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Mounties 4, Muslims 4
Some of Canada's foremost counterterrorism cops secretly took on a group of young Muslims yesterday, in a pitched contest in downtown Toronto. The result? A 4-4 tie. Soccer matches, not typically seen as a means of advancing national security, can apparently help get the ball rolling. At least, that sensibility led a group of Mounties and Muslim youth to a downtown stadium yesterday, where an hour spent as soccer adversaries was followed by a friendly question-and-answer session. Many Mounties and Muslims alike feel they get bad publicity these days. Playing soccer was seen as a chance to bypass perception and the press, and explain themselves to one another directly. "It helped put into perspective that it's not an us-versus-them mentality," explained Muhammad Robert Heft, the Muslim side's goalie and the event's organizer. "You're dealing with a person now, not an idea." Unfortunately, a Globe and Mail reporter and photographer were turned away from the game, partly due to national-security reasons. When the journalists showed up uninvited, some officers were concerned about their faces turning up in the newspaper. Other Mounties apologized, saying Ottawa headquarters had not cleared the match as a media event. The Muslims were more media-friendly, speaking outside the stadium afterward. The outspoken Mr. Heft, a Muslim convert recognizable in his trademark white turban, runs a Toronto Islamic centre known as P4E. An avowed fundamentalist, but one who is deeply critical of terrorism, he spent months organizing the match. He said his time paid off, even just to see smiling cops running around with young Muslim men. He described the Mounties as good sportsmen, even if he found them pretty lax about enforcement. "We didn't even have a referee in the game," he said. "... A couple of times, our guys were offside and they [the Mounties] let them go." Familiar, polarizing topics were touched on during the post-match discussion at centre circle - such as the cases involving Maher Arar, Omar Khadr, and the 2006 roundup of 18 Toronto-area Muslims, mostly young, on terrorism charges. The Mounties, including some officers who worked on these very cases, said they couldn't say much about matters before judges. After the match, Mostafa Hashamm, a bearded 19-year-old whose wife wears a veil, said he is concerned about unwarranted police scrutiny just about "every time I drive." But he found the Mounties to be "more open than I thought," and he said they mostly talked about "how they can get rid of youth paranoia." At the conclusion of the event, Mr. Heft, the organizer, thanked the Mounties for their time. Then, he said, he urged them to convert to Islam. Posted by: ryuge 2008-12-03 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=256485 |