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https://vancouversun.com/opinion/douglas-todd-b-c-muslims-rattled-by-confrontational-victoria-imam
A militant imam in Victoria who openly calls Jews, Christians, atheists and free-speech advocates “filthy” and “evil” is causing distress among Canadian Muslims, and there are calls for him to be prosecuted for hate speech.
“Younus Kathrada is not taken seriously in our community. Somebody making those claims is not part of Islam. But I guess there is a fringe element that follows him,” says Haroon Khan, a trustee at Vancouver’s Al-Jamia mosque, which belongs to the B.C. Muslim Association and often holds interfaith events.
Kathrada — who leads an organization called Muslim Youth of Victoria that has more than 15,000 Facebook followers — recently referred to the French teacher who was beheaded near Paris for showing cartoons of Muhammad as “a cursed, evil-spirited filthy excuse for a human being.”
The hard-line imam has also appealed to his followers in Victoria and beyond to “destroy the enemies of Islam, and annihilate the heretics and the atheists.” He has told members to not vote for “filthy” and “evil” political candidates who support homosexuality or “Zionism.”
Kathrada has made international headlines before, including last year when he called Christmas a “false festival” and said it is worse for a Muslim to wish someone “Merry Christmas” than it is to engage in adultery or murder.
And he is continuing with his online denunciations.
A Canadian human rights organization that has been tracking Kathrada’s online sermons for years has been pressing for him to be prosecuted for hate speech.
“There must be consequences for years of relentless hate and incitement against Jews and others,” said Michael Mostyn, chief executive of B’nai Brith Canada, a Jewish service and advocacy group.
This fall, Mostyn said, Kathrada delivered an online sermon that referred to Jews as “brothers of monkeys and khanzeer(pigs in Arabic).” He asked God to “tear them apart.”
B’nai Brith, which has warned the RCMP’s hate crimes unit about Kathrada’s video sermons, says Canada’s law-enforcement system has shown in the past few years that it is capable of prosecuting people who advocate hate.
In November, B.C. resident Arthur Topham was sentenced to a 30-day conditional sentence plus three years probation after failing to comply with the terms of his previous conviction in 2015, when a jury concluded he had wilfully promoted hatred against Jews, Mostyn said. Topham had described Jewish places of worship as “synagogues of Satan” and advocated forcibly sterilizing Jews.
The Victoria police department could not be reached for comment about whether Kathrada has been under investigation.
Vancouver human rights lawyer Aleem Harmal, however, said it’s become difficult to take legal action in Canada for hate speech made on the internet.
The Conservative government of Stephen Harper repealed the part of the Human Rights Code that had allowed citizens to launch civil actions against online hate speech, said Harmal. As a result, hate speech on the Web is now treated as a criminal offence, which is much harder to prosecute..
