolutely don’t see ourselves as far right, but as patriots who are disappointed with other parties,” said David Sedoff, a 26-year old warehouse worker.

Demographics are a major difference between the far right surge on the European continent and last year’s rise of populists in Britain and the United States.

U.S. President Donald Trump and the campaign to withdraw Britain from the EU both lost badly among young voters, on their way to victories won with overwhelming support from pensioners.

For Le Pen, the demographics are almost exactly reversed. She performs well among all categories of younger voters: those under 25, under 35 and under 45. Her worst results are among pensioners: the over 65’s are only age group where she consistently trails her rivals in polling for the first round.

Unlike their Anglo-Saxon cousins, continental populist politicians like Le Pen, the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders and Italy’s Beppe Grillo have turned young voters into their key constituencies. They feed on the resentment of a generation with little seeming hope of matching its parents’ standard of living.

In France, nearly a quarter of workers under 25 are unemployed, compared to a national jobless rate of about 10 percent, according to last year’s official statistics.

And those young people lucky enough to find jobs often work under far less generous conditions than previous generations. More than half of workers 24 and under have only temporary contracts or agency positions which come with few guarantees or rights, compared to 85 percent of French workers who enjoy full time contracts with strong worker protections.

While Le Pen’s theme of dramatic change appeals to many young voters, their grandparents benefit from the generous pensions of the status quo and worry that her plan to abandon the EU and its euro common currency would hurt their savings.

Young voters are also less likely to associate the National Front with its founder, Marine Le Pen’s father Jean-Marie Le Pen, who topped out at 17.8 percent of the vote in his repeated quests for the presidency and never crossed into the mainstream.

He was convicted repeatedly for inciting racial hatred before his daughter banned him from the party.

MAKEOVER

Since then, Marine Le Pen has carefully reconstructed the party’s image and distanced herself from her father. She is referred to as “Marine” — without her surname — on her official campaign website and posters, and eschews the FN’s torch symbol for a new logo of a blue rose.

She tends to emphasise economic issues, portraying the FN as guardians of working class voters left behind in the decade since the global financial crisis, and blaming the EU in general and the euro in particular for making France less competitive.

But hostility towards immigration and suspicion of Islam are still central tenets for the party. In a country that has Europe’s biggest Muslim minority and has been hit by a succession of Islamist militant attacks in the past two years, the FN’s xenophobia is no longer the barrier to attracting young voters that it once was.

The FNJ youth movement’s website proudly declares: “100 percent National Front! Zero percent migrants!”

“Europe, immigration, I’m against all that,” said Eric Barbosa, a 20 year-old baker, at a meeting of the FNJ’s Paris branch.

Its relatively recent arrival as a successful election force also gives the National Front an advantage over traditional parties in attracting young activists seeking political careers.

It offers more opportunities for ambitious youth to make their mark than the main post-war parties of the centre-left and centre-right, where vacancies for posts are blocked by older incumbents and veterans.

FN candidates in local and regional elections are routinely the youngest in the field, often in their 20s or early 30s.

That means a quick path into frontline politics for people like 23-year-old Victor Birra, a business student who joined the FNJ youth movement five years ago and is now its head in the Lyon region.

He describes the youth movement as the “academy for FN cadres”, comparing it to the grand public institutes that traditionally produce many of France’s politicians.

But future ambitions depend first on getting out the vote for Le Pen, he said. “We’re fighting to win the presidentials.”

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Categories: Far Right groups, France, Front Nationale, Marine Le Pen, News, Presidential elections

“We simply cannot afford to be complacent.” Fiyaz Mughal on why we need a book that presents the true nature of Islam

March 5, 2017 Article

– Why did you think there was a need for a book that presents the true nature of Islam?

There is little literature that highlights the deep reflections and introspection that is taking place in parts of the Middle East around Islam. This work is being driven by Muslims and from an Islamic theological set of principles and this has been ongoing for over a decade. There is much talk about ‘Muslims not doing enough’ and we try to set out that maybe people are not looking over into what is happening and taking place in the Middle East to tackle extremism, but also in bridging the East and West.

