Article link: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/09/canada-muslim-group-murder-investigated-hate-motivated-200918214123249.html
On September 12 Mohammad Aslim Zafis was stabbed outside of the International Muslim Organization of Toronto mosque. Zafis volunteered at the mosque as a caretaker and helped ensure the safety of the congregation by maintaining COVID-19 protocol. His murder heightened the anxiety within the Muslim community in Toronto.
Following the city’s police making an arrest, the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), an advocacy group for Canadian Muslims, requested the fatal stabbing be investigated as a hate crime. A police spokesman announced that the 34-year old arrested and charged with first-degree murder does not appear to have had a motive, meaning, there was no personal causation for the murder of Zafis. It is reasonable to believe it was prompted by hate, racism, and religious discrimination.
NCCM’s call for the atrocity to be investigated as a hate crime joins repeatedly raised concerns of the Toronto Muslim community about anti-Muslimism rhetoric and attacks. Local mosques in Toronto have been repeatedly vandalized in the past few months.
These attacks on the Muslim community are attempts of intimidation. Toronto possesses one of Canada’s highest immigrant populations. Unfortunately, the vast amount of immigrants may be the cause of heightened racist assaults. Attacks on places of worship create a sense of vulnerability, mosques are a place for the Muslim community to gather and share their religion.
Ignorance and underlying hate within the community should be addressed by local officials and politicians. This is why the NCCM has requested that the murder of Zafis be investigated as a hate crime. The trend of attacks against the Muslim community within Toronto indicate that racism resulted in the death of Zafis. The fact that assaults against the Muslim community have been occurring creates reasonable questions of why politicians and local officials have not taken a proactive approach to the evident problem. Charging Zalifs’s death as a hate crime will begin the fight against hateful acts against the Muslim community in Toronto.