Violence in Quebec. Hate crime against a mosque in Montreal. By Younes Lamri
Would Quebec have permanently entered the trap of procovocation-reaction set by extremism ( see adn-med of April 11 )?
Montreal (Quebec) police are investigating a heinous act after the arrest of a 32-year-old suspect who attacked a downtown mosque in the middle of Ramadan.
The event took place around 5 a.m. on Sunday when the hooded suspect tried to attack with a blunt object a faithful who took refuge inside the El Oumma mosque, located at the intersection of René-Lévesque boulevard and rue Saint-Dominique.
The assailant then broke the windows of the doors with a brick to find himself inside the place of worship opposite. Cienturé by the faithful who then left him free, he will however be arrested not far from the mosque, reports a journalist from the TVA Nouvelles network who consulted the images from the surveillance camera of the religious building.
Alerted, the police arrived quickly to arrest the suspect, before releasing him with a promise to appear next month. The Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) has appealed to witnesses to this attack to expand its investigation, which is immediately oriented towards a hate crime, even if other charges are not excluded, based on cross-checked information.
Federal MP for the downtown Montreal riding Marc Miller denounced on Twitter a " hateful " attack against a Muslim place of worship. “ I hope that this Islamophobic attack will be fully investigated by the SPVM! The faithful should feel safe when they gather for their prayers ,” he tweeted.
Three days earlier, Muslim worshipers were attacked in the province of Ontario by a 28-year-old man who was also arrested by York police. According to a statement from the Islamic Society of Markham, an individual interrupted a gathering of worshipers by uttering racist and Islamophobic slurs.
In Quebec, the dynamic of mutual hatred has not reached a critical level, but it is well and truly under way.
From Montreal: Younes Lamri