The Muslim Council of Montreal (MCM) is calling for harsher penalties and zero tolerance for hate crimes in the wake of an attack last week on a Dorval mosque.
“It is indeed distressing that in a pluralistic and multicultural society such as ours, we have religious institutions being targeted again and again in crimes of hate and violence,” Salam Elmenyawi, president of MCM, said on Saturday. “These attacks go against the very Canadian values and principles that we are all committed to and must be condemned in the strongest terms.”
Elmenyawi’s comments follow an overnight break-in last Monday at a mosque at the corner of Neptune Blvd. and Nightingale Ave. in Dorval.
The intruders broke in through a fire exit door and stole a computer and fired steel bolts through a couple of windows.
In 2009, the mosque was vandalized four times, usually with graffiti painted on walls. The last time it was vandalized was in September 2009.
The mosque has about 2,000 members and has been operating since 1994.
Montreal Gazette
