Boufeldja Benabdallah says for the past year and a half, he’s witnessed a rise in vandalism and anti-Muslim rhetoric targeting mosques and cultural centres around Quebec — but he doesn’t understand why.
Still, the spokesperson and co-founder of Quebec City’s Islamic Cultural Centre says his community is responding the best way they can — with vigilance.
For the first time in his memory, his mosque issued a public warning this past week reminding its community of security measures to increase safety in light of recent incidents.
In June, the windows of the Mauricie Islamic Cultural Centre were smashed in an act of vandalism following a surge of online threats and harassment targeting the Muslim community in Trois-Rivières, Que.
A month later, Montreal police launched an investigation into a hate crime outside the Verdun Islamic Centre after an artificial imitation of a severed, blood-covered human hand was left at the door.
Around the same time, two young adults, one man and one woman, were arrested for vandalism at the Centre Culturel Al-Rahma Portneuf, according to Quebec’s provincial police. The incident happened at an Islamic centre and prayer room in Donnacona, Que., less than 50 kilometres southwest of Quebec City.
“We sense a certain nervousness,” said Benabdallah, speaking about the feeling among Muslims he knows in Quebec City.
“We want to reassure our worshippers, reassure the community, that we are aware,” he said.
In outlining the security measures for the community, including ensuring entrances are completely closed and flagging concerning situations or unusual behaviours to a staff member immediately, Benabdallah notes the Quebec City mosque is not trying to be alarmist — just prepared.
It’s the same mosque where, nearly 10 years ago, six men were killed when a gunman opened fire in an attack that also left 19 injured and 17 children fatherless.
“We do not want that to happen again,” said Benabdallah.
Online harassment and hate
Over the past 10 years, Evan Balgord, executive director of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, says the issue of hate toward religious communities has gotten worse.
“I’m not terribly surprised that the Muslim community in Quebec is reporting that they are experiencing higher levels of hate,” he said, noting that statistics on crimes targeting the community are difficult to measure.
“The commonly used measure would be police-reported hate crime statistics. But these statistics are very, very flawed because the police only detect a tiny percentage of incidents,” he said.
It’s not just vandalism that’s concerning for community members, said Benabdallah. It’s also online harassment.
“I was disgusted to the point that I deleted my Facebook account,” he said.
“It is enough that we are cursed at, that we are insulted, that we are threatened.”
While he does not have the resources to know just how many in his community experience this treatment, he suspects it’s a lot.
‘There will always be people who are anti-Islam’
Anti-Islam online rhetoric is something Abdelouaheb ben Abdallah, treasurer and member of the Donnacona Islamic cultural centre, has noticed as well.
“Ever since we’ve opened the cultural centre, we always tried to have good relationships with our neighbours. And up until now, we have,” he said.
The centre, which serves as a mosque and community hub, was hosting a weekend gathering for families and worshippers when the artificial, bloody and severed hand was discovered. Montreal police are investigating to determine if the incident is a hate crime.
The Muslim community in Donnacona is small, with only about 100 members at the Centre Culturel Al-Rahma Portneuf, he said.
Last month, when the centre was vandalized, ben Abdallah was called to the scene. He saw part of the signage on the centre’s doors was ripped off.
Of the two people arrested on scene, only one young man faces charges of mischief and damaging the logo on the door, according to the charge sheet provided by the Crown prosecutor’s office.
Since the incident, ben Abdallah says the cultural centre installed cameras.
“There will always be people who are anti-Islam. But we will live with them,” he said.
Benabdallah, with Quebec City’s mosque, says Donnacona’s Islamic cultural centre is a very young, new community.
He notes that these spaces — cultural centres, mosques or prayer rooms — are “where we come together, we pray, we find calm, serenity and a space for our kids,” he said.
He wants it to stay that way.
“We want to have a continuation of a joie de vivre here in Quebec … we are residents and we love our city, we adore it,” he said.
