Salaam friends,

On Saturday, after dhuhr, I took in a sharp breath as Omar Khamissa, our Community Engagement Officer, called me.  

We all know that feeling – that feeling of getting a call you weren’t expecting, and the fear about the bad news waiting on the other side. 

And as I feared – as we all feared – that call came. 

We had been contacted by a downtown Toronto mosque. The mosque had been emailed on Saturday at 3 am.  

I am going to reproduce the email below because it was what we have been warning our community about – and what you have been telling us are your concerns for the future. I apologize for the violent content in advance [censored for distribution], but we cannot look away and ignore what was sent to our brothers and sisters, just weeks after our brother Mohamed Aslim-Zafis was slain by an alleged neo-Nazi killer at the doorstep of the IMO mosque.

 
After hearing Omar tell me about the threat, I hung up the phone. 

And then picked it right back up again.  

And the NCCM team has been mobilizing ever since.  

As Canadians, we refuse to stand by as white supremacists, neo-Nazi and xenophobic groups threaten us with impunity. We will not have another Quebec City massacre on our hands. We will not allow our anger, hurt and fear lull us into apathy. We are working towards action.

I’m writing to you today to tell you that we are being heard and we can’t stop now.  

We called on all levels of government to commit not to words – but to action on dismantling these xenophobic, white supremacist, and neo-Nazi Islamophobic groups. 

And it’s because of your support – the call is being made and echoed across Canada. The Prime Minister, the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, and the leader of the NDP have all indicated that they stand with us in the need for action on dismantling white supremacist organizations.  
We worked night and day to make sure that the world doesn’t look away, and it is working. 
Now, we need to take that promise of action and make sure that this promise is kept. We need legislative changes that ban white supremacist organizations from operating in Canada. At NCCM, our team is lobbying the government around the clock to create a national action plan to dismantle white supremacist organizations, and we need your help to keep going. 

The two best ways for you to help right now are:
  1. Become a monthly donor to keep this work alive month over month. I’m asking you today to commit to donating $20 a month. I need you to do this now more than ever - and according to the Canadian Council of Imams, NCCM is zakat-eligible.
  2. To join our push for a national action plan to dismantle these white supremacist groups, send an email to Omar Khamissa at okhamissa@nccm.ca to be added onto our phone list to call an MP (which will take you five minutes) sometime in the next week.

We want to keep fighting the good fight, in your corner, and we need your help to do it. 

We want to make sure that no one has to pick up their phone again to hear of a mosque attack or threats ever again. 

So we need you to pick up yours.

Wasalam,

Mustafa Farooq
CEO of the National Council of Canadian Muslims