Canada: “Islamophobia Day”? Are You Kidding?كندا: هل الأمر مزحة في تحديد يوم للإسلاموفوبيا
Tom Quiggin/Gatestone Institute/January 19/2018
In fact, in Canada, “Islamophobia” comes in only fourth behind crimes against Blacks, Gays and Jews. Hate crimes against Muslims actually have dropped, even as the overall number of hate crimes increased, according to the last Statistics Canada reporting.
The National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM, formerly CAIR CAN) was founded with the mission of supporting its American parent organization, CAIR USA, which in turn was formed to support Hamas. According to the Hamas Covenant, the group is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas is listed as terrorist group by the US and Canada. CAIR USA was also listed as a terrorist entity by the United Arab Emirates in 2014.
The current Executive Director of CAIR CAN/NCCM, Ihsaan Gardee, has tried to claim that CAIR USA and its Canadian chapter CAIR CAN/NCCM have no relationship. This view is misleading. Most tellingly, CAIR CAN/NCCM made the following statement on its own website in 2003 referring to CAIR USA: “This Washington-based organization is CAIR CAN’s parent organization.”
With respect to the presence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Canada, newspapers such as the Toronto Star have printed that there is no such thing as the Muslim Brotherhood in Canada or the US. A 2015 piece by Haroon Siddiqui, the Toronto Star’s editorial page editor emeritus, stated that: “Muslim Brotherhood is not a registered entity in Canada or the USA, nor does it have any branch in North America.” For this assessment, Siddiqui was quoting Jamal Badawi. What Siddiqui did not mention was that Badawi is a member of the North American Muslim Brotherhood’s Shura Council, according to the Muslim Brotherhood itself.
The Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, is being asked by the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM, formerly known as CAIR CAN) to designate January 29 as a “National Day of Remembrance and Action on Islamophobia.” If he does, it is an indicator that the Islamists in Canada have succeeded in their program of political expansion and influence to the point of now being able publicly to manipulate the Prime Minister’s Office. In fact, in Canada, “Islamophobia” comes in only fourth behind crimes against Blacks, Gays and Jews. Hate crimes against Muslims have dropped, even as the overall number of hate crimes increase, according to the last Statistics Canada reporting.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is being asked by the National Council of Canadian Muslims to designate January 29 as “National Day of Remembrance and Action on Islamophobia.” If he does, it is an indicator that the Islamists in Canada have succeeded in their program of political expansion and influence. (Image source: European Parliament)
The event behind this request is the violent attack on the Quebec City mosque of January 29, 2017, in which six people were murdered.
CAIR CAN/NCCM claims in its letter to the Prime Minister that the attack occurred “solely because the victims were Muslim.” This statement is doubtful: the mosque has a complicated history, a recent rash of traumatic events, and was initially founded by adherents of the Muslim Brotherhood.
CAIR CAN/NCCM
CAIR CAN/NCCM was founded with the mission of supporting its American parent organization, CAIR USA, which in turn was formed to support Hamas. According to the Hamas Covenant, the group is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas is listed as terrorist group by the United States and Canada. CAIR USA was also listed as a terrorist entity by the United Arab Emirates in 2014. They described the listing of these groups as including Muslim Brotherhood front groups, proxies and fund raisers.
The current Executive Director of CAIR CAN/NCCM, Ihsaan Gardee, has tried to claim that CAIR USA and its Canadian chapter CAIR CAN/NCCM have no relationship. He has made this claim in media interviews to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and while testifying to the Parliament of Canada. This view is misleading. The US State Department has identified CAIR CAN/NCCM as the Canadian chapter of CAIR USA. CAIR USA has repeatedly claimed that CAIR CAN/NCCM is its “Canadian office.” Most tellingly, CAIR CAN/NCCM made the following statement on its own website in 2003 referring to CAIR USA: “This Washington-based organization is CAIR CAN’s parent organization.” That statement was published as part of its “A Journalist’s Guide to Islam.”
The Senate of Canada also heard from internationally known Muslim Brotherhood expert Dr. Lorenzo Vidino in May of 2015. In his testimony , Vidino stated that the Muslim Brotherhood has a series of eight to ten front organizations in Canada. Among those he noted were CAIR CAN/NCCM.
THE MOSQUE ATTACK(S) IN QUEBEC CITY
The Quebec City Mosque, also referred to as the Centre culturel islamique de Québec or CCIQ, was attacked on 29 January 2017. The alleged attacker, Alexandre Bissonnette, murdered six people and wounded eight when he opened fire with a rifle on a Sunday evening.
Not just one attack occurred. The mosque has suffered a series of five events, which appear connected. In June of 2016 a pig’s head was placed at the front door of the mosque. Three weeks later a pamphlet was distributed around the mosque’s neighborhood, which claimed that the mosque was run by the Muslim Brotherhood. The pamphlet also said that the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood in Quebec was the Quebec City Mosque. Following that, a blog also stated that the mosque was a Muslim Brotherhood organization. This blog posting was dated July 8, 2016 and it has similar text to what was in the pamphlet distributed around the mosque. The title of the blog was “What is the most serious: a pig’s head or a genocide?” The question suggests that the first three incidents are connected. The blog was still active as of January 19, 2018.
