Montreal university rallies around Muslim students after bomb threat

Three buildings on Concordia University's campus in downtown Montreal were evacuated on Wednesday morning after the school received "a warning letter" from a university chapter of the so-called Council of Conservative Citizens of Canada.

"Now that President Trump is in office south of the border, things have changed," read the letter, which was sent to local media outlets and the university, and included a list of grievances against Muslim students.

The group said it would detonate "small artisanal amateur explosive devices" once daily with the goal of injuring Muslim students.

"If Concordia decides to ban Moslem [sic] activities, we will deactivate the explosives. We hope this is taken seriously," the letter stated.

Students, faculty and staff filed out of the university as police cordoned off the area to conduct a search of the buildings on Wednesday.

The police operation lasted several hours, and the buildings were secured. The investigation has been transferred to the major crimes division, police said. The university also re-opened, and classes resumed at 6pm Wednesday.

"We are shocked that such hateful and violent expression of intolerance has targeted our community," Concordia University President Alan Shepard said in a statement.

"There is no room for such threats in our society, Concordia is a university that embraces diversity as a key element of who we are. We will support each other and make sure we remain a welcoming, inclusive institution for all students, staff and faculty."

The threats coincided with Islamic Awareness Week at Concordia

A 'hate crime'

The threats coincided with Islamic Awareness Week at Concordia, an event organised by the Muslim Students' Association (MSA) that seeks to address misconceptions about Islam and introduce students to the religion.

"The threats represent a disturbing effort to intimidate the campus population, and in particular, to target Concordia's Muslim student population," the MSA said on Facebook.

The group also called on police to investigate the incident as a hate crime.

"The MSA unequivocally condemns all acts of violence and discrimination against any individual or group. No faith community should have to live in fear about the safety and well-being of its community members," it said.

Hate crimes were down overall in Canada between 2012 and 2014, the most recent period for which the data is available. But hate crimes targeting Muslims more than doubled in that same period.

Six Muslim men were shot and killed as they prayed at a Quebec City mosque on January 29 in what Canadian political leaders described as an act of terrorism specifically targeting the Muslim community.

Right-wing extremist groups rallied in front of a downtown Toronto mosque last month, holding signs reading "No to Islam", and on Tuesday, a Toronto Islamic information centre and mosque was damaged in what is being investigated as arson.

Jewish synagogues and community centres have also been the target of hate incidents in recent weeks in Canada and the United States.

The Concordia Student Union said it was "deeply saddened and enraged" by having to respond to what it called an "Islamophobic act of violence".

"We condemn this act of hatred and bigotry targeted against Muslim students and the broader Muslim community. This attempt to instill fear in our community must be named for what is it: an act of terror," the CSU said in a statement.

Hate crimes targeting Muslims more than doubled in that same period

'Systemic racism'

A recent parliamentary motion that seeks to investigate systemic racism in Canada, including Islamophobia, recently ignited a heated debate, with right-wing groups claiming the motion infringed on freedom of speech.

Another anti-Muslim group, the similarly named Canadian Coalition of Concerned Citizens, has organised a countrywide day of protests against the motion next Saturday, March 4. Anti-racist groups are mounting counter-protests.

The Canadian Coalition of Concerned Citizens said that its members had "nothing to do" with the threats at Concordia. But the group regularly posts anti-Muslim statements on its Facebook page, and it also recently shared a video from a meeting of the far-right, pro-Israel group, Jewish Defence League Canada.

In the United States, the Council of Canadian Citizens is a "crudely white supremacist group" that opposes "all efforts to mix the races of mankind", says to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks far-right extremist groups.

The CCC was formed in 1985 out of the ashes of its predecessor, the White Citizens Councils, which were created in the 1950s and 1960s to fight school desegregation in the US South.

Unlike the Ku Klux Klan, the White Citizens Councils "had a veneer of civic respectability, inspiring future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall to refer to it as the 'uptown Klan'", the SPLC said.

According to the CSU, recent events make it clear that Canada is not immune from its own white supremacist movements.

"Too often we hear smug and complacent dismissals of these realities here in Canada as problems that occur exclusively south of border," the CSU said in its statement.

"The sad and shocking events of today and of the past few months in Quebec and Canada have been a stark reminder to those who doubt that white supremacy is rampant in our society."

Jillian Kestler D'Amours is a journalist based in Canada. Follow her on Twitter: @jkdamours