AhlulBayt News Agency

source : Metro News
Monday

4 April 2016

1:17:14 PM
745069

Edmonton police in Canada welcomes new Islamophobia hotline

Edmonton Police are welcoming a new hotline for reporting Islamophobia and are hopeful it will help them build trust in the community.

Edmonton Police are welcoming a new hotline for reporting Islamophobia and are hopeful it will help them build trust in the community.

The Alberta Muslim Public Affairs Council in Canada announced the new hotline on Wednesday, encouraging people to call in with reports of discrimination or harassment against Muslims.

EPS Insp. Dan Jones said he welcomes the idea as another opportunity to connect with the community.

“When these things happen we need people to call the police, so if they are going to do this hotline it’s just another pathway for this to get to us,” he said. “Building police legitimacy in these communities is very important.”

Jones said his only concern is ensuring that emergency situations are still reported directly to police, but he said the police is looking to work with the council to address any of those possible concerns.

He said the police hate crimes unit hasn’t seen any increases in reports, but they are hearing about incidents and he does worry people are simply not calling police.

“Anecdotally, we are hearing about them, but we are not seeing a massive spike in reporting.”

He said police want to reach out to all marginalized communities and be a presence that gives people comfort.



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