There are lots of books and articles about Islam and whether it is ‘compatible’ with Western values. We outline the fact that Islam and its interpretation are flexible enough and compatible enough with a Europe that is based on secular and liberal traditions – though these are also being challenged by the rise of populist and xenophobic parties in Europe. This book thereby undermines the view that Europe and the Middle East will be in perpetual conflict. From within the heart of the Islamic world, in Jordan – with a deep Islamic history – we see that some of the solutions to extremism have come through strong leadership and from Islamic theological leaders coming together. There is hope and this hope must win over the politics of fear which is fuelling anti-Muslim prejudice and Islamophobia in some parts of Europe.

– Could you briefly summarise the King of Jordan’s Amman Message for people who are unaware of it?

The Amman Message, in summary, is a nationwide Jordanian attempt to provide a set of theological frameworks to tackle extremism. At the core of this, was a response from Jordan’s Royal family that something needed to be done to provide an Islamic theological set of positions against extremism post the Beslan massacre that horrified so many. The Beslan massacre was a driver for the His Majesty King Abdullah II to push for a theological framework through which religious leaders, civil society activists and community leaders could challenge extremism and build resilience in Jordanian communities. Yet, the vision was wider and there was a genuine belief that that Amman Message could be promoted and pushed in the Middle East and also within Europe, so that it could also challenge perceptions of Muslims in Europe which have been progressively been turning negative. It was a vision of a Europe and Middle East that were co-dependent and reliant on each other to tackle issues of extremism.

– In your opinion, what is the most interesting issue that the book raises?

The book raises a range of issues. It looks at Muslim communities in Europe, challenges that they face and how there are developments emanating from the heart of Muslim majority countries that can reduce Islamic extremism. It also looks at the challenges within Europe of a rising set of issues around migration, integration and extremism, whilst reflecting on Islamophobia and anti-Muslim prejudice that further fuels separationism and grievances. This cycle is one that the book explores with views from across Europe and the Middle East.

– The book presents perspectives from writers of various faiths, including those with no religious affiliation at all. What was the thinking behind this?

The reality is that the writers reflect Europe in all of its pluralism. It also reflects a world which is complex and with competing world views which are precisely reflective of debates on Islam and Muslims and on the relationship between Europe and the Middle East. This complex and fast shifting environment is what the book captures and provides a snapshot into a world where communities seem to be more fractured.

– What do you hope readers will take away from the book?

We hope that readers take away the hope that from within Muslim majority countries, the theological solutions to extremism are developing. They will have long lasting impacts over the next 50 years and readers should also take away the fact that there are challenges in Europe in reducing the xenophobia and populism that could well fuel further grievances and extremism in the future. We simply cannot afford to be complacent.

For more information and to buy the book, please follow this link.

Categories: MyBlog, Opinions

Comics and music shows in Saudi Arabia draw rebuke from clerics

February 26, 2017 Article

A comic show and a recent pop concert have drawn rebuke from powerful religious figures and social media users in Saudi Arabia this week, highlighting the sensitivity of cultural reforms underway in the conservative kingdom.

Thousands of Saudis – including women – decked out in costumes and face paint attended the country’s first-ever Comic Con in Jeddah on Sunday. The sexes rarely mix in public in a country which adheres to the austere Wahhabi brand of Sunni Islam.

The event was held by the state-run General Entertainment Authority (GEA), which has bucked some of the Islamic kingdom’s strict social codes to host a series of festivals, comedy shows and concerts this year.

It came weeks after Saudi Arabia saw its first major public concert in over a decade, also in Jeddah. Authorities announced this week that the headline act, Saudi superstar Mohammed Abdo, would perform in the more conservative capital Riyadh in March.

“We were astonished by the hideous act of the Entertainment Authority, by these events held in Jeddah that are not in line with good behavior or our great religion,” Hussein Al-Sheikh, the imam of the Prophet’s Mosque, posted on Twitter.

“It is a duty upon officials to consider God in these actions,” he said, calling on Saudi citizens to boycott events like it.

Sheikh Adel al-Kalbani, the former imam of Mecca’s Grand Mosque, said the state body set up to promote the kingdom’s entertainment drive “violates human nature.”

“Humans are meant to seek refuge in God in times of difficulty,” he wrote.

Tens of thousands of Saudis joined the clerics in critiquing Comic Con and the GEA, elevating the hashtag “a new disaster for entertainment in Riyadh” to Twitter’s list of trending topics there.

The GEA did not respond to requests for comment, but expressed regret in a statement posted by state news agency SPA for an unspecified “violation” by the Comic Con organiser of one of the terms of its permit.

