Anti-Muslim hate crimes are increasing. So why aren’t more being reported?

Noor Fadel, 18, was taking the Vancouver SkyTrain home when she was attacked by a man who he is going to “kill all Muslims.” (Nikithia Martins/Langara College)

Noor Fadel just missed the last bus home. In an attempt to get home early, she had rushed through the end of her eight-hour shift at EverNew, a clothing store in Burnaby, B.C.

Instead she sat on the Vancouver SkyTrain in her bright pink hijab and red pea coat, annoyed over the extra 30 minutes of travel time.

It was 9:55 p.m. and the majority of the seats were filled with passengers. Fadel stayed in a corner of the train compartment, with her headphones on as she spoke with a friend on the phone.

At first she didn’t pay attention to the Caucasian-looking man – almost double her size – who stood in front of her. But as he continued to stare at her, she noticed that his face was beginning to look a lot like the colour of her coat. Fadel paused the conversation with her friend.

“One sec,” she said as pulled her earphones out.

Immediately the man started swearing at her in Arabic and French, while he made animated hand gestures and his spit flew onto her body.

“I’m going to kill you and kill all Muslims,” he yelled at her as she hung up on her friend. “Go back to your country.”

She turned to the other passengers, whose heads were either low at their seats or facing the window. The man’s comments soon turned into suggestive gestures. He attempted to grab her hijab and put her head against his clothed crotch.

Fadel broke away from his grasp and brought out her iPhone to record the incident. Suddenly he slapped her across the face, and she lost grip of her phone.

“Hey, get the fuck off of her!” yelled someone sitting a few seats away.

The bystander sandwiched himself between Fadel and the attacker. It took several minutes before the attacker got off the train at the next station and Fadel’s hands automatically went to her iPhone and dialed 911.

Fadel, an 18-year-old Iraqi Canadian from Richmond, B.C., is one of the thousands of victims of anti-Muslim hate crimes in Canada. Shortly after the attack in Dec. 2017, her story made national headlines while legal enforcement took immediate action to arrest the alleged perpetrator and provide her with support. She considers herself fortunate because her case was reported with such an effective response.

StatsCan suggests the trend of anti-Muslim hate crimes has increased by 253 per cent in the recent decade, while less than 24 per cent were reported to the police. Fadel and other hate crime specialists encourage victims to document and report their attacks to balance the stark undercounts of the true extent of hate crimes in Canada.

The current Criminal Code of Canada does not include a formal definition of a “hate crime.” Legally, criminal offence motivated by hate, bias or prejudice on the basis of race, class, gender expression, sexual orientation, disability or religion are legislated within section 17.8. This section allows a judge to enhance the sentencing of an offence motivated by bias or prejudice they have otherwise given.

However, Barbara Perry, a hate crime specialist and criminology professor from the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, believes these laws should be defined in broader terms to encourage more victims to report their hate crimes.

“The laws should really revolve around an exercise of power of the perpetrator, and it need not necessarily be criminal activity,” says Perry. “Verbal violence for example that doesn’t rise to the level of criminal threatening, but cannot be labeled as ‘hate crimes’ in court is really damaging to individuals and to communities who are so frequently affected by them.”

Perry emphasizes that victims of anti-Muslim hate crimes are less likely to speak out about their attacks because Muslim communities are less trusting of law enforcement from the over-surveillance of them post 9/11. She also notes that the emphasis of Islamist-inspired extremism in the media, and political rhetoric like the recent Quebec Charter of Values which bans niqabs in public settings, further vilifies the Muslim community and increases crimes against them.

Fadel captured this photo of her attacker while being harassed on the Vancouver SkyTrain (Noor Fadel)

Fadel’s alleged attacker was arrested at 1 a.m. on the night of the incident and was later charged with one count of threatening to cause death or bodily harm and one count of assault.

“I was extremely lucky that I had an ally, and the right people got involved following the attack,” says Fadel. Within hours his picture was given to every police department in Vancouver. When Fadel went in to the police station to give a video statement, they provided her with victim support services and safety clauses from a Muslim officer. The officer drove three hours into town just to see her.

