The mosque’s president, Mohamed Yangui, who was not inside when the shooting occurred, said he got frantic calls from people at evening prayers. “You are home”, Couillard said, directing his comments at the province’s Muslim community.
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An attack on a place of worship, Ambrose said, “negates the principles on which Canada was founded”.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superintendent Martin Plante said, “The investigation is a domestic investigation at this time”.
“If the killers meant to set people of different faiths against each other or to divide them, they must not and will not succeed in that”, Steffen Seibert said. “One of the fatally injured brothers was 20 centimeters from me. It took me so long to comprehend it”, El Refai said.
Others said that Bissonnette and his brother were both part of a chess club, and while they knew he hunted, they had no idea what firearms he owned. He appeared in court Monday and was charged with six counts of first-degree murder. “Please unite with our Muslim brothers and sisters”, said a post on the event’s Facebook page.
But Islamophobia is nothing new in Canada, said Qureshi.
“Too often we hear that Canada is a safe haven”, said Walid Abdulaziz, of McMaster Muslims for Peace and Justice.
If he was driven be anti-immigrant or anti-Muslim sentiment, this must be roundly denounced nationwide.
Khaled Belkacemi, 60, was a professor in the School of Agricultural Sciences and Food at Laval University. “Mr. Bissonnette’s online profile and school friendships revealed little interest in extremist politics until last March when French nationalist leader Marine Le Pen visited Quebec City and inspired Mr. Bissonnette to vocal extreme online activism, according to people who clashed with him”.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s director of communications is challenging Fox News over an inaccurate tweet that falsely describes the suspect involved in the Quebec City mosque shooting as “of Moroccan origin”.
“In 2013, police investigated after a mosque in the Saguenay region of Quebec was splattered with what was believed to be pig blood”. “Such senseless violence has no place in Canadian society”, Trudeau said.
“Diversity is our strength, and religious tolerance is a value that we, as Canadians, hold dear”, he added.
Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard condemned the attacks in a tweet and called for solidarity with Muslims in Quebec. Trump called Trudeau to express condolences to the Canadian people and to offer any assistance that might be needed, Trudeau’s office said.
Soufiane, who was also a father to three children, was a fixture among local Muslims in Quebec “because he opened one of the first [Muslim] community businesses here”, Karim Elabed, an imam at a nearby mosque, told the Canadian Press.
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Six people were killed and another 19 were wounded in the Sunday evening shooting.
