"With the recent spate of hate-motivated attacks on Black Muslim women in hijab, murder as the ultimate result of this violent hatred is not a surprise"
(NOW TORONTO) This week, the federal government hosted a virtual summit on Islamophobia in the wake of last month’s pick-up truck attack in London that left four members of a Pakistani-Muslim family dead and one critically injured. While the summit delved into growing concerns over attacks against mosques and increasing vitriol aimed at the Muslim community online, it’s Muslim women and girls that are bearing the brunt of the rise in hate-motivated abuse, says the Canadian Council of Muslim Women in its submission to the summit.
After each major international conflict such as the first Gulf War, the 9/11 attacks or elections in Canada and the United States, we see a rise in harassment, intimidation and attacks on Canadian Muslims.
In more recent years, each time there is a hate-motivated attack on Muslims, such as the one in Christchurch, New Zealand, the murders at the Islamic Centre of Quebec, the murder outside the IMO mosque in Etobicoke, and the murders in London, Ontario, there is a spike in hate-motivated attacks on Canadian Muslims, particularly assaults and harassment against Black and/or other visibly Muslim women.
Canadians’ views towards Islam and Muslims are reported to be less favourable compared to other faith communities. According to a 2017 Angus Reid Institute study, 46 per cent of Canadians had an unfavourable view of Islam – more than for any other faith tradition. Stereotypes abound of Muslim men as violent terrorists and Muslim women as oppressed, lacking agency and being voiceless, and Islam itself being a violent religion. In the face of all of this, 11 Canadian Muslims have lost their lives since 2017
On the evening of June 6, 2021, Talat Afzaal, her son Salman, her daughter-in-law Madiha, her granddaughter Yumna, and her grandson Fayez were out for a late spring walk in their London, Ontario, neighbourhood when the lives of four members of that beautiful family came to a crashing halt. Nine-year-old Fayez survived after sustaining serious injuries and is now an orphan. This mass murder and the heinous attack was the work of a white supremacist who was filled with hate against Muslims.
Three of the four individuals who were murdered in the London Islamophobic terrorist attack were women. With a spate of hate-motivated attacks on Black Muslim women in hijab in Calgary and Edmonton, and most recently in Hamilton, with ongoing harassment and abuse of visibly Muslim women (e.g., women who dress in clothing culturally identified as “Muslim,” like hijab), murder as the ultimate result of this violent hatred is not a surprise. While we don’t know what Talat, Madiha and Yumna were wearing, they were definitely in the perpetrator’s sight. We know of several families that live steps away from where this attack occurred.