“The violation was detected and stopped at the time, and penalties were issued against the executing body proportionate to the violation,” it said, without elaborating.

The GEA was “keen to maintain values, ethics and traditions, and consider them as a priority in all of its entertainment projects and activities,” it added, and welcomed any suggestions sent via social media.

Riyadh-based Time Entertainment, the organiser of Comic Con, could not immediately be reached for comment.

POTENTIAL BACKLASH

Saudi Arabia’s clerics offer legitimacy and public support to a king officially known as the guardian of Islam’s holiest sites. They retain control of the justice system but leave most other matters of governance to him, so long as his edicts do not contradict their interpretation of Islamic law.

Sheikh and Kalbani are prominent clerics, but are not members of the state-appointed Council of Senior Scholars, the only body in the country authorized to issue official fatwas or Islamic legal opinions. Their comments therefore do not carry legal weight.

Cinemas and public concerts are effectively banned in the kingdom, but the government promised a shake-up of the cultural scene with a set of “Vision 2030” reforms announced by Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman last year.

Saudi Arabia is now trying to boost its entertainment sector as part of that plan, which aims at creating jobs and weaning the country off its dependence on oil.

Smaller shows and festivals have often sold out and proved immensely popular among Saudi youth.

Senior scholars have for the most part remained mum on plans for the sector, although the kingdom’s Grand Mufti, its highest religious authority, cautioned in January against the corrupting influence of cinemas, concerts and gender mixing.

‘FOOLS DANCING AROUND’

But Comic Con struck a nerve. In the week since the event, social media chatter about the GEA spiked and tens of thousands of users shared pictures of men and women mingling at the show to disparage it as distasteful.

“Our heroes on the southern border are sacrificing their lives and enduring great difficulties to protect the country and fools are dancing around and performing shameful acts. Disgraceful,” wrote Twitter user Yusra Razan, from Jeddah, referring to Saudi forces engaged in Yemen’s civil war.

Tens of thousands of others jumped to defend the entertainment drive and created a new hashtag, “the General Entertainment Authority makes us happy,” which also trended in Riyadh.

They shared videos of people rolling their eyes and waving their hands dismissively, and of men in beards and thobes merrily dancing to traditional drumbeats.

A Saudi university student from Jeddah, who spoke on condition he be identified only as Mohammed, dismissed the debate and said Saudi had more pressing issues to resolve.

“Personally I am disinterested in it. The country needs real and drastic reform. Activists are in jail, the economy is in danger,” he said by telephone.

“To me this [debate over culture] is not that important but I know it has many consequences. Conservatism is a big deal in Saudi Arabia, both social and religious.”

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Categories: GEA Entertainment Authority, Jeddah, News, Salafi Wahabbi Islam, Saudi Arabia, Sharia

Pakistan says kills 100 ‘terrorists’ after suicide shrine attack

February 18, 2017 Article

Pakistani security forces killed dozens of suspected militants on Friday, a day after Islamic State claimed a suicide bombing that killed more than 80 worshippers at a Sufi shrine, the biggest in a spate of attacks this week across the country.

The bombing at the famed Lal Shahbaz Qalandar shrine in southern Sindh province was Pakistan’s deadliest attack for two years, killing at least 83 people and highlighting the threat of militant groups such as the Pakistani Taliban and Islamic State.

The security response was swift.

“Over 100 terrorists have been killed since last night and sizeable apprehensions also made,” the military said in an operations update on Friday evening.

“Terrorists will be targeted ruthlessly, indiscriminately, anywhere and everywhere. No let up,” an armed forces spokesman added in a tweet.

With authorities facing angry criticism for failing to tighten security before the shrine bomber struck, analysts warned that the wave of violence pointed to a major escalation in Islamist militants’ attempts to destabilise the region.

“This is a virtual declaration of war against the state of Pakistan,” said Imtiaz Gul, head of the independent Centre for Research and Security Studies in Islamabad.

With pressure growing for action, Pakistan demanded that neighbouring Afghanistan hand over 76 “terrorists” it said were sheltering over the border.

The bombings over five days have hit all four of Pakistan’s provinces and two major cities, shaking a nascent sense that the worst of the country’s militant violence may be in the past.

A series of military operations against insurgent groups operating in Pakistan had encouraged hopes that their leaders were scattered.

“But this has led to a degree of complacency within our civil-military leadership that perhaps they have completely destroyed these elements, or broken their back,” Gul said.

