Canadian Muslim charity wins ‘milestone’ settlement after being falsely accused of funding terrorism

2023/06/12 Leave a comment

Of note and welcome accountability:

One of Canada’s largest faith-based charities has won a settlement over a set of publications that falsely claimed it was a “front” to fund terror groups abroad.

Islamic Relief Canada reached the out-of-court settlement earlier this month in a lawsuit against Thomas Quiggin — a former military officer turned self-described researcher who last year emerged as one of the more recognizable names in the truck convoy protests — and six others who it argued made “false, malicious and defamatory” statements aimed at harming the charity.

Along with Quiggin, the $2.5-million lawsuit from December 2018 took aim at Benjamin Dichter, who later emerged as a convoy spokesperson; writer Tahir Aslam Gora and an online television channel of which Gora is CEO; writer Raheel Raza and her husband Syed Sohail Raza; as well as a Yarmouth-based man named Joseph Hazelton who interviewed Quiggin about the charity in a YouTube video that garnered over 10,000 views.

Source: Canadian Muslim charity wins ‘milestone’ settlement after being falsely accused of funding terrorism

Filed under Islamophobia, Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , , , , ,

Five years after Quebec mosque shooting, everyday Islamophobia continues to have long-term impact on Muslims

2022/01/29 Leave a comment

Of note. Would benefit from linking to other forms of bias, prejudice and discrimination that affect many groups:

Every year on the anniversary of the Quebec City mosque shooting, I am reminded of my visits with the families of the six victims who continue to endure the consequences of deeply rooted hatred for Muslims. It’s important as we approach Jan. 29 — the National Day of Remembrance and Action Against Islamophobia — their stories continue to be heard, and that, as a society, we work together to make this form of racism as unacceptable as any other.

The need continues to be urgent, with last year’s violent attack in London, Ont. that killed four family members and left a 9-year-old survivor.

That’s why our team here at Islamic Relief Canada has been talking to Muslims about their experiences with hatred and ignorance, and compiled them in our new report, “In Their Words: Untold Stories of Islamophobia in Canada.”

Our research reveals that hate is present in all spheres of Muslims’ lives. We heard from women who had their head scarves ripped off at school or experienced Islamophobic comments in the workplace; a man who faced discrimination within sports; a woman whose non-Muslim in-laws openly insult her religion at family dinners; and from a Quebec shooting survivor who was targeted at the mosque.

Often, when we talk about Islamophobia, we read and hear about the political implications. While that is important — you cannot combat Islamophobia without adequate legislation — the consequences of hate for ordinary people are often overlooked.

They can include emotional and mental trauma, stress in personal and professional relationships, and even long-term physical injury. For some research participants, negative experiences have led to switching schools or ceasing participation in sports. In one instance, it has meant deliberations on leaving Canada.

Sanaa (not her real name), a teacher in Quebec, says last year she was told by her school to remove her hijab to comply with Bill 21 regulations (the bill prevents those working in the public sector from wearing religious symbols). She was suspended for months, but was able to return to work on a contract technicality. Disheartened, she is taking foreign teaching exams and contemplating leaving the country she grew up in.

Along with Sanaa, others also told us Bill 21 was a pressing issue and felt strongly that the federal government needs to address it. As a country that prides itself on multiculturalism and tolerance, it is unacceptable to have legislation that discriminates against Muslims and other minority groups.

In addition to being systemic, Islamophobia is gendered and normalized. I was not surprised to see the majority of interviewees for our report dismiss their experiences, believing they were minor and would not be taken seriously if reported.

I can relate to those sentiments. I remember after 9/11, I asked my schoolteacher what everyone was talking about, and her answer was that surely I had to know — as if somehow I was involved in the actions of every Muslim around the world. I have also been called “Paki” on Twitter, and most recently someone crossed out the image of my face on an op-ed I wrote for the Toronto Star and mailed it to my office.

Stories like mine are probably familiar to every Canadian Muslim. While it’s up to the government to implement policies that support us, Islamophobia cannot be tackled by federal action alone. Businesses, schools, communities and each one of us has to fight against it, and all forms of racism. That could look like diversity training at work, teaching kids about Islamic Heritage Month at school, or standing up for a Muslim friend in the face of an Islamophobic comment or joke.

Until there is a collective, societal shift in mindset that goes hand in hand with large-scale government action, Islamophobia will continue to pervade every aspect of Muslims’ lives. And as we have seen, when hate bubbles under the surface for a long time, it eventually spills over and becomes violent, leaving survivors and victims’ families to pick up the pieces.

Source: Five years after Quebec mosque shooting, everyday Islamophobia continues to have long-term impact on Muslims

Filed under Islamophobia, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

PATEL: Don’t use Islam as excuse to carry out horrors of female genital mutilation

2018/11/26 Leave a comment

Good column:

Earlier this week, a federal judge in the United States dismissed charges against two doctors and six others involved in the genital mutilation of nine girls at a suburban Detroit clinic.

While many are disappointed the case had to be dropped because of state-federal complications, what outraged me the most was that the accused in this case claimed female genital mutilation (FGM) was a ‘religious’ act and that it should, therefore, be above the law.

As a young Muslim woman, I am tired of hearing about medieval and regressive social behaviour that supposedly has some kind of religious justification; especially when it concerns my faith of Islam.

Muslim women like me are caught between Islamophobes who condemn Islam and every Muslim for anything that moves – and our own medieval zealots who use Islam to justify practices like FGM, forced marriages and domestic violence.

It should be clear to all that FGM has absolutely no basis in any of the Abrahamic religions – and there is no mention of it in the Quran. In fact, we find quite the opposite: That the Quran strongly condemns ‘mutilating the fair creation of God’ as being something inspired by the Devil himself.

