Pakistan-based Muslim group behind attack in Ontario, Canada, journalist says
Canada: An Ontario journalist was beaten and threatened with death this week in what is being called a revenge attack for publishing articles critical of a Pakistan-based Muslim group.
Jawaad Faizi, 35, was pulling into the driveway of his editor’s Mississauga home on Tuesday night when a car pulled up behind him. Mr. Faizi had not yet turned off the engine or taken off his seatbelt when he heard the sound of a blast.
Before he knew what it was, the sound came again-this time it was his front windshield being smashed. Three men began assaulting him with bats and yelling Punjabi profanities at him, he said. When the assailants saw Mr. Faizi call 911, he said, they fled.
Mr. Faizi, who worked as a journalist in Pakistan before coming to Canada in 2002, has been writing columns for the Pakistan Post, a Mississauga newspaper, for more than two years. He believes it is his work there, specifically criticism of a powerful Pakistan-based Muslim group, that resulted in the beating.
“It was Idara Minhaj-ul-Quran,” Mr. Faizi said in an interview yesterday. “[The attackers] were saying, ‘Why you publish news about our leader?’ ”
Minhaj-ul-Quran is a Pakistan-based Muslim group led by a religious scholar named Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri. Mr. Faizi said his own trouble began after Mr. Tahir-ul-Qadri, at a meeting with his followers, pointed to the moon.
Mr. Faizi said that Mr. Tahir-ul-Qadri told his followers he had written the Prophet Mohammed’s name on the surface of the moon. Two weeks ago, his newspaper ran an article –picked up from a Pakistani news outlet — that questioned whether Mr. Tahir-ul-Qadri could have done this. Mr. Faizi wrote a column on the topic.
After publication of these and other articles about Minhaj-ul-Quran that the Pakistan Post printed beginning in January, Mr. Faizi said, he and his editor, Amir Arain, began receiving harassing phone calls.
“They were saying very bad words in Punjabi,” Mr. Arain said. “They were saying, ‘You are not a Muslim, you are supporting Christians.’ ”
Both the editor and his columnist contacted Peel Regional Police about the calls twice, once in January and again on Monday, the day before Mr. Faizi was beaten. A police spokeswoman confirmed that a 911 call came from outside Mr. Arain’s home on Tuesday night, prompting an investigation.
However, she declined to discuss details of that investigation. She was unable to provide more information in the earlier complaints.
One local immigrant journalist said that the attack against Mr. Faizi is part of a climate of media intimidation that prevails in many home countries.
“It wouldn’t surprise me at all,” said Saleem Samad, editor of the Toronto-based Weekly Durdesh. “I’ve also had similar experiences.”
Mr. Samad was forced to leave Bangladesh in 2004 after his writings there provoked a wave of intimidation measures and threats. Since coming to Canada, he said, he received threatening calls after writing about Islamic terrorism, while some of his fellow journalists have received threats after reporting on the Tamil Tigers.
“I know these people, they are very intolerant,” he said. “Even if they are in Canada, their mindset doesn’t change. They’re intolerant about political opinion, religious opinion, you name it.”
Many complaints about such intimidation come from writers and editors working for small ethnic and religious-based publications.
Most journalists volunteer their time and the ones who are paid tend to take on second jobs. Mr. Samad said that he now advises such journalists to find jobs with security companies, both to make a living and for added protection.
Mr. Faizi spent five hours at Trillium Hospital as a result of the attack on Tuesday, suffering injuries to his arms and head. He and his wife kept their children home from school yesterday, and Peel District School Board officials say the board will meet with police to discuss the situation.
“My kids are asking why they didn’t go to school,” Mr. Faizi said. “I told them there was an accident and they have to stay at home. I don’t want to say people attacked me; they will be scared more than me.”
Almost exactly eight years ago, Mr. Faizi said, he had a similar experience in Pakistan after he published photos of a wanted terrorist. The subsequent revenge attack also landed him in a hospital.
Source: OMAR EL AKKAD
Date:4/22/2007
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