Canadian Summit Focuses On Hate Crime Prevention
Vittorio Hernandez – AHN News WriterToronto, Canada (AHN) – To break the culture of hate developing among young Canadians, a member of parliament attending an ongoing Somali Muslim Hate Crime Summit has proposed bringing hate crimes to public attention.
Muslim migrants have difficulty adjusting to their new homes because of the anti-Muslim sentiment since Sept. 11, 2001, Mohamed Gilao, executive director of settlement agency Dejinta Beesha said. In 2005 his son, who was with a friend, were shot after they left a theater.
While it is unclear if the two boys were victims of hate crimes, Gilao said by educating the youth who commit one-third of the hate crimes in Canada, unnecessary deaths especially among immigrants could be prevented.
MP Shafig Qaadri of Etobicoke North supported Gilao’s suggestion. “We don’t want Toronto, for example, to turn into inner city American… Hopefully we won’t have to, as in the summer of 2005, attend the funerals of four young black men,” Qaadri told the Toronto Star.
Aside from race, the other common factors among victims of hate crimes are religion and sexual orientation, said Staff Supt. Michael Federico of the Toronto Police. He encouraged to public to report hate crimes as a way of battling the trend.
The growing incidents of hate crimes in Canada has led the Canadian Human Rights Commission to conduct a public review of hate crimes after a complaint against Maclean magazine, which published an anti-Islam article in 2006.
The country’s Human Rights Act deals with hate messages in a section that originally sought to address telephone hate messages. Following the passage of the Anti-Terrorism Act in December 2001, it has been modified to cover hate messages sent over the Internet.
Source: AHN