But, despite this clear directive, FGM continues to persist in many countries around the world.

The UN estimates that around three million girls are mutilated every year – with a sizable portion of these being Muslim women and girls; (the others being mostly Christian or animist communities).

This is because some communities and individuals prefer to ignore their own revealed book and follow cultural dogmas disguised as religion instead.

These spurious ‘religious’ arguments are also buttressed by dozens of other oppressive reasons, as to why a community will persist with the abomination of FGM – such as poverty, patriarchy and culture. But the supposed religious justifications may, in fact, be the bedrock upon which all the other causes depend.

Debunk that and the other justifications may well fall away.

That’s why in my work with the international NGO, Islamic Relief Canada – we feel it is our duty to counter these cultural and pseudo-religious justifications.

This is done through, for example, our advocacy work to end FGM here in Canada and all around the world with our sister offices and partner organizations.

From our research here in Canada, we know that FGM is carried out in both Muslim and non-Muslim communities, and we have anecdotal evidence that children are being taken abroad and even across the border to the U.S. to be forcibly subjected to FGM procedures.

We also know that there is a lack of resources available to families who have undergone the trauma of FGM and are in need of education and support.

We welcome the Canadian government’s investment and commitment towards ending FGM, both overseas and here in Canada.

But we also recognize that more needs to be done to understand the extent and context of the problem in Canada, so that organizations like ours can work alongside other agencies and communities to build awareness of the extremely harmful effects of this totally anti-Islamic practice.

Reyhana Patel is the head of Communications at Islamic Relief Canada. She’s a former BBC journalist and former writer for The Huffington Post U.K. and The Independent newspaper in the U.K.

Source: PATEL: Don’t use Islam as excuse to carry out horrors of female genital mutilation

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Reyhana Patel: Don’t believe the smears. Here’s what Islamic Relief Canada is really all about

2017/05/20 Leave a comment

Patel on the work her organization does and the Middle East Forum attacks (see Sam Westrop : A call for Trevor Noah to support tolerance and withdraw from Toronto event):

We’ve done some incredible work in the last ten years helping millions of individuals around the world — including in Canada — regardless of their religion, race, gender or sexuality. We’ve been amazed at the generosity of Canadians — those who are Muslim and those of different faith backgrounds who support our work and are strong advocates for the efforts we undertake. For instance, we raised over $100,000 for the victims of the Fort McMurray wildfire, supported Syrian refugee resettlement programs, worked at empowering disadvantaged youth in the Greater Toronto Area, and launched an appeal for the Quebec mosque attack victims that raised thousands of dollars for the families left without their fathers.

This track record stands in stark contrast to the false image painted of Islamic Relief Canada in a one-sided and unsubstantiated article that was published recently in the National Post.

Sam Westrop, writing on behalf of the Middle East Forum (MEF), labelled Islamic Relief Canada a “terrorist organization which regularly gives platforms to preachers who incite hatred against women, Jews, homosexuals and Muslim minorities.” This defamatory statement was removed after our organization contacted the newspaper, along with community members who were justifiably angered by this casual smear of a reputable and valuable charity. The revised article is now online, but for me, it still represents the dictionary definition of fake news: “false, often sensational, information disseminated under the guise of news reporting.”

In my view, Westrop’s article represents the dictionary definition of fake news: ‘false, often sensational, information disseminated under the guise of news reporting.’

Let’s step back for a moment to understand where this is all coming from. The MEF has been named in a well-researched report called Fear Inc. as one of America’s most notorious anti-Muslim think tanks. This is an organization with US$4.6 million in annual revenue that uses some of its resources to paint a negative picture of Islam and Muslims.

The MEF’s piece further reflects the National Post’s unfortunate pattern of allowing Canadian Muslims and their institutions to be unfairly represented as threats to society, rather than highlighting what the vast majority of them truly are: a credit to the community and a positive force for good, working tirelessly to provide a good life not only for their families, but also for many others.

Mr. Westrop is known for inciting fear by using false information. In 2017, he was ordered to pay more than $174,000 in damages to Mohamed Ali Harrath, the CEO of a British Muslim TV Channel, after Westrop wrongfully labelled Harrath a “convicted terrorist.” Westrop also has connections to senior people in the right-wing UK Independence Party. UKIP’s political opponents have condemned some of the party’s policies as “full-throttled Islamophobia.”

The MEF’s president, Daniel Pipes, has publicly supported the internment of the Japanese-American community during the Second World War, an abhorrent act for which the U.S. government under President Ronald Reagan apologized.

It has become the norm for anti-Muslim groups to find any excuse possible to target Muslim institutions.

It is ironic that those who falsely claim that Muslims are all about shutting down freedom of expression do not recognize their hypocrisy of trying to suppress the voices of those who wish to freely discuss religious dogmas. One of the many reasons I love this country is that, at its best, it is a beacon of free speech and diversity, whose people will not tolerate oppression of minorities or attempts to demonize others. Our core common values are of tolerance and inclusion — as long as violence is rejected unequivocally and no one is advocating harm against anyone else.

It has become the norm for anti-Muslim groups to find any excuse possible to target Muslim institutions. Not only do these tactics lead to distrust and alienation but they also undermine valuable work for the most vulnerable communities of this world. Sadly, the National Post still gives the fear-mongers a platform.

Our organization is focused on bringing communities and faith groups together to encourage generous support for the poor and disadvantaged and to promote a message of acceptance and diversity. The publication of harmful innuendo that seeks to undermine this work only proves why events like the one we’re holding with Trevor Noah are so necessary.

Source: Reyhana Patel: Don’t believe the smears. Here’s what Islamic Relief Canada is really all about | National Post

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