"Fighting ideologies of hate, defending human rights, and
standing in defence of fundamental justice should never be sacrificed on the
altar of political expediency anywhere in the world and definitely not in
Canada which is supposed to be an example of a nation that defends human
rights."
By
Fareed Khan
On March 15th
the world marked the International Day to Combat Islamophobia. The United Nations designated this day as an annual
reminder of the realities of anti-Muslim bigotry around the world, to raise awareness
about it, and to urge governments and people to take action against it. This day is significant because it is the anniversary
of the New Zealand mosque shootings where 51
Muslims at two mosques in Christchurch were murdered by a white supremacist while
attending Friday prayers. The youngest victim
was barely three years old and the oldest was in their 80s.
Despite increased
awareness about the extent of Islamophobia in Canada Muslim advocacy organizations
and anti-racism groups have called for a broader discussion about efforts to combat
this insidious form of bigotry, not only in Canadian society but also in the way
that Canada conducts its foreign policy.
If asked, many
Canadian Muslims will say that Islamophobia is a daily reality they live with, and
they would also say that the jury is out on the effectiveness of policies implemented
by the Canadian government to fight Islamophobia. In addition, if government officials were ever
to talk with members of Muslim minority communities in countries like China, India,
Myanmar, Israel or elsewhere they would hear many stories and be provided with ample
evidence that Islamophobia results in daily persecution, human rights atrocities,
mass murder, and even genocide, at the hands of the governments of these nations
or civilian actors who see it as their duty to take violent action in support of
state sanctioned prejudice and bigotry. Many
examples of this can be found if one speaks to Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar, members
of India’s Muslim minority, or with Palestinians in Israel and occupied Palestine.
For Muslims in
North America the very real risk of violent Islamophobia means that some will only
pray at a mosque if it has a security system – surveillance cameras, key card access,
and metal detectors – because it is the only way they feel safe worshipping. For those Muslims who wear religious attire as
part of their identity, like the hijab (worn by some Muslim women), the fear of
physical violence or verbal harassment is a daily part of their life. Certainly Black Muslim women in Alberta know this
only too well given the multiple attacks against them over the past few years in
that province.
In Canada an Angus Reid poll released on March 13, 2023 showed that Canada has a serious Islamophobia problem and that its epicenter is in the province of Quebec. The polling numbers showed that more than one-third of Canadians outside of Quebec hold a negative view of Islam, compared to 56% within Quebec. These numbers speak to a very serious problem with anti-Muslim prejudice and bigotry in Canada, and it should say to the government that its policies to fight Islamophobia need to be more aggressive to be effective.
The threat of
violent Islamophobia in Canada has resulted in 11 Muslims being murdered by white
supremacists and neo-Nazis over the last six years, more than in all other G7 nations
combined, and there have been many other close calls where violence against Muslims
could have turned deadly. As Canadians know
all too well in January 2017 six Muslim men were murdered at the Quebec City mosque while worshipping. In September 2020 a Muslim volunteer was stabbed
to death outside a west end Toronto Mosque. And in June 2021 a Muslim family was murdered while out for
a walk by a man who used his pickup truck as a weapon. Muslims are the only Canadian faith community
whose members have been murdered just because of who they are, and while the national
attention to these hate crimes only occurs around the anniversary dates of these
tragedies Canadian Muslims remember them daily, and are aware that every time they
leave their homes they are vulnerable and could be the victim of a hate crime.
CHINA
In some nations
with significant Muslim minorities they are targeted at the political level with
impunity. In China a government led by Xi
Jinping – a dictator who has an ethno-supremacist view of the nation he leads –
is committing genocide against Uyghur Muslims. Beyond a symbolic motion passed in the House of
Commons (which was not supported unanimously by Liberal MPs) the Canadian government
has yet to do anything substantial to address this horrific crime and punish the
Chinese state, and neither have the other nations which claim to be committed to
the “international rule of law”. It is as
if Canada and its allies are repeating the mistakes of how they responded when Nazi
Germany began the Holocaust in the early 1930s and nothing was done to stop them. Considering this lack of action the statement
“never again” which is evoked every year by political leaders on Holocaust Remembrance
Day is devoid of meaning, and appears to only be uttered as a political ploy. It begs the question whether Canada and its allies
truly care about stopping another Holocaust which is being committed against Uyghur
Muslims.
