Montreal, Quebec, April 5, 2007- The Muslim Council of Montreal (MCM) extends its sympathy and concern to Montreal’s Jewish community, following the recent attack on the Ben Weider Jewish Community Centre, in Côte-des-Neiges.
“It is deplorable and cowardly that such a despicable attack occurred on the celebration of Passover,” stated Salam Elmenyawi, president of MCM. “We all have a responsibility to come together against those who spread hate and racism within our society.”
MCM reiterates its demands for our governments to strengthen the application of current laws and also to introduce new policies to effectively fight hate, racism and discrimination in our society.
“There must be absolutely no tolerance for such hateful crimes. This is a criminal act of hate not just on one centre, but on the values of respect, peace and tolerance that we all hold dear,” Elmenyawi said. “In past few years we have seen far too many attacks on religiously identifiable institutions, clearly the government must do more to combat this serious problem.”
MCM calls for harsher penalties and zero-tolerance for all hate crimes and religious discrimination. MCM further calls on the Montreal police department to investigate this attack as a hate crime and move swiftly to establish a special hate-crimes unit to investigate such crimes.
