Hate charges welcomed after attack on student, but Muslim groups call for more action in schools

Muslim advocacy groups in Ottawa who supported a 15-year-old Syrian student after an alleged hate-motivated attack against him last month say they're pleased charges were laid but that more needs to be done in schools to support Muslim youths.

Earlier this week, Ottawa police announced six young people had been charged with "multiple hate-motivated offences" after an assault near Gloucester High School on Sept. 8.

The youths were not identified. The charges against them include robbery, conspiracy to commit an indictable offence and intimidation by violence, police said.

A petition had earlier sprung up in response to a video of the incident on social media showing the student being pushed to the ground and kicked by a number of teens.

According to a spokesperson for the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, the charges police laid are linked to the assault depicted in that video. The board is conducting its own investigation, and worked closely with police.

The board confirmed Wednesday that the charged youths do not attend Gloucester, but the victim did.

'He was being asked whether he was an Arab'

The National Council of Canadian Muslims, Ottawa Youth Muslim Association and the United Muslim Organizations of Ottawa-Gatineau said the victim is a 15-year-old orphaned Syrian-Canadian boy who they've been supporting since the incident.

The groups said he had only recently moved to Ottawa, and that he moved out of the city after the incident.

"During the attack he was threatened by one of the perpetrators, so he was very scared until these charges were laid," said Karine Devost, senior legal counsel for the National Council of Canadian Muslims.

Hatred is not always so overt, so obvious, but just because it's not as violent doesn't mean it doesn't affect us.- Tabarak Al-Delaimi, co-founder of Ottawa Muslim Youth Association

When the video first surfaced, Ottawa police said its robbery unit was investigating and that its bias and hate crime unit reviewed the video but didn't find evidence "to suggest that this was a hate-motivated incident."

"He was being asked whether he was an Arab, where he was from, whether he was a Muslim," Devost said, explaining what the boy told her.

The council and other groups pushed police to investigate the incident as hate-motivated, and were pleased to see charges laid.

"We feel that it's a step in the right direction for any community that is being targeted," she said.

Schools need to do more, advocate says 

But the advocacy groups think schools need to do more. 

"Hate is something that Muslim youth have to face in schools on a daily basis," said Tabarak Al-Delaimi, co-founder of the Ottawa Muslim Youth Association.

She said she experienced discrimination in school from a young age, which got worse when she started wearing a hijab. 

"It's not always in the form of such brutal violence. Sometimes it's stares, sometimes it's demeaning comments, sometimes it's students being told that they're not able to go pray their mandatory prayers."

Rarely, in her experience, has the discrimination escalated to physical violence, Al-Delaimi said.

"Hatred is not always so overt, so obvious, but just because it's not as violent doesn't mean it doesn't affect us. It still needs to be remedied. It still needs to be addressed within our schools, within our societies," Al-Delaimi said.

"I think there needs to be more consultations with Muslim youth, with Muslim organizations that can provide the school board and the school with the necessary advice and suggestions that can help everyone feel more safe in their environment, because nobody deserves to go to school with the fear that [they] might be attacked at any moment."