The blog also appears to have made an indirect threat to the mosque. The posting stated that:
“If the Grand Mosque of Quebec does not provide formal and verifiable evidence that it repudiated any organizational, financial and ideological ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and its organizations such as the Muslim Association of Canada or others, and if it does not clearly condemn all that these organizations represent, the informed citizens will have to consider the Great Mosque of Quebec, aka Mosque of the capital, aka the Cultural Centre of Quebec, as a home propagating a radical concepts and political Islam.”
While this statement of July 2016 does not make a direct violent threat to the mosque, one could believe, especially with the benefit of hindsight, that this posting identifies a threat to the mosque. It does not, of course, say that a violent action will occur if the mosque did not repudiate its Muslim Brotherhood links. The threat, however, is implied; given the two violent events that followed, it seems prescient.
The statement also suggests that the first thee incidents and the shooting, are connected.
As noted, the mosque was then violently attacked in January of 2017, which resulted in the deaths and injuries. On the August 6, 2017, a fifth event occurred in which a car belonging to Mohamed Labidi, the President of the mosque, was burned in a deliberately arson according to police.
Pictured: The Canadian flag flies at half-mast in front of the British Columbia Parliament Buildings in Victoria on January 31, 2017, following a deadly shooting attack on a mosque in Quebec City, in which six people were murdered. (Image source: Province of British Columbia)
THE ORIGINS OF THE MOSQUE
The Quebec City mosque was originally formed by Muslim Student Association, according to its own history. The Muslim Student Association was founded by adherents of the Muslim Brotherhood. The mosque donated money on a yearly basis (2001 to 2010) to the Canadian charity known as the International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy (IRFAN). This funding occurred through IRFAN, which the Canada Revenue Agency has stated was set up deliberately to circumvent Canadian law to fund Hamas. This “charity” has since been listed as a terrorist entity in Canada, as it sent tens of millions of dollars of cash and services to Hamas.
One of the leading figures at the mosque is Abdullah Assafiri. He was listed as the “directeur de la formation et de l’animation religieuse au Centre culturel islamique de Québec” (Director of training and religious activity at the Quebec Islamic Cultural Centre). He also represented the mosque when it interacted with the provincial government.
Mr. Assafiri is also a major leadership figure in the Muslim Brotherhood, according to the Muslim Brotherhood itself. He was listed as the “Masul” or “leader” for Eastern Canada in the North American Muslim Brotherhood’s Shura Council organizational list. The list became public as a court document during the Holy Land Relief Foundation terrorism funding trials in the USA.
Mr. Assafiri told the press he normally would have been at the mosque on the Sunday night of the attack, but he did not attend when the shooting occurred because his son had borrowed his car (c’est parce que son fils avait emprunté sa voiture).
With respect to the presence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Canada, newspapers such as the Toronto Star, have printed that there is no such thing as the Muslim Brotherhood in Canada or the USA. A 2015 piece by Haroon Siddiqui, the Toronto Star’s editorial page editor emeritus, actually reported that:
“Muslim Brotherhood is not a registered entity in Canada or the USA, nor does it have any branch in North America.”
For this assessment, Mr. Siddiqui was quoting Dr. Jamal Badawi. What Siddiqui did not mention was that Dr. Badawi is a member of the North American Muslim Brotherhood’s Shura Council, according to the Muslim Brotherhood itself. Further, the Muslim Brotherhood has held up Dr. Badawi as a leading and exemplary figure in its education field. Dr. Badawi has also served on the board of directors of both the Muslim Association of Canada and CAIR CAN/NCCM. The Muslim Association of Canada (MAC) was also noted as a Muslim Brotherhood front group in Dr. Vidino’s 2015 testimony to the Canadian Senate. The MAC website states that the “Muslim Brotherhood remains the truest reflection of Islamic practice in the modern era.”
Dr. Badawi was also listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in American based Holy Land Relief terrorism funding trial that had its roots in Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. Convictions for this trial were obtained in 2008.
CONCLUSIONS
In the case of the Quebec City mosque attack, while it is possible that the victims were attacked solely because they were Muslim, the connected incidents – both before the attack and the online implied threat — suggests that the motivation for the attack might be somewhat more complicated.
If the “Islamophobia Memorial Day” is declared by the prime minster, it is a clear “indicator and warning” on how far an Islamist mentality has been developed within the corridors of government. It also will further confirm how deeply Prime Minster Trudeau has has continued in his support the Islamist cause on every occasion since his election as a Member of Parliament in 2008.
Tom Quiggin is a former military intelligence officer, a former intelligence contractor for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and a court appointed expert on jihadist terrorism in both the Federal and criminal courts of Canada. Much of the material for this article comes from the recently published book, “SUBMISSION: The Danger of Political Islam to Canada – With a Warning to America”, written with co-authors Tahir Gora, Saied Shoaaib, Jonathon Cotler, and Rick Gill with a foreword by Raheel Raza.
