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What can the Muslims do to protest the blanket malignment of the Islamic Faith in Canada?
4-17-2019
In Short, Learn from the Sikh Community Leadership in reference to 2018 Public Report on the Terrorism Threat to Canada. Read More: About the Sikh community efforts.
The next Steps
Muslim political leadership, which represents over one Million Muslims in Canada, has failed to stand up for their community unlike the Sikh leadership, which only has just over half a million Sikhs in Canada.
After reading the report, Out of the five groups of which are mentioned, three of them are related to Muslims. Just a quick observation, the report just falls short of vilifying Muslim in Canada. The unintended consequences will definitely be the rise of Islamophobia.
In fact one may argue Sunni Muslims have been a biggest victims of a terrorist threat here in Canada. How can the Prime Minister forget his statements when while describing the Quebec mosque shooting "terrorist attack on Muslims in a centre of worship and refuge."
In March 21, 2019 MATT ROBINSON in Vancouver Sun stated “Police-reported hate crime in Canada had been on the rise for a few years before taking a sharp upswing in 2017, according to the latest data from Statistics Canada. There were 2,073 reported incidents that year, up from 1,295 in 2014, 1,362 in 2015 and 1,409 in 2016.” Furthermore NCCM states, in 2018 two-thirds of all hate crimes in Quebec City targeted Muslims, according Quebec City police.
It is time the PM Justin Trudeau must admit he has failed to curb the rise of hate crime, which has actually increased under his watch.
With reference to “2018 Public Report on the Terrorism Threat to Canada” as a Muslim media outlet (Alameen Post.com) did raise awareness about the issue in our community though our editorial in December -2018. We had hoped that the Muslim Community leaders that are not aware of the issue might take some action, organize a petition and voice their concerns.
It has been 4 months of complete silence. The recent announcement by Public Safety for the sikh community inspires us. The report was updated on April 12. The Language was changed from the previous version with the words "Sikh (Khalistani) extremism" to "extremists who support violent means to establish an independent state within India."
AlameenPost could have only pleaded and appealed as a media outlet, But now since there has been no action from our community we are appealing our readership to lead the charge.
Alameen Post has initiated a petition under www.CanadianMuslimAdvocacy.org and we hope Muslim organizations and Muslims can become partners and activists to ask the Govt. to immediately revise the “2018 Public Report on the Terrorism Threat to Canada”
The petition is as follows,
Petition to the House of Commons in Parliament Assembled
We the undersigned residents of Canada draw the attention of the House of Commons to the following:
THAT all cultures have some extremists yet not all cultures are attached to the names of the extremist acts when they are reported;
THAT to articulate a report which paints individuals that are followers of Islam with a blanket generalization is wrong and not very Canadian;
THAT the recent decision to remove references to Sikh extremism was the right decision;
THAT the Muslim community needs protection instead of being further victimized by being labelled as terrorists in the eyes of fellow Canadians;
THEREFORE, your petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to immediately revise the “2018 Public Report on the Terrorism Threat to Canada”
so that blanket references to the Muslim community are removed in the same manner that references to Sikh extremism were rightly removed.
If you would like to join our campaign and collect signatures at local mosques and be the agents of change, please contact us.
Call or email any of the Brs. below to get a copy of the petition, if not atleast email to your local MP.
To help in organizing the campaign to collect signatures call the brs below and Visit our website to be connected with our advocacy.
www.CanadianMuslimAdvocacy.org
Jafar Bhamji – 604-715-7187
Shazad Mansoory – 778-858-4085
Furquan Gehlen – 604-603-8741
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