Police investigate anti-Muslim protest
Hate crimes unit looking into report of demonstration outside Toronto mosque
Toronto police say they’re investigating a complaint about a small anti-Muslim protest held outside a city mosque last week.
Const. Jenifferjit Sidhu says police received a complaint this week about the incident, which took place last Friday.
She says the force’s hate crimes unit is involved in the investigation.
The demonstration, reportedly consisting of about a dozen participants, took place outside the Masjid Toronto.
Images on social media showed protesters carrying signs with anti-Muslim slogans as worshippers were entering the mosque.
Sidhu says police also received a second different complaint involving the mosque this week that police are looking into, but she could not provide details on the allegations involved.
The Muslim Association of Canada, which runs the mosque, says it recently learned that “an inappropriate supplication that was offensive to those of Jewish faith” was made at the mosque last summer.
The association has apologized for the incident and says it condemns all forms of hate and racism toward any faith group.
A spokesperson says the incident involved a junior employee at the mosque who made the supplication in Arabic.
On the issue of the protest, the association has said it is thankful to Canadians who expressed their support for the mosque.
The two police investigations involving the mosque come as Parliament grapples with controversy around an anti-Islamophobia motion from a Liberal MP.
Conservative MPs have argued that the Liberal motion singles out one religious group over others and could potentially curtail Canadians’ freedom to criticize any aspect of Islam because it doesn’t define the term Islamophobia.