INDIA
In India the
fascist BJP government of Narendra Modi, which is inspired by Hitler’s Nazi ideology, has legalized persecution of Muslims, with his supporters
committing brazen acts of violence against the Indo-Muslim community on a daily
basis, with prominent Indian political and religious leaders even calling for the
genocide of Muslims in the country. One recent policy change targeting Muslims has
been to India’s citizenship law, which allows the government
to deny citizenship to Indo-Muslims or remove it even if their families have lived
in the country for generations. This law
not only violates the Indian Constitution but also the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and
the Genocide Convention. Yet despite these egregious human rights violations
committed by India the government of Canada is pursuing a free trade agreement with
this nation, led by people who are following in the footsteps of Nazi Germany.
Canada’s silence
on the persecution of Muslims by the Modi government also speaks volumes about Canada’s
lack of commitment to fight Islamophobia internationally. In a statement announcing Canada’s participation in the 2023 G20 meetings hosted by India, Foreign
Affairs Minister Melanie Joly “welcomed” India’s G20 presidency but said nothing
about the systematic persecution of Indo-Muslims. And as the G20 foreign affairs ministers meeting
in Delhi concluded at the beginning of March there were horrendous accounts of deadly
attacks, described as “mob lynchings,” targeting Muslims and
Dalits across northern regions of India, led by members of Modi’s BJP and Hindu
extremists. But despite claims of Canada
being a defender of the “international legal order” neither Minister Joly nor the
Prime Minister said anything about these human rights atrocities in India, and the
same was the case for the Stephen Harper government which chose to invite Narenda
Modi to Canada for a state visit in 2015, despite Modi’s history of promoting anti-Muslim
hate and his complicity in the 2002 Gujarat massacre, which resulted in
the death of more than 1,000 Muslims, when he was chief minister of the state.
This lack of
action by the Canadian government to respond to violent Islamophobia in India also
begs the question whether it will do anything to challenge the Canadian network
of the fascist and Hindu supremacist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) movement, which aims to spread
its Islamophobic narratives in this country.
According to a study released by the National Council of
Canadian Muslims and the World Sikh Organization of Canada, citing academic research
and mainstream Hindu voices, the RSS vision is founded in ideological frameworks
propagated by the organization’s founders, whose works cite Nazi Germany’s treatment
of Jews as an aspirational example. Given
the religio-supremacist origins of this organization, and the fact that there are
Indo-Canadians acting as RSS agents on behalf of the Indian government, it is critical
that it not be allowed to spread its anti-Muslim, anti-Sikh, anti-Dalit, anti-Christian
ideology throughout the Indo-Canadian diaspora.
Failure to respond to this threat to Canada’s multi-cultural and pluralist
identity would be hypocritical given the current debate around Chinese government
interference in Canadian politics. If we
are concerned as a nation about the influence of agents of the Chinese government
on the Chinese-Canadian diaspora, then we should similarly be concerned about the
influence of agents of India’s fascist BJP government on Canadians of Indian origin,
and examine how much influence they have on Canada’s electoral system, and the selection
of candidates for Canadian political parties in ridings where Indo-Canadians live
in significant numbers.
MYANMAR
The government
of Myanmar has been perpetrating genocidal policies against Rohingya Muslims since the 1980s with little attention from the world. This has resulted in repeated human rights crimes and mass murders, culminating in the atrocities
of 2017, and the mass exodus of Rohingya who fled for their lives and are now living
a hopeless life in the largest refugee camp in the world in Bangladesh. The Canadian government initially took the lead
in addressing this crisis in 2018 when it declared the crisis a genocide in two
unanimous parliamentary motions and also committed humanitarian aid to the refugees. However, while there was a recommitment of humanitarian
aid (albeit at a reduced amount) the Canadian government has done little else other
than issue PR statements on three occasions about how it was going to support the
Rohingya genocide case filed by Gambia at
the International Court of Justice. As far
as human rights advocates in Canada know there has been no concrete action taken
on this front by Canada.
In addition,
when the Rohingya Human Rights Network sent a letter to Global Affairs Canada which listed some of the Canadian companies doing
business with entities owned and operated by the Myanmar military, in violation
of Canadian law, there was no action on the part of the government to sanction these
companies or their executives, or hold them accountable in an significant manner. The reality is that beyond providing humanitarian
aid, the only thing that Canada has given to the Rohingya is false hope.
