Ottawa (Canada), June 9: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Tuesday that the hit-and-run attack killing four members of a Muslim family in London of Canada's Ontario province on Sunday was a terrorist assault motivated by religious hatred.
"This killing was no accident. This was a terrorist attack," Trudeau said in a speech in the House of Commons, condemning the "brutal, cowardly and brazen" attack, which is against the family in walk, leaving four people dead and one seriously in London.
Police said the driver, a 20-year-old man, intentionally targeted the victims "because of their Islamic faith." He is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder in connection with his attack.
Trudeau said the attack was not a one-off, citing numerous eruptions of anti-Muslim violence in recent years that have claimed lives, revealing a troubling streak of Islamophobia in Canada.
"They were all targeted because of their Muslim faith. This is happening here, in Canada, and it has to stop," he said.
Trudeau said Canadians must come together to fight an "ugly, pervasive trend" of anti-Muslim violence that threatens the security of Canadian society.
He pointed out that such attacks are fuelled by "toxic rhetoric and discrimination" and online "extremism" that has been allowed to fester, vowing to redouble the government's efforts to dismantle "far-right hate groups" that encourage such violent activity that continue to threaten public safety.
Hate crimes have been on the rise during Trudeau's tenure. The number of police-reported hate crimes is up 30 percent since 2014. Many of the 2,000 hate crimes documented each year are related to religious persecution, according to data from Statistics Canada.
Canada's New Democratic Party Leader Jagmeet Singh said on Tuesday afternoon in the House of Commons that Canada must confront the pervasive racism that led to a Muslim family being "mauled in the streets" in Ontario.
Source: Xinhua
