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Local group to hold town halls to tackle anti-Muslim hate

The series will talk about how anti-Muslim hate crimes are reported and how police investigates and collects data around such incidents, says CMW representative
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A Muslim community leader says heightened emotions in response to the attack on a Muslim family in London has led to the surfacing of many hidden issues for the Muslim community in the Region of Waterloo.

It's difficult to field questions from kids about whether they can go out for a walk or not, said Sarah Shafiq, director of programming and services, Coalition of Muslim Women (CMW) of KW.

"Emotionally, people are feeling vulnerable at this moment," she said, adding the non-Muslim community has been reaching out via emails of solidarity. "People connecting with each other after the vigil."

But there are also emails and calls for support and offers to take action. 

"People are saying we've heard the platitudes from politicians before," Shafiq said.

So the CMW is taking action in the form of a town hall series in collaboration the Waterloo Regional Police Service and members of the Muslim community. The first event is scheduled for July 13. A second and third town hall will be held in October and December, respectively, as well as two more next year. 

"There is a need for engagement that we saw and felt," Shafiq said, adding the coalition had started planning this series last year and had been trying to figure out  logistics with the police.  

The kick off topics is the reporting of anti-Muslim hate crimes and how police investigates collects data, she said.

"Another topic is around reporting domestic violence against Muslim women and police response," Shafiq explained. "We have concern around how these calls are handled and the response. The concern is that the police are not culturally sensitive and not aware of the cultural nuances.

"(The police) have a different outlook and may be coming in with a biased perspectives when responding to their calls," she said. "They may have pre-conceived notions about the situation."

Then there's lack of communication, Shafiq noted. 

"There's a language barrier and there's an inability to facilitate a translation," she said.

Shafiq said police officers are members of the community and society, but they may have some preconceived notions created by the media.

"We've been around for a number of years and have been offering them training against Islamophobia," she said. "We will also be bringing up the idea that the fact that they haven't done any Islamophobia training."

Another topic, Shafiq said, is how to hold police accountable for anti-Muslim hate internally. 

"That's another concern," she said. "At least two (such) cases have been reported to us. But there is definitely a lot of distrust around this so there may be others that haven't reported anything to us."

The hope, Shafiq said, is that there will be some accountability.

"It's almost a process of engaging in a democratic process to get the community involved," she said. "There's definitely a trust deficit so hopefully there's some resolution of that or at least some increase of trust."

At the end of each town hall, Shafiq said, some action items will be brought forward for further steps.