If the Canadian
government was truly committed to defending international human rights and international
law then it would have taken the lead in filing the genocide case at the International
Court of Justice as demanded by Canadian human rights activists, and it would have
imposed sanctions against the Myanmar government as a whole rather than only against
individuals via Magnitsky sanctions. Comparing
how Rohingya refugees have been treated versus how Ukrainian refugees are being
treated, as well as the amount of resources and political capital that Canada has
committed to each conflict, one has to question this country’s commitment to treating
refugees equally, particularly given that the Rohingya are largely Muslim while
the Ukrainians are largely Christian.
ISRAEL AND OCCUPIED
PALESTINE
In Israel and
occupied Palestine the Israeli government has been committing human rights atrocities
against Palestinians (who are more than 90% Muslim) for 75 years. Ethnic cleansing, false imprisonment, arbitrary
detention, jailing of children, torture, collective punishment, mass murder, violations
of the Geneva Conventions, multiple violations
of UN Security Council resolutions, and even
crimes that could constitute genocide, have been committed with impunity against
Palestinians in Israel, the occupied West Bank, and Gaza by the Israeli government
and Jewish settlers for decades. This has
all been enabled by the policies of Canada and other western nations which have
paid lip service to creating the conditions for peace in an asymmetrical conflict
that has been going on for more than five decades.
The most recent
atrocity was a wave of deadly violence targeting Palestinian villages by more than
400 Jewish settlers, which have been widely labelled a “pogrom” by Independent Jewish Voices, the Israeli general
in charge of troops in the West Bank, the former Director of the Anti-Defamation League,
and many other Jewish organizations in the US and Europe. Jewish settlers attacked the Palestinian villages
of Huwara, Zaatara, Burin, and Asira al-Qibliya, burning dozens of homes and killing
a 37 year old Palestinian man while wounding hundreds of villagers as Israeli forces
stood by and did nothing to stop the violent rampage. The man who was killed, Samih al-Aqtash, had just
returned from Turkey where he had volunteered to help earthquake victims. He was the 67th Palestinian killed by either the Israeli
army or vigilantes from illegal Jewish settlements since the start of 2023, and
one among the many thousands of innocent Palestinians killed by Israel over the
past two decades. Israeli Finance minister
Bezalel Smotrich poured gasoline on this fire by saying that Huwara should be
“wiped out”. The US State Department harshly condemned his statement calling
it repugnant” and “irresponsible.” The reaction
from Canada to this call for genocide of Palestinians has been silence.
This genocidal rhetoric by Israeli leaders is only the latest in a history
of appalling statements by political and religious leaders of that nation over the
years which have been met with silence by the Canadian government. Calls for genocide of Palestinians by Ayelet Shaked (justice minister under Benjamin Netanyahu),
Rabbi Yousef Falay
(who called on Israel to kill all Palestinian males over 13 years of age), Rabbi
Ovadia Yosef (spiritual head of the Shas
party), and deputy speaker of the Israeli parliament Moshe
Feiglin (who published a plan for the total destruction of Palestinians
in Gaza) elicited no reactions or condemnations from Canadian government officials. Meanwhile when Muslim imams, whether in Canada
or overseas, have made public statements which even hints at promoting violence
against Jews it is met with a swift and unequivocal condemnation by Canadian politicians. The complete contrast and hypocrisy of Canadian
government leaders to the two situations speaks volumes about the Islamophobia and
racism inherent in Canadian policy towards Palestinians.
It should also
be noted that in recent years Israeli security forces have taken to provoking Palestinians
worshipping at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem
and violating their right to worship in peace.
One wonders about what violence Israeli forces have planned for Al-Aqsa this
year, especially as Muslims prepare for Ramadan, the holiest month on the Islamic
calendar. In the past they have breached
the sanctity of the mosque with raids, restricted access to worshippers, and allowed
Jewish extremist groups to violate Al-Aqsa’s prayer space over the protests of worshippers
and those who manage and maintain the mosque.
The ensuing clashes with Palestinians have resulted in their death and injury
at the hands of Israeli military and security forces.
In 2022, Israeli violations of the rights of
Palestinian Muslims rose to another level of criminality when Muslims at the mosque
were attacked while worshipping during Ramadan.
Furthermore, human rights organizations Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Israel-based B’Tselem have all published
well-researched and documented reports which provide concrete evidence that Israel
is committing the crime of Apartheid against Palestinians. B’Tselem, which is an organization founded by
Israeli Jews, calls Israel “a regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to
the Mediterranean Sea”.
