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Quebec Mosque Massacre Leaves 6 Dead
A mass shooting in a Quebec City mosque had left the country reeling.
Six people are dead after a mass shooting at a mosque in Quebec City’s Sainte-Foy neighbourhood, an attack that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and law enforcement agencies are treating as an “act of terror against Canada and all Canadians.”
Yesterday, Alexandre Bissonnette was charged with six counts of first-degree murder and five counts of attempted murder with a restricted weapon in connection with the shooting.
Bissonnette was known in the city’s activist circles as a “right-winger” who took anti-foreigner and anti-feminist positions and also stood up for U.S. President Donald Trump.
The attack fell on the weekend that Trudeau welcomed refugees to Canada after U.S. President Trump suspended the U.S. refugee program and temporarily barred citizens from select Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.
Trump’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, went on to say that the Quebec attack should serve as a reminder of the importance of Trump’s executive order of keeping citizens of select Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.
Mass shootings are rare in Canada, and news of the shooting sent a shockwave through mosques and community centres across the country.
“I never imagined a day would come when I would look at my mosque and wonder if it was safe to go inside,” said Zarqa Nawaz, creator of the television show Little Mosque on the Prairie. “I need my mosque to go back to what it was before the Quebec shootings, a place where my community and I organize, cajole and negotiate with one another despite the differences of our skin colours, religious outlooks and heat tolerance. I believe in the goodness of my neighbours, my community and my country – a country that never fails to make me proud. A country that has welcomed the poor and desperate from all over the world. A country that stands up to the calls of xenophobia, which grow louder every day.”
Incidents of Islamophobia have increased in Quebec over the years, and some people question if isolated events could be taking on a different scope.
Quebec City is, however, uniting in grief at vigils held for the mosque attack victims. Thousands of mourners are coming together to promote racial and religious harmony.
Languages expert Johanne Voyer brought her daughter to the vigil and said, “This kind of violence with guns just does not belong in Quebec City. We just don’t have it here and there are such strict gun controls. I also want to say that being Canadian means you can be from any religion or racial background and that you are the same as everybody else.”
All mortally wounded six victims were men, aged 39 to 60. They had left their countries of origin to seek better lives for themselves and their families. They were academics and civil servants, and most were parents to young children.
Main Image Photo Credit: www.theglobeandmail.com
Nomaan Khan
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After spending some time in a completely different field, Nomaan decided to drop it all and switch to Mohawk College to pursue his longtime interest in the world of Journalism. His experience working in multimedia platforms has helped him develop exceptional skills in thinking on his feet, being ...
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