The attack on the Great Mosque of Quebec commemorated in Montreal

Dominick Gravel/QMI Agency

Sarah Daoust-Braun

Monday, January 29, 2018 14:54

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Monday, January 29, 2018 14:54

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A commemoration ceremony in tribute to the victims and injured of the bombing in the Great Mosque of Quebec was held Monday at the city hall of Montreal, a year after the tragedy.

About 200 Montrealers, politicians and representatives of religious and community organizations gathered solemnly in the lobby of the city hall and filed messages to the families of the victims, who still suffer from the loss of their loved ones.

The mayor of Montreal’s Valerie Plante spearheaded the event in collaboration with the national Council of canadian muslims. To honor the memory of those dead and injured, the latter has decided to not deliver the speech and instead recited a poem from the book The Prophet by Khalil Gibran with the leader of the opposition Lionel Perez, the chairman of the executive committee Benoit Dorais, and the president of the municipal council Cathy Wong.

Valerie Plant was shared at a press briefing before the ceremony, to be still shaken by the sad events. “I am a Montrealer and a mom who had to tell his children last year what happened. We do not have the words to explain this tragedy, this despicable act, which has been done by an individual. “

On January 29, 2017, a man-made interruption during the prayer at the Great Mosque of Quebec and made a fire upon the faithful, killing at passage six men and injuring eight people. Alexandre Bissonnette has been accused of six murders premeditated and five attempted murders.

The gathering was also an opportunity to launch an appeal to elected officials present to continue the fight against discrimination and islamophobia. “We should not put our heads in the sand, it is necessary to work, it needs to meet the people and find where the shoe pinches. It is safe to say that systemic discrimination exists, ” said the co-spokesperson of Québec solidaire, Manon Massé.

Madhi Tirkauri, who attended the ceremony with his wife Sasal Huriye-Ali, and their baby Jenna, recalled that quebec society has shown great compassion and an outpouring of solidarity with the muslim community since the tragedy.

“It is important to ensure that this event remains not an event of past history, but continues to resonate in us, to lead us to a brighter future for the entire society “, he stressed.

Other commemorations

After the commemoration at city hall, the mayor took the direction of the capital city of québec to attend the commemoration in the parking lot of the church of Sainte-Foy, located in the vicinity of the Great Mosque of Quebec.

She had participated the day before at a commemoration at the place de la Gare Jean-Talon in the company of a hundred people at the invitation of the Forum, canadian muslim.

Other rallies will also take place on a Monday in a few boroughs of montreal, among others in Villeray, Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, Verdun and Montréal-Nord, as well as elsewhere in Quebec.