Despite these
repeated daily violations of the “international rule of law” by Israel, despite
human rights atrocities committed with impunity against Palestinians for decades,
and despite the crime of Apartheid, Canada sits virtually mute on the untold suffering
being inflicted on Palestinians. What they
are enduring is no different than what Ukrainians are enduring at the hands of Russia. But the Palestinians have been suffering repeated,
violent trauma at the hands of Israel for decades. The difference in Canada’s response to the suffering
of Ukrainians compared to that of Palestinians is the difference between night and
day, and one has to wonder whether it is because Ukrainians are white and Christian
while Palestinians are brown and the vast majority of them are Muslim.
Canada took a
symbolic step in the right direction to deal with Islamophobia in this country when
it announced the National Day of Action Against Islamophobia
in April 2021. It was an acknowledgement
about the reality of hate faced by Canadian Muslims and that there needed to be
a heightened awareness about it and efforts to fight this odious bigotry. But by itself it is a small step and does little
to address hate against Muslims. The announcement
caught the attention of researchers at Georgetown University who were conducting
a study about Islamophobia in Canada. The
study found that anti-Muslim hate in Canada was “accepted and even applauded among
mainstream media and elected officials, which is not surprising when
one looks at what happened to Canadian Muslims following the Quebec City mosque
shooting. In the aftermath of that tragedy
Conservative and Bloc Quebecois MPs voted
against the M-103 Islamophobia motion in the name of
“free speech”, and there were many right wing media voices speaking out against
it as well claiming it would restrict freedom of expression to criticize Islam and
even lead to the implementation of Sharia law in Canada, despite the fact that the
motion carried no legal weight. There were
also anti-Muslim protests in Toronto, Calgary and other cities across Canada where
protesters called Islam “evil” and called for it to be banned. One protest in Toronto organized by the
far right website Rebel Media held at Canadian Christian College was attended by
four candidates running for the leadership of the Conservative Party who, rather
than correcting misinformation about the motion, whipped up the crowd with blatant
lies about what the motion meant for Canadian law, and played to the anti-Muslim
prejudice and bigotry of those in attendance.
ISLAMOPHOBIA
IN CANADA
Also, one need
look no further to note the insidiousness of Islamophobia in Canada than the reaction to the appointment by the federal
government of Amira Elghawaby as Canada’s Special Representative to Combat Islamophobia. The political push back to her appointment showed
that anti-Muslim prejudice is prevalent at the highest levels of government and
politics in Canada. The announcement was
met with Islamophobic attacks by the Quebec government as well as by the leaders
of the Bloc Quebecois and Conservative Party in Ottawa, who all demanded that she
either resign or be fired because she called out
Islamophobia in Quebec in a 2019 op-ed she co-authored about the province’s
Bill 21 “secularism” law. The leader of the
Bloc Quebecois even had the audacity to demand that the role be eliminated, despite
the fact that the epicentre of Islamophobia in Canada seems to be in Quebec, centered
around Bill 21, which was founded on anti-Muslim prejudice according to a 2019 poll.
If Islamophobia
in Canada is to be tackled in any meaningful way then addressing the bigotry and
human rights violations inherent in Bill 21 must be a starting point. The deference and kowtowing of federal leaders
to the Quebec government can no longer be the default response when it comes to
defending the human rights of Canadians in that province, especially if federal
leaders truly believe in standing in defence of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms
as they claim.
It should be
noted that the surge of Islamophobia in Canada over the last two decades can be
directly linked to what happened in the US and the Canadian government’s desire
to appease its main ally in the post-9/11 era.
Racist and Islamophobic narratives were used by politicians and media to
justify Islamophobic national security policies which violated Charter rights, and
the detention and torture of Canadians Maher
Arar, Abdullah
Almalki, Muayyed Nureddin and Ahmad El Maati
in prisons in Middle-East countries with the complicity of Canadian officials. In addition, the refusal of the Paul Martin and
Stephen Harper governments to bring home child soldier Omar
Khadr from America’s illegal prison in Guantanamo Bay where he
was repeatedly tortured, again with Canadian complicity, was not only a violation
of his rights under the Charter of Rights but also a violation of Canada’s legal
obligations under the UN’s child soldier protocol, to which Canada is a signatory. The fact that all these men (and other Canadian
Muslims) had their fundamental rights violated by agents of the Canadian government
is reprehensible. Additionally, while the
wrongs committed against them have been acknowledged by the federal government and
they have been compensated by at taxpayer expense, it is cold comfort for what they
endured. Furthermore, the fact that the government
officials who were responsible for the horrors they suffered were not held legally
accountable for their actions and the suffering they inflicted is a stain on Canada
that will never be washed away.
