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| Great White North |
| Canadian mosque accuses paper of 'extremism' |
| 2008-11-19 |
| A Canadian mosque that came under fire last week for publishing slurs and advocating a conservative lifestyle for Muslims is fighting back against what it said was distortion and discrimination. Mohamed Abou-Bakr, an official at the administration of the Khalid Bin al-Walid Mosque in Toronto told AlArabiya.net that the mosque had sent a complaint to the Canadian newspaper the Toronto Star after an article alleging it publicized slurs against Jews and western societies on its website and warned members against integration. The complaint accused the paper of "distorting" the content of the mosque's website in an attempt to "turn society against the mosque by charging it and the entire Muslim community in Canada of terrorism." "The administration will seek legal advice if we don't get a response to the complaint," said Bakr in an interview. The official accused the paper of "discrimination, extremism, and terrorism." The paper reported Thursday that the website's Questions and Answer section featured racist, anti-Jewish and anti-Western responses that were supposedly reviewed by the mosque's imam. "Is it permissible for women to wear high heeled-shoes?" one reader asked, to which the reply was no. "It involves resembling the Disbelieving Women or the wicked women. It has its origin among the Jewish women," read the explanation The site reportedly went on to say that once (a Muslim woman) becomes introduced to the wickedness of Western ideology and concepts ... (she) becomes fixated on trying to appear and act like her "role models" of corruption. A disclaimer on the website noted that questions and answers did not necessarily reflect the mosque's views, said the Star. But the About Us page declares that the mosque's imam, Bashir Yusuf Shiil, "prepared, approved, and supervised" all questions and answers on the site. |
| Posted by:Fred |