Tue 08 June 2021:
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday labeled as a “terrorist attack” the killing of four members of a Muslim family, who were run down by a man driving a pick-up truck in London, Ontario.
“This killing was no accident. This was a terrorist attack, motivated by hatred, in the heart of one of our communities,” Trudeau said during a speech at the House of Commons.
The Islamophobic attack that killed four people, including a teenage girl, and seriously injured a nine-year-old boy, harkens back to painful memories of a deadly assault on a Quebec mosque more than four years ago.
A 20-year-old London man, Nathaniel Veltman, was arrested and charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder.
“Let me be clear: This was an act of mass murder, perpetrated against Muslims — against Londoners — and rooted in unspeakable hatred,” London Mayor Ed Holder said in a statement, announcing that three days of mourning would be held in the city.
A moment of silence was also observed on Monday in Parliament in the capital, Ottawa, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described the deadly violence as “a terrorist attack motivated by hatred in the heart of one of our communities”.
More recently, a string of verbal and physical assaults against Muslim women have taken place in the province of Alberta, while a mosque caretaker was stabbed to death in the west end of Toronto in September, prompting calls for the government to take far-right violence more seriously.
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