Canada has a
sordid history of implementing racist policies which violate the rights of racialized
minorities – Indian residential schools, Chinese “head tax”, immigration policies
barring South Asians, refusal to allow sanctuary
to Jews fleeing Nazi Germany, internment of Japanese during WW2, etc. – and then
issuing apologies and compensation years or decades later for the harms inflicted. However, this was supposed to change in 1982
when Canada adopted its Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The fact that egregious human rights violations
occurred again and again, this time to Muslims, begs the questions whether racism
is embedded in the political class and within certain layers of the public service. A firm political commitment that all government
decisions, where human rights are a factor, will be made by using the lens of the
Charter of Rights would be a good start to prevent such egregious human rights abuses
from being repeated.
If efforts to combat Islamophobia at home are meeting with limited success
the fight against Islamophobia outside Canada can be described as dismal
because of lack of concerted action by Canada and its peer nations which claim to be defenders of human rights and the “international
legal order”. Some of what is happening to
Muslims in China, India, Myanmar, and Israel can be attributed to the actions
of western nations which actually facilitate anti-Muslim intolerance through their
own domestic policies that target and stigmatize Muslims.
FRANCE
There
are some Western democracies which also regularly violate the rights of Muslims
as a matter of public policy, with France,
as well as the US being prime examples, as well as being poster children
for hypocrisy when it comes to claiming to be a defender of human rights. France’s litany of Islamophobic and racist policies
which marginalize and dehumanize Muslims have
been documented in a landmark report highlighting the unprecedented
crackdown on French Muslims under Emmanuel Macron’s sweeping “Systematic
Obstruction” policy and the powers it grants to the French government and its agencies
to target France’s Muslims and their organizations, including mosques, schools and
charities. The report comes four years after the start of a government led anti-Muslim
campaign which demonstrates that the French government’s policies amount to a “systematic
persecution” of Muslims in that nation as defined
under international law, according to the report. And yet again the Canadian government is
totally silent about how this violates the much touted “international legal order”.
Other key points
raised in the report include:
- Sanctioning and forced dissolution of Muslim organisations by decree, as well as through the heavy handed policing and criminalisation of Islam in social, religious and political spheres;
- Sweeping executive powers which enable this anti-Muslim persecution;
- The exclusive monitoring, surveillance, and sanctioning of Muslim organizations for minor infractions under this Islamophobia campaign;
- The calculated harassment and humiliation of Muslims by the French state, resulting in the intentional and severe deprivation of the French Muslim community's freedom of religion, of opinion, of association and right to property;
- Closing hundreds of Muslim establishments, including mosques and schools, investigating tens of thousands of Muslim organizations and fining them in what can only be regarded as state-sponsored extortion, whereby millions of Euros have been seized from them by the state; and
- The institutionalization of state Islamophobia through an infrastructure of enforcement and mass surveillance, with department cells spread across geographical units in France to enforce these policies.
The last time any western European country saw such draconian policies targeting
a specific minority community was when the Nazis were ascendant in Germany during
the late 1920s and 1930s and Jews were their target.
UNITED STATES
The western nation
with the largest impact on global Islamophobia is the United States in the actions
it took over the last two decades as part of the “War on terror” which contributed
to anti-Muslim policies globally. September
11, 2001 marked the start of a new era for Muslims in the United States and around
the world. Shortly after the attacks in New
York City and Washington DC Muslims became the targets of suspicion, fear, bigotry
and hate, and much of this was due to polices and narratives promoted by the US
government and its allies, as well as within western news media. Because of this all Muslims were under suspicion,
mosques were vandalized or destroyed, Muslims (or those who appeared to be Muslim)
were threatened, harassed, violently assaulted, or murdered, and Islamophobic narratives became embedded
in political and media discourse. Countries like Russia, China, India and other
nations with Muslim minority populations, used the excuse of a terrorist threat
to justify the adoption of Islamophobic policies to persecute, oppress and subjugate
Muslim minority communities. Even in some
Muslim majority countries terrorism was used as an excuse to target political enemies
or those calling for democratic reforms.
