An Alberta Muslim group is setting up a new hotline to take reports of Islamophobia from across the province.
The Alberta Muslim Public Affairs Council (AMPAC) is encouraging people who experience an Islamophobic incident to call 1-800-607-3312 and leave a message describing it so staff from the council can follow up.
The Council’s President Faisal Suri said with many new Muslim immigrants arriving in the country and a few isolated incidents they want to make sure people have somewhere to reach out.
“The goal is to make sure that we are providing a support mechanism,” he said.
Suri said staff are going to assess the calls and decide if they should be forwarded to police to investigate. He said Edmonton Police have always been supportive, but some hate crimes directed against Muslims are likely not being addressed.
“EPS has been fantastic in dealing with a lot of these issues that come to light, but a lot of issues are not reported to police,” he said.
Mohyuddin Mirza, a spokesperson for the Muslim community, said they combat Islamophobia in their own way, by being open so people can see negative stereotypes about Muslims are inaccurate.
“We are gaining more ground by going a different route and opening our mosque and holding open houses,” he said.
He said their Mosque has been vandalized in the past, but they don’t believe it was racially motivated.
“Most of the time we found it was not an act of Islamic hatred or Islamophobia, but rather a couple of drunk people walking around throwing bottles.”
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