If so, that impression has been shattered in recent days.

BLOOD AND TEARS

At Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, the white marble floor was still stained with blood on Friday, and a pile of shoes and slippers was heaped in the courtyard, many of them belonging to the dead.

Outside, protesters shouted slogans at police, who they said had failed to protect the shrine.

“I wish I could have been here and died in the blast last night,” a devastated Ali Hussain told Reuters, sitting on the floor of the shrine.

He said that local Sufis had asked for more security after a separate bombing this week killed 13 people in the eastern city of Lahore, but said: “No one bothered to secure this place.”

Anwer Ali, 25, rushed to the shrine after he heard the explosion, and described seeing dead bodies and chaos as people fled the scene.

“There were threats to the shrine. The Taliban had warned that they will attack here, but authorities didn’t take it seriously,” Ali said.

Sindh police chief A.D. Khawaja said on Friday that the death toll had reached 83 people with scores more wounded.

The attacks have once again raised questions over the influence of Islamic State in Pakistan, a nuclear-armed nation of 190 million people that has tense relations with its neighbours India and Afghanistan.

In the past two years, Islamic State has worked to build its “Khorasan province” encompassing Afghanistan and Pakistan, often helped by local radicals.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s foreign policy adviser Sartaj Aziz blamed Jamaat-ur-Ahrar (JuA), a Pakistani Taliban faction that has been linked to Islamic State, for the attack.

Most of the other recent attacks have been claimed by factions of the Pakistani Taliban, which is waging its own fight against the government but whose ranks have also cooperated with and sometimes defected to Islamic State.

That has led some observers to question whether the growing prominence of Islamic State actually represents a new threat – since its fighters were already operating under different names to attack government, army and minority faith targets, among others.

However, the increasing number of attacks claimed by Islamic State has raised pressure on authorities to show they are capable of containing the renewed violence.

Islamic State also said it was behind another shrine attack, in southwestern Baluchistan province, that killed at least 52 people last November. In October, it said it carried out an assault on a police training college, killing 59.

The shrine attack has heightened tensions with Afghanistan, after Pakistani officials said some militant leaders took shelter over the border. The accusation echoes similar criticism from Kabul aimed at Islamabad.

In a telephone call with Afghanistan’s national security adviser, Aziz expressed concern that JuA was operating from Afghanistan and that Kabul had failed to act against them, according to a statement from his office.

On Friday, border crossings were closed and Afghan diplomats were summoned to military headquarters in Islamabad and given a list of 76 “most-wanted terrorists” that Pakistan demanded be captured and handed over, the army said.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Friday condemned the shrine attack on Twitter, calling Islamic State “a common enemy of Afghanistan & Pakistan”.

The post Pakistan says kills 100 ‘terrorists’ after suicide shrine attack appeared first on Faith Matters.

Categories: Attack, Khorasan, Lal Shahbaz Qalander, Nawaz Sharif, News, Pakistan, Pakistan Taliban, Sindh, Sufi Shrine

New Yorkers Scrub Off Neo-Nazi Hate Against Muslims and Jews

February 11, 2017 Article

The tale of the strangers aboard a New York subway car who teamed up this weekend to scrub away neo-Nazi graffiti went viral on Sunday, in an incident that highlighted a recent rise in hate and bias crimes reported around the country.

Passengers said on social media that when they boarded a subway car on Saturday night they found someone had drawn messages in black marker targeting Jews and Muslims and praising Adolf Hitler, the German leader responsible for the Holocaust.

“The train was silent as everyone stared at each other, uncomfortable and unsure what to do,” attorney Gregory Locke wrote later in a Facebook post.

Then, he added, “One guy got up and said, ‘Hand sanitizer gets rid of Sharpie. We need alcohol.’ He found some tissues and got to work.”

The Nazi symbolism was gone within two minutes, he added.

Locke’s Facebook post had been shared more than 342,000 times as of Sunday afternoon.

The clean-up was not a planned event but an example of spontaneous unity in a metropolis that prides itself on diversity, passengers said.

Those who joined the effort were “satisfied in just doing the right thing,” another of them, chef Jared Nied, told CNN.

The number of hate and bias incidents reported across the United States jumped in the days immediately after President Donald Trump’s election victory in November.

Last month, more than a dozen U.S. Jewish community centers were also targeted in three waves of telephone bomb threats, forcing evacuations though the threats were later determined to be hoaxes.

