{"id":23304,"date":"2019-03-21T18:03:04","date_gmt":"2019-03-21T22:03:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23304"},"modified":"2019-03-28T12:57:27","modified_gmt":"2019-03-28T16:57:27","slug":"community-vigil-leads-to-call-to-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/community-vigil-leads-to-call-to-action\/","title":{"rendered":"Community vigil leads to call to action"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When a man enters a\nmosque armed with weapons and targeting Muslim men and women in prayer, it is\nan attack not just on the Muslim community, but an attack on all peaceful\npeople.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was the message\ndelivered by Aurora Imam Refaat Mohamed to nearly 200 people filling the\ngymnasium at the Aurora Family Leisure Complex on Sunday evening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They represented all\nfaiths and all walks of life, but they came together with a single purpose: to\nhold vigil for more than 50 members of the Muslim faith killed in shootings at\ntwo Christchurch, New Zealand mosques last week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imam Mohamed, leader\nof the Albrar Muslim Association on Edward Street, was joined at the vigil by\nleaders of the Jewish and Hindu faiths, Councillors Wendy Gaertner and Rachel\nGilliland, former MPP Chris Ballard and representatives from other local\nleaders, where he shared a call to action in the face of tragedy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the end, we are\nall brothers and sisters,\u201d he told the crowd. \u201cThis terrible, terrible\nterrorist attack, which is finally called as it is, a terrorist attack, which\nwas well-planned by these attackers to have themselves filmed during this\nheinous crime\u2026 was a terrorist attack. As we have witnessed in the aftermath of\nthe [Quebec City-area mosque shooting] two years ago, when we counted six\nbrothers who lost their life in a similar attack, we find these attacks in\nplaces of worship are especially sinister and represent an attack against an\nentire community\u2019s consciousness. He\u2019s targeting all of us. He\u2019s not targeting Muslims;\nhe\u2019s targeting all peaceful people who are going to a place of worship.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking directly to\nthe community leaders in attendance, including members of the York Regional\nPolice, Imam Mohamed asked officials to \u201copen an eye\u201d to hate and be conscious\nof people who \u201care actually fulfilling their agenda of killing innocent people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe extremism does\nnot belong to any certain faith, it belongs to anyone at any time,\u201d he\ncontinued. \u201cWhite supremacists are now declaring themselves and openly saying\n<\/p>\n\n\n

[on social media]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

their attacks and we urge our officers, authorities,\nintelligence and security [to] look into the social media of those individuals\nwho are actually spreading hate and planning\u2026and saying what they are going to\ndo (online) ahead of time.\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe urge our\nauthorities, our officials, our politicians to put really strong laws to stop\nsuch crimes from happening again in the future. Please make firm laws [against]\nanyone who is spreading hate or attacking innocent people at any time,\nanywhere. This is a request from us, as a Muslim community, so we don\u2019t see\nthis happening to any of us anytime soon or later.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was also a\nmessage of defiance, one of keeping Mosque doors open to anyone at any time,\nfor people to come, gather and pray. There are many people in this community,\nhe said, who might not be aware of the Albrar Muslim Association, the prayers\nthat take place behind their Edward Street doors, and stepping through would\nallow for an exchange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are people\npraying, reading the Holy Koran, learning about their faith and learning the\nArabic language,\u201d he said, noting the community has grown from Friday prayers\nof about 10 people in the basement of a local store, to a thriving Mosque of\nnearly 200 people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe tell our brothers\nand sisters we\u2019re not scared and the Muslim community is not scared to go to a\nmosque, and the kids are not scared for one reason: we live in Canada, which is\na blessing from God to us that we are selected to live in such a\nbeautiful Region. We are proud that York Region is one of the safest in the\nwhole world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not good believers at all if we\ndon\u2019t have our neighbours next to us, having all peace and tranquility dealing\nwith us. That is our faith and our Koran. Allah Almighty said whoever kills one\nsingle man, he is as if he has killed all of humanity. Whoever saves one\nperson\u2026he is as if he has saved all of that humanity: the doctor, the brother,\nthe sister, whenever you have a chance to defend anyone you defend them and God\nwill reward you definitely, tremendously, in this world and the world to come.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These words were echoed by Peter Ginsburg,\nrepresenting the Jewish community and Newmarket\u2019s Or Hadash. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you took a look at press coverage from\naround the world you\u2019re going to realise something: the white supremacists have\nlost; they just don\u2019t know it yet,\u201d he said. \u201cAll across Canada, all across the\nworld, ceremonies like this one are being held in every synagogue, in every\nmosque, in every church, in every temple. In Australia, a group of surfers held\na paddle-out ceremony. They go over to the ocean, they form a circle, they\nobserve a minute of silence, and they place flowers in the water to honour the\nvictims of the mosque shootings. In New Zealand, a biker gang of Maori show up\nand perform a Haka dance, a warrior\u2019s dance, which is their way of honouring\nthe victims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have surfers and bikers on our side, I don\u2019t know what the other\nguys have got. You are surrounded by people who care about you and you have\nlots of friends. Don\u2019t be afraid to ask for help and don\u2019t be afraid to tell us\nwhat kind of help you need.\u201d<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When a man enters a mosque armed with weapons and targeting Muslim men and women in prayer, it is an attack not just on the Muslim community, but an attack on all peaceful people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2019-03-21-01.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-63S","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 11:34:21","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}