In 2017 the start of the Donald Trump presidency in the US began what one
study has called “The Islamophobic Administration”. Trump’s vitriolic anti-Muslim campaign rhetoric
carried through to his policies and actions as president. What he said and did had an impact in Canada as
evidenced by the fact that the Quebec City mosque shooter was found to have consumed
copious amounts of anti-Muslim hate online, including much of Trump’s anti-Muslim
rhetoric. The Trump administration raised government sanctioned Islamophobia in
the US to a new level with the elevation of Islamophobic staff members to key positions
in the White House; the ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries from
entering the US; the goal of making vetting procedures “extreme” for potential visitors
and immigrants; and a lack of response to the rise in hate crimes targeted at Muslims,
which was worse than it had been in the aftermath
of the 9/11 attacks. All of this played well
to those Canadians who held anti-Muslim prejudices and it energized them to act
on their Islamophobic hate.
The increasing
Islamophobia in the US during the Trump era coincided with an explosion in anti-Muslim
hate crimes in Canada. In June 2017 Statistics Canada reported that hate crimes
against Muslims had increased by 253% over the previous four years. In 2018 anti-Muslim hate crimes increased by
another 151% year over year, with the province of Ontario seeing a 207% increase. In subsequent years the numbers continued to increase,
with the 2022 report by Statistics Canada showing that anti-Muslim hate crimes were up
by 71%. And a 2019 Ipsos poll revealed that more than
a quarter of Canadians believed that it had become “more acceptable” to be prejudiced
against Muslims. Of course given that only
a fraction of hate crimes are reported to police the actual numbers are much higher. Add to this the fact that the Conservative Party
has been using Islamophobic tropes for years to gain the support of white supremacists,
racists, and other Canadians with far right views, and has now been joined by the
Bloc Quebecois in this appeal to extremist elements in Canadian society, and we
can see the trend line of rising Islamophobia in this country at the political,
societal and institutional levels, and understand why Muslims are now the most targeted
minority religious community in Canada.
Whether it is
in domestic policy or foreign policy efforts to fight Islamophobia cannot succeed
if the Canadian government does not take decisive actions to counter it, if it does
not implement effective policies, and if it does not fund anti-Islamophobia and
anti-hate programs at sufficient levels to achieve the desired objectives.
In an effort
to guide the government towards the goal of effectively fighting Islamophobia Canadians
United Against Hate presented a submission to
the Minister of Diversity and Inclusion following the Islamophobia Summit in July
2021 which contained 16 recommendations on fighting hate. While all the recommendations from that submission
are important, those that should be highlighted are the following:
- The federal government initiate and lead [and properly fund] efforts to implement an aggressive national, government-led anti-hate strategy targeting all forms of hate, bigotry and racism in society, as well as systemic racism, and hate on all media platforms, with a strong focus on social media, and that this effort be coordinated with provincial and municipal governments, with input from anti-racism organizations across the country [Note: What the government has in place currently is insufficient to meet the current situation];
- Starting with Quebec’s secularism law, when provincial governments implement laws or regulations that advocate legally sanctioned racism or bigotry, or intentionally violate the Charter rights of Canadians, that the federal government seek an injunction to prevent implementation of the legislation while it immediately refers the legislation to the Supreme Court at the time it is enacted, to challenge its legality and legitimacy under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms [Note: The federal government retains the power of “disallowance” and “reservation” under the Constitution – Sections 55 and 56 – which are still a valid legal tool];
- The Canadian government issue an official apology to all Canadian Muslims for its actions and policies over the last two decades that led to the profiling of Canadian Muslims through policies and legislation, to the promotion of Islamophobic narratives by Canadian political leaders and government officials, to the egregious violations of the human rights and civil liberties of Canadian Muslims with the complicity of government officials, and that a reparation fund be established (similar to what was created for Japanese Canadians following the government's apology for their internment during WW2), and that a policy be established where Canadian government officials (including politicians) who violate Canada's Charter of Rights and international law be charged under Canadian law for their actions;
- The federal government work with provincial governments to develop mandatory curriculum for all grades that looks at issues of hate, bigotry, racism and xenophobia in Canada, the historic victimization of minority communities in Canada and in foreign countries that were colonized where ideologies of hate / bigotry led to atrocities, and the study of the victimization and genocide of the Indigenous people of the land that became Canada [Note: The singular focus on the Holocaust in the study of genocide diminishes and delegitimizes the suffering of other peoples who have been the victims of this horrific crime]. Efforts to push back against Islamophobia at home or abroad will remain stagnant as long as discrimination against Muslims is not met with decisive actions by government, and as long as the heavy lifting is left up to small community-based advocacy groups and human rights organizations. While better than nothing, the actions already taken by the Canadian government still fail to meet the challenge of the pervasive Islamophobia and hate that has spread across the country over the last decade, and efforts by Canada are practically non-existent when it comes to fighting Islamophobia at the international level.