The subway incident was reported on Sunday to the New York Police Department, which is investigating it as a possible hate crime, Sgt. Jessica McRorie said.

The clean-up happened on a subway train near the Lincoln Center arts complex on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, McRorie said.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Sunday a similar incident happened in recent days, when a passenger on a different train spotted a swastika scrawled over an image of an American flag. The passenger, whom Cuomo did not name, used a marker to turn the symbol into a box with four quadrants and wrote in the letters L-O-V-E.

“This is what New Yorkers do – we turn hate into love,” Cuomo wrote on Twitter.

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Categories: Gregory Locke, Jews, Neo-Nazi graffiti, New York, New Yorkers, News, Subway

Trump Has Brought Jews & Muslims Together in the US. In the UK We Must be Bold

February 5, 2017 Article

For years, we have been stating that anti-Semitism, wherever it is found, must be challenged and openly challenged. We have come across it beyond Muslim communities, though sadly, we also saw it rear its head during the Gaza war, where Twitter became a platform where Gaza brought out latent anti-Semitism into the open. Sadly, it still continues in some small sections of Muslim communities where it has become virulent and it needs to be challenged head-on.

In the United States, Trump has managed to be the lightning rod that has brought Muslims and Jews together, but we know that in the UK, unchecked anti-Semitism continues. It is both overt and covert and is seen through the inability to separate advocacy for Palestine from anti-Semitic discourse. Also, the glib use of Zionism against members of Jewish communities without any real knowledge of their opinions, rumbles on. The latter is nothing else but anti-Semitism.

In fact, just yesterday we came across a mosque council that has produced an openly anti-Semitic article thinking that it is free speech and opinion. It simply is not and this is what we come across and where our stance is also targeted by some groups who have been caught out using toxic references and rhetoric against Jewish communities through the guise of ‘Zionists’. As if this gives them free reign to smear Jews.

We simply cannot stand by and allow such toxins to seep into non-Muslim and Muslim communities. For far too long, the issue of Palestine has been used by some within Muslim communities to intimidate, abuse and smear groups who believe that Jews and Muslims can, should and must always find accomodation for the rights and dignity of each community. Frankly, enough is enough.

Whilst one of the beneficial side effects of Trump’s election may be that it has brought many US based Jewish and Muslim groups together, here in the UK it must energise us to stand with Jewish counter-parts and colleagues and defend Jewish communities and their security and space in society without any hesitation. Time and time again Jewish communities have done this for Muslims. For example, after the murder of Lee Rigby, the Bravenese Muslim centre was torched and local Jewish communities in Muswell Hill came to their aid. Just a few days ago, US based Jews gave shelter to Muslims whose mosque was burnt down. The reverse must also frequently happen.

It also means being bold and challenging those who attempt to undermine such relations and challenge them we must. Their negativity and their divisions on the basis of advocating for Palestine, are a ruse. The last thing that Palestinians need are anti-Semites, separationists and tin pot campaigners supporting their cause and in doing so, delegitimsing it further. Frankly, the Palestinians deserve better than such advocates.

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Categories: anti-Muslim hate, anti-Semitism, Antisemitism, Bravanese Centre, Jews, Opinions, Trump, Zionism

Quebec mosque suspect charged with murdering six people – court

January 30, 2017 Article

A French-Canadian university student was the sole suspect in a shooting at a Quebec City mosque and was charged with the premeditated murder of six people, Canadian authorities said on Monday, in what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called “a terrorist attack.”

Court documents identified the gunman in the attack on Sunday evening prayers as Alexandre Bissonnette. He was also charged with five counts of attempted murder, according to court papers.

Among the six men killed were a butcher, a university professor, a pharmacist and an accountant, according to police and Canadian media.

Police declined to discuss possible motives for the shooting at the Centre Culturel Islamique de Québec.

“They consider this a lone wolf situation,” the source said.

In Washington, U.S. government security experts were leaning to the view that the gunman most likely was motivated by hatred for Muslims, a U.S. government source familiar with official reporting said.

A man of Moroccan descent who had also been arrested was now considered a witness, although his nationality was not immediately known, a source familiar with the situation said.

Trudeau, who has made a point of welcoming refugees and immigrants from Muslim-majority countries, told parliament in Ottawa: “Make no mistake, this was a terrorist attack.”

