Victoria Muslims meet to talk about massacre
About 150 people crowded the AlIman mosque in Victoria Sunday to discuss their feelings about last week’s massacre of Muslims in New Zealand.
Mustafa Abousaleh, secretary of the Quadra Street mosque, said the congregation wanted to talk about what they could or should be doing after the Friday shooting that killed 50.
In particular, Abousaleh said people want to discuss how to talk with their children about the news.
“How can we converse with our children about it?” he said. “We are so worked up about it ourselves, we worry that our children might be getting freaked out for their own lives.”
Offering support at the event were Victoria Police Chief Del Manak and Sharmake Dubow, a mosque member and Victoria municipal councillor.
Abousaleh said the mosque is grateful for the support.
“It’s basically a kind of workshop on how to have a safe community and a safe mosque,” he said.
On Friday in Christchurch, New Zealand, an Australian gunman attacked two mosques.
Fifty people were killed and at least the same number were injured.
Brenton Harrison Tarrant, a 28year-old Australian with a history of using white-supremacist websites, has been arrested.
The gunman strapped a camera to his head and live-streamed his shootings over the internet before he was stopped and arrested.
Abousaleh said he watched part of the footage and found the way the whole thing appeared to resemble a video game chilling.
He now wonders how many thousands of people have watched that footage and how many more copied it before technology companies removed it from the internet.
“We should never allow this sort of thing to become normalized,” said Abousaleh.
During Sunday’s discussion, he said the congregation wanted to discuss this random, murderous violence and hate as a global phenomenon, one where all faiths are involved as victims or implicated as perpetrators.
Abousaleh said since news broke of the Christchurch shootings, the mosque in Victoria has been deluged with expressions of support, sympathy and compassion.
The front of the mosque on Sunday was still decorated with bouquets of flowers, cards and notes deposited in sympathy.
“We definitely have got a lot of support in Victoria,” said Abousaleh. “We understand that we are very safe in Victoria.”