U.S. bill on terror cites last year’s mosque attack
Seeks to prevent terror attacks by right-wingers
WASHINGTON • Legislation in the United States Congress aimed at countering white-supremacist violence cites the killings in a Quebec City mosque as one of several cautionary examples of the threat of domestic terrorism.
The killing of six people in the mosque last year is among just over a half-dozen incidents cited in a bill introduced this month in the House of Representatives, the companion to a bill introduced earlier in the U.S. Senate. The text of the legislation refers to a right-wing extremist who had expressed antiMuslim views being charged with the murder of six people 19 in a shooting rampage at a mosque in Quebec City.
“It was the first-ever mass shooting at a mosque in North America,” says the text of the legislation for Bill 4918, the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2018.
“Prime Minister Trudeau labelled it a terrorist attack.”
Alexandre Bissonnette faces six counts of first-degree murder in connection with the Quebec City attack. His trial is scheduled to begin on March 26.
The bill also mentions a shooting at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin; the Charlottesville white-supremacist rally; a shooting at a Jewish community centre in Kansas; the murder of a black man in New York City; and the mass shooting in a Charleston church.
It cites statistics indicating that since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, far more Americans have been killed by white right-wing terrorists than by radical Muslims. The bill would require the federal government to produce annual reports on domestic terrorism, provide training for local law enforcement to better recognize the threat and steer certain law-enforcement funds toward the issue.
“A recent FBI-Department of Homeland Security joint intelligence bulletin found white supremacist organizations were responsible for 49 homicides and 29 attacks from 2000 to 2016 — more than any other domestic extremist movement,” said Brad Schneider, an Illinois Democrat, who introduced the bill.