Leadership to
fight Islamophobia (and other forms of hate) must happen at a national level and
be coordinated with provincial governments, the same way that the federal government
coordinated efforts to fight the Covid19 pandemic with the provinces. The fight against anti-Muslim hate must be part
of an over-arching strategy to fight all forms of hate, and this requires funding
well beyond the $85 million over four years which was announced in the 2022 federal budget.
If we look carefully,
and if we are honest with ourselves, we can see some of the worst aspects of the
historical hate of the early 20th century beginning to re-emerge. Academics who study this as well as some journalists
have noted the parallels between what is happening to Muslim minority communities
around the world today and what happened to Jews in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. But the difference between now and then is that
we know where that path leads if we fail to take the action needed to push back
against the rising tide of hate. Which means
that the Canadian government has a choice to either fully commit to fighting anti-Muslim
hate, or to merely pay lip service to it and to ineffectively putter around the
edges.
The post-World
War 2 “international legal order” came about as a result of what happened in that
war, and Canada was one of the nations that was an architect of the new world order. International legal documents like the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, which was co-authored by a Canadian diplomat, and the
Genocide Convention were both created to prevent the sorts of horrors and atrocities
that were inflicted on innocent civilians during that war from occurring again,
and prosecuting those who would choose to commit unspeakable crimes. But the truth
is the crimes and atrocities that happened during World War 2 are occurring again,
and they are happening under the watch of the very nations that claim to stand in
defence of the “international legal order”.
The reality is
that the unwillingness of Canada and its allies to defend the principles on which
the UN was founded and their failure to defend international law, are adversely
impacting Muslim minority communities around the world. On the day designated by the UN to heighten awareness
about Islamophobia, and push back against it where it is occurring, Canadian human
rights and anti-racism organizations have strongly urged the Canadian government,
as a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Genocide Convention,
to make concerted efforts to fight Islamophobia and anti-Muslim hate in Canada and
around the world, to live up to the ideals contained in these foundational UN documents,
and the UN Charter, and end the hypocrisy of saying that Canada is a defender of
human rights and the “international legal order”, when in truth it only is when
it is politically expedient.
Fighting ideologies
of hate, defending human rights, and standing in defence of fundamental justice
should never be sacrificed on the altar of political expediency anywhere in the
world and definitely not in Canada which is supposed to be an example of a nation
that defends human rights. If Canada is to
live up to its potential in the future, if it is to stand true to the Canadian Constitution
and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, then it is up to Canada’s political leaders
to ensure that the principles of defending fundamental rights, opposing hate in
all its forms, and seeking justice become core values of Canada’s political culture,
and a lived reality for all minority communities. Anything less is a breach of promise, and a failure
to the commitment of building the “just society” that Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau
spoke of more than 50 years ago.
# # #
REFERENCE LINKS & URL LINKS
UNITED NATIONS – International
Day to Combat Islamophobia
WIKIPEDIA – Christchurch mosque
shootings
Why are Alberta’s Black, Muslim
women being attacked?
Islamophobia in Canada: Four mindsets
indicate negativity is nationwide, most intense in Quebec
6 years later, ceremony held inside
Quebec City mosque to honour victims of 2017 attack
‘Taken away so fast’: Toronto
marks 1-year anniversary of mosque killing
Muslim family killed in London,
Ont., attack to be honoured with 5 days of events for 1-year mark
WIKIPEDIA – Uyghur genocide
Why Hitler is not a dirty word
in India
India: Surge in Summary Punishments
of Muslims -- Discriminatory Demolitions of Property, Public Flogging
India’s Hindu extremists are calling
for genocide against Muslims. Why is little being done to stop them?
