SHAFAQNA – A Muslim man says Islamophobic posters circulated over the weekend in a north-east Edmonton neighbourhood make minorities feel unsafe.
Explicit posters calling for a ban of Islam, which are too graphic and hateful for Metro to share, were circulated in the Evansdale area over the weekend.
“It does create a certain sense of fear because there’s a lot of ignorance out there and there’s a lot of racism,” said Noureddin Zaamout, a graduate student at the University of Alberta. “It makes you feel like you’re part of a different world.”
It is the third time in October that Islamophobic posters have popped up in Edmonton, said Aurangzeb Qureshi, vice-president of communications for the Alberta Muslim Public Affairs Council.
Edmonton police said they are investigating both the Evansdale posters and Islamophobic flyers distributed in the Calder area earlier this month.
Qureshi said the city and law enforcement need to take more steps to deter people from circulating the posters, which can promote violence against Muslims.
“That’s where the line needs to be drawn and that’s what law enforcement needs to understand – that you know what, a crime may not have been permitted per se, but this kind of stuff can lead to a crime.”
The poster, which calls all Muslim men pedophiles, has a URL link at the bottom to an anti-Muslim group called “Stop Islamization of the World.”
An antidote to the rising tide of bigotry is increasing education and cultural dialogue, said Zaamout.
“Fear and hatred emerges out of ignorance,” he said. “Promoting through education how diversity makes us unique as Canadians and what it means for us as Canadians, I think these are very important things to keep in mind.”