Muslim Council of Montreal condemns attacks against Montreal Jewish Institutions

January 18, 2011
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Montreal, Quebec, January 18th, 2011- The Muslim Council of Montreal (MCM) strongly condemned the recent hate crimes against six Montreal Jewish institutions that were all attacked on the same night. Four synagogues, a school and a daycare had their windows smashed with rocks in the early hours of Monday morning.       

“We are thankful that none were hurt, yet such an orchestrated attack against places of worship and learning is both cowardly and heinous,” stated Salam Elmenyawi, president of MCM. “We call on police authorities to act swiftly to investigate these hate crimes and bring the perpetrators to justice. As we have mentioned in the past, given the frequency of such attacks it is clear that in addition to strengthening the application of current laws, new policies and regulations are needed to effectively eradicate hate, racism and discrimination.”

MCM urges all members of the Montreal community to exercise increased caution and report any suspicious individuals or activity to the authorities immediately. MCM further calls for harsher penalties and zero-tolerance for all hate crimes and religious discrimination and calls on the federal government to initiate a countrywide campaign to raise awareness of hate crimes and racism within Canadian society and to fight these social ills.

MCM also encourages all members of various faith and ethnic communities to fight crimes of hate, fear and suspicion by the strengthening of relations with those of other backgrounds and helping to promote values of respect, peace, tolerance and freedom.

 

CONTACT: 

Salam Elmenyawi

Muslim Council of Montreal (MCM)

Ph.: (514) 748-8427

E-mail: info@muslimcouncil.org

Website: http://www.muslimcouncil.org

 

The Muslim Council of Montreal (MCM) is an umbrella organization representing a number of Islamic institutions in the Montreal region. There are over 225,000 Muslims in Montreal, about 1,000,000 in Canada and 1.9 billion worldwide.

 

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