Imam thanks Peel school board for gathering pages of Qur'an ripped at meeting

A Brampton Imam took to Facebook to thank the Peel District School Board (PDSB) for gathering the pages of a Qur'an ripped up by a protester at a school board meeting last Wednesday.

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"Rather than just disposing it, [the PDSB] put it in a safe place where it couldn't be further disrespected and reached out to the imams to help them understand what to do with it," wrote Omar Sudebar, the imam at the Brampton Makki Masjid.​

The book was torn up as part of a protest staged by several people at the meeting in response to a 20-year-old policy allowing Muslim students space to pray at school on Fridays.

Video taken of the meeting, which was later cleared by police, shows attendees yelling comments such as "Islam is not a religion!" and "protect our children."  

Brian Woodland, director of communications for the Peel board, told CBC Toronto that trustees were "very much shaken" by what happened.

The next day, the board sent two messages to the Muslim community, one to "all of the imams to say that we were horrified by what happened and would not stand for it," and a second specifically asking what the board should do with the destroyed Qur'an. 

As a result, Sudebar arranged to pick it up, and said in his post that he plans to bury it at an undisclosed location. 

All Ontario schools are required to provide religious accommodation for students, according to the Ontario Human Rights Code.