Student wants tough action on anti-Muslim graffiti
Suspended sentence for mischief after incidents of Islamic-themed graffiti
A University of Windsor student is seeking an audience with Ontario’s attorney general after a vandal he thinks should have been charged with an anti-Muslim hate crime was allowed to plead guilty to mischief this week.
“I’m disappointed,” Ahmed Khalifa said Thursday after learning of the sentence handed down to George Andrew Donaldson.
Donaldson, 50, was handed a suspended sentence with probation. If he stays out of trouble for the next year, Donaldson will have no further penalty.
But he must pay a mandatory $400 surcharge to the province that goes into a fund for programs that help victims of crime.
Donaldson was caught on camera Dec. 13 spray-painting messages on the front door of the Windsor Star’s Ouellette Avenue office. He scrawled similar messages at the Windsor Public Library, CBC Radio and on a bus shelter at Ouellette Avenue and Wyandotte Street.
Windsor police at first arrested the wrong man, but eventually caught Donaldson, charging him with 16 mischief-related counts. He pleaded guilty Tuesday to four.
Donaldson’s messages, including “#Sharia Now ” and “Islam executes drug dealers” suggest the vandalism had been committed by a person who is Muslim.
Khalifa penned a letter to Windsor Police Chief Al Frederick signed by 120 supporters calling for Donaldson to be charged with a hate crime.
Khalifa said police referred him to the local Crown attorney’s office which asked him to again put his concerns in writing. Donaldson, who represented himself in court, pleaded guilty and disposed of his case quickly before Khalifa got the chance.
Khalifa said he just wants to know if a hate crime charge had been considered by the local Crown attorney’s office. “Maybe they have a genuine reason for dealing with this the way they did, but I’m disappointed I haven’t been given an answer,” Khalifa said.
Khalifa said he consulted law professors and lawyers in the community. All agreed Donaldson’s messages fit the definition of a hate crime.
Under the Criminal Code of Canada, public incitement of hatred is defined as “communicating statements in any public place (that) incite hatred against any identifiable group.”
“Why have those provisions if you’re not going to use them?” Khalifa said.
Messages similar to the ones Donaldson scrawled downtown — the same Islamic themes, similar red paint and in similar lettering — had been surfacing on the riverfront and on the city’s west end prior to Donaldson’s arrest. No one has been charged in relation to those incidents.
Local Muslims and others who lived in the areas called the graffiti disconcerting.
Khalifa said terming Donaldson’s acts mischief misrepresents the effect it had on the Windsor community. “People in the community were concerned and they didn’t feel safe,” he said.
He has reported the incidents to the National Council of Canadian Muslims, a human rights and civil liberties advocacy group which keeps track of such cases.