“But I am aware most hate crimes – especially around Muslim victims – are not handled the same way.” Fadel is set to give a victim statement in court on May 30th, where she is also prepared to address the issues of unreported hate crimes to the media.

Mark Topping from York Regional Police (YRP) in Ontario, says police units need to build relationships with marginalized communities, like the Muslim community, to make victims feel comfortable enough to report their hate crimes.

“There is a huge change underway for police units in Canada to collect these increasing hate bias incidents – non criminal attacks which otherwise can be difficult to charge,” says Topping, who is also a YRP hate crime unit detective.

He notes that hate crime units in the GTA have evolved in recent years to increase outreach to diverse communities. However, Topping believes legal enforcement resources are not available to older, more homogenous communities in Canada where people commonly hold beliefs of xenophobia.

Fadel knows too well of the difficulty in reporting a hate incident, and can understand why people would avoid law enforcement. In 2012, her family attempted to provide the police with a statement after they witnessed a woman attempting to rip off Fadel’s mother’s hijab and spit on her in White Rock, B.C. According to Fadel, after her mother gave her statement, the police told the family “they (the perpetrator) didn’t touch her, so we can’t do anything about it.”

“After that incident my mother warned us that if anything like that happens, just keep it to yourself,” she says. “And I did that for the longest time because I felt like these ignorant people have their freedom of speech, and as long as they don’t physically touch me, they can say whatever they want and the police won’t get involved.”

However, she notes her recent experiences with the Vancouver police department changed her perception on this. She is now an advocate for reporting hate crimes and hate incidents, and encourages victims to talk about their stories. Fadel encourages these conversations through her social media platform “Speak Up Together” where she supports victims to post about their traumatic experiences and allows for followers to create discussion threads of support.

Many Canadian police departments lack the resources to mitigate hate crimes, and as a result they are not able to annually report the number of hate crimes and incidents that have been reported to them. This is why the NCCM launched a database to report anti-Muslim hate crimes and incidents, according to executive director Ihsaan Gardee. In his mind, Canadian Muslims have a responsibility to report hate crimes, even if it doesn’t not rise to the level of criminality.

“When people aren’t reporting these incidents and legal authorities aren’t taking them seriously, perpetrators feel they have licence to get away with these things,” says Gardee. “There also becomes this absence of information in which the public doesn’t know what is the level of hate out there and targeted communities like Muslims don’t have resources provided to them to address these issues.”

Located in Ottawa, ON, the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) works with local authorities like the Ottawa Police Service, to gather accurate data about hate crimes and hate-incidents to educate the broader community about the prevalence of anti-Muslim actions.

That is exactly what Fadel hopes to achieve with Speak Up Together. Inspired by the thousands of messages she received on Facebook after her attack from victims of hate crimes and hate incidents, Fadel collects and shares their stories on her social media page to show the common threat of these attacks in Canada. Several stories include complaints about being brushed off by legal enforcement and lack of resources for victims. Fadel will also be sending their stories through letters to the Canadian Parliament, because an official governmental office is obligated to give her a response.

“After the incident I knew I was a part of something bigger,” she says. “I’m not glad I got attacked, but if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be able to speak up for those who are forced to stay silent.”

The day after the attack, before large news outlets and social media had caught attention of her story, her sisters took her back onto the SkyTrain.

Her heart was hammering and hands were shaking just being in the same compartment as her attack had taken place. But she wanted to see what she could have done differently as people online had told her she should have sounded an alarm, or gotten off at the next stop.

As Fadel looked at the exact spot where she had sat, with tired eyes and a makeup-less face thinking of what she could have possibly done differently, she realized that nothing would have changed the situation.

“I’m a hijab-wearing Muslim, and unfortunately that day I was going to be attacked, regardless of what I did,” says Fadel. “What matters is the actions I took afterwards – to report it and have discussions about it – because now I am in control of how my case can set a precedent to help others.”