Citizenship Amendment Bill: India's
new 'anti-Muslim' law explained
UNITED NATIONS – Universal Declaration
of Human Rights
UNITED NATIONS – Convention on
the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
GLOBAL AFFAIRS CANADA – Minister
Joly to attend G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting and Raisina Dialogue in India
The lawlessness of cow-vigilantes
in North India
Modi 'directly responsible for
2002 Gujarat massacre of Muslims, says BBC
Movement out of India that 'disseminates
hate' victimizes religious minority groups, report says
National Council of Canadian Muslims
and World Sikh Organization Canada launch major report on the Hindu extremist RSS
network in Canada
WIKIPEDIA: Rohingya genocide
Application of the Convention
on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (The Gambia v. Myanmar)
Letter from the Rohingya Human
Rights Network to Global Affairs Canada re: meeting about ongoing concerns
List of international law violations
by the state of Israel
UN Security Council resolutions
contravened by Israel
INDEPENDENT JEWISH VOICES – Canadian
Jews call for action following Israeli pogrom and comment from senior minister that
Israel should “wipe out” Palestinian town
Settler extremists sowing terror,
Huwara riot was a ‘pogrom,’ top general says
TWITTER – Statement by former
director of the Anti-Defamation League
Tensions high in West Bank after
deadly Israeli settler rampage
Palestine’s Huwara should be
wiped out: Top Israeli minister
US condemns Israel far right
minister’s call for Palestinian town ‘to be erased’
Israeli lawmaker's 'kill all
Palestinians' remarks resurface
Netanyahu appoints Ayelet Shaked
– who called for genocide of Palestinians – as Justice Minister in new government
Jewish rabbi calls for extermination
of all Palestinian males
Abbas, Palestinians should die:
Israeli rabbi
“Concentrate” And “exterminate”:
Israel Parliament Deputy Speaker’s Gaza Genocide Plan
Timeline: Al-Aqsa raids, closures
and restrictions
Israeli forces raid Al-Aqsa Mosque,
over 150 Palestinians injured
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL – Israel’s
apartheid against Palestinians: A look into decades of oppression and domination
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH – A Threshold
Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution
B'TSELEM – A regime of Jewish
supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY 'BRIDGE
INTIATIVE' – 2021 Islamophobia In Review: Canada
Maxime Bernier says N.S. PPC candidate’s
tweets were racist but she won’t face consequences
Hysteria from Conservatives over
harmless motion on Islamophobia
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY 'BRIDGE
INITIATIVE' – Factsheet: Motion-103
‘Islam is Evil’: Protesters Clash
at Toronto Anti-M-103 Rally
Protesters in Calgary clash over
M-103 anti-Islamophobia motion
Hundreds rally against motion
calling on Canadian government to condemn Islamophobia
Uproar over Amira Elghawaby appointment
proof of need for someone like her in the job
Amira Elghawaby is victim of a
double standard
Veiling Islamophobia through guise
of secularism will not solve the problem
Justin Trudeau should fire point-person
on Islamophobia — and get rid of her job, too, BQ leader says
Quebec's Bill 21 shows why we
fear the tyranny of the majority
A new poll shows support for Bill
21 is built on anti-Islam sentiment
WIKIPEDIA – Maher Arar
WIKIPEDIA –Abdullah Almalki
WIKIPEDIA – Muayyed Nureddin
WIKIPEDIA – Ahmad El-Maati
WIKIPEDIA – Omar Khadr
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL - The Maher Arar Case
Three Canadians tortured in Syria receive
$31-million settlement from Ottawa
Why will Omar Khadr receive $10.5M? Because
the Supreme Court ruled his rights were violated
Four decades after it was proclaimed Canada's
Charter of Rights continues to be violated by governments and politicians. This
is unacceptable and needs to change.
Let’s Not Whitewash George W. Bush’s Actual,
Heinous Record on Muslims in the U.S.
Muslims Accused of Plotting Violence Get
Seven Times More Media Attention and Four Times Longer Sentences
784,000 articles show Western media’s
anti-Muslim bias over 20 years
Media has anti-Muslim bias, claims report
CAGE scathing report finds French government’s
Islamophobia reaches threshold of ‘Persecution’ under international law
“We are Beginning to Spread Terror”: The State-Sponsored
Persecution of Muslims in France
BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE – 'The Islamophobic
Administration'
Hate crimes against Muslims in Canada increase
253% over four years
Anti-Muslim hate crimes up 207 percent in Canada's
most populous province
Hate crimes against Muslims in Canada jump 71
percent
1 in 4 Canadians say it’s becoming ‘more acceptable’
to be prejudiced against Muslims: Ipsos poll
Submission to Canada's Minister of Diversity &
Inclusion in response to the Islamophobia & Anti-Semitism Summits
Advocates happy to see targeted money in federal
budget to fight racism
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