He added a personal message to Canada’s 1 million Muslims:

“Know that we value you. You enrich our shared country in immeasurable ways. It is your home. Last night’s horrible crime against the Muslim community was an act of terror committed against Canada and against all Canadians. We will grieve with you. We will defend you. We will love you. And we will stand with you.”

Sombre parliamentarians observed a moment of silence. Trudeau was scheduled to visit Quebec City later on Monday.

The attack was out of character for Quebec City, a city of just over 500,000 which reported just two murders in all of 2015. Mass shootings are rare in Canada, where gun control laws are stricter than in the United States.

In addition to the six killed, five people were critically injured and 12 were treated for minor injuries, a spokeswoman for the Quebec City University Hospital said.

Federal Safety Minister Ralph Goodale told reporters in Ottawa there was no change to “the national terrorism threat level” from medium because “there is no information known to the government of Canada that would lead to a change at this time.”

U.S. President Donald Trump called Trudeau to express his condolences “and offered to provide any assistance as needed,” said Trudeau spokesman Cameron Ahmad.

Over the weekend, Trudeau said Canada would welcome refugees, his response to an executive order by Trump on Friday to halt the U.S. refugee programme and to temporarily bar citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.

Trump’s action, which the president said was “not about religion – this is about terror and keeping our country safe,” was widely condemned in the United States and abroad as targeting Muslims.

On Monday, White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters that the Quebec shooting was “a terrible reminder of why we must remain vigilant, and why the president is taking steps to be proactive, rather than reactive, when it comes to our nation’s safety and security.”

People bring flowers at the scene of a fatal shooting at the Quebec Islamic Cultural Centre in Quebec City, Canada January 30, 2017. REUTERS/Mathieu Belanger

FATHER OF FOUR KILLED

A father of four, the owner of a halal butcher near the mosque, was among those killed, said Pamela Sakinah El-hayet, a friend of one of the people at the mosque.

The mosque concierge was killed, as was Ahmed Youness, a 21-year-old student, El-hayet told Reuters. One of El-hayet’s friends, Youness’ roommate, was in the mosque at the time of the shooting. He was unharmed, she said, but in total shock.

Ali Assafiri, a student at Université Laval, said he had been running late for the evening prayers at the mosque, near the university in the Quebec City area. When he arrived, the mosque had been transformed by police into a crime scene.

“Everyone was in shock,” Assafiri said by phone. “It was chaos.”

Université Laval is the oldest French-language university in North America, with 42,500 students.

Vigils were planned for Montreal and Quebec City, the provincial capital, as well as in Edmonton. There was an outpouring of support for the mosque on social media.

“Last night’s shooting, targeting people of faith during their worship and prayer, is a deplorable attack on all Canadians and our most deeply-held values,” said Joe Gunn, executive director of Citizens for Public Justice, a group of Canadian Christians, churches and other religious congregations.

Incidents of Islamophobia have increased in Quebec in recent years. The face-covering, or niqab, became an issue in the 2015 Canadian federal election, especially in Quebec, where the majority of the population supported a ban on it at citizenship ceremonies.

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Categories: Alexandre Bissonnette, Canada, massacre, News, Quebec Mosque, Trudeau

Five dead in Quebec City mosque shooting – mosque president

January 30, 2017 Article

Five people were killed after gunmen opened fire in a Quebec City mosque during evening prayers, the mosque’s president told reporters on Sunday.

Earlier, a witness told Reuters that up to three gunmen fired on about 40 people inside the Quebec City Islamic Cultural Centre. Police put up a security perimeter around the mosque and declined to comment to reporters about the incident.

“Why is this happening here? This is barbaric,” said the mosque’s president, Mohamed Yangui.

In June 2016, a pig’s head was left on the doorstep of the cultural centre.

Yangui, who was not inside the mosque when the shooting occurred, said he got frantic calls from people at evening prayers. He did not know how many were injured, saying they had been taken to different hospitals across Quebec City.

Incidents of Islamophobia increased in Quebec in recent years amid a political debate over banning the niqab, or Muslim face covering. In 2013, police investigated after a mosque in the Saguenay region of Quebec was splattered with what was believed to be pig blood.

In the neighbouring province of Ontario, a mosque was set on fire in 2015, a day after an attack by gunmen and suicide bombers in Paris.

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Categories: 5 killed, anti-Muslim hate, killing, News, Quebec City Mosque