Last night, two masked gunmen entered a Quebec mosque during evening prayers and opened fire, killing six.
Two men were arrested after six people were killed and eight were wounded in a shooting inside a mosque during evening prayers Sunday, in what Quebec’s premier described as a “murderous act directed at a specific community.”
Thirty-nine people escaped the Centre Culturel Islamique de Québec (Islamic cultural centre of Quebec) in the Sainte-Foy neighbourhood without injuries, according to Quebec provincial police Sgt. Christine Coulombe.
Coulombe said the people who died ranged in age from 35 to 70. Some of the wounded were in critical condition.
One of the men was arrested near l’île d’Orléans, five kilometres from downtown Quebec City, following a police chase of the SUV he was driving.
Police called special technicians to where the chase ended, because they believed explosives may have been inside the SUV. Radio-Canada, CBC’s French-language service, reported a gun was found inside the vehicle.
Police are investigating whether the two men attended Laval University, a source close to the investigation told Radio-Canada. A search is underway at a home in Sainte-Foy.
This same mosque was targeted during Ramadan with a delivery of a pig’s severed head the summer prior.
I’ll post updates after the local vigil tonight.
It’s unclear if there were two perpetrators or not. So far one has been arrested and charged, the other was named as a witness and not a suspect.
At least one Quebec mosque shooter is a white supremacist. And he has been charged with all six murders and five additional attempted murders. Still no clarification on the initial reports of two gunmen.
-Shiv
At least Trudeau didn’t mince words and straight out called it terrorism.
My heart goes out to the families and friends. I cannot imagine what it must be like to be muslim in the West now.
I, too, applaud Trudeau for calling it what it was (and I do not applaud him for very much!). The Quebec Premier was similarly outspoken.
I see that the identity of the suspects has just been released on CBC News. Unfortunately, some people are already trying to ascribe a motive to this attack, based on nothing concrete; such speculation is not helpful.
@quotetheunquote
I’m sure the speculation is positively bungled. Two perps–one with a Middle Eastern name, sure, but the other unambiguously Quebecois.
Some twitters are saying only the Quebecois guy is a suspect, the other guy is a witness.
chigau: The latest I’ve seen is that it is not known which is the suspect.
That stream says 18 minutes ago that the white guy is the suspect.
Remember how the police arrested the first “conceivably Muslim looking guy” after the Berlin attack and gave the actual terrorist a nice 24 hours headstart….
Some further info:
@Giliell #6: That has actually enraged me. For months, several states have outspoken to use emergency measures after such attacks, and yet, the actual has not only left for France, but was also seen at the mosque he frequented, which already was under surveillance for radical ties.
The volume and intensity of such attacks regardless of motive parallel those of the years following WWI and the 1930s. I’ve just had a discussion today about the validity of religious political parties, and how Western democracies try to maintain a compromise, where neither side espouses ideas, that lead to the denigration or destruction of any group of people.
From the BBC:
“We condemn this attack in the strongest possible terms,” said White House spokesman Sean Spicer. […] “It’s a terrible reminder of why we must remain vigilant and why the president is taking steps to be pro-active, rather than reactive when it comes to our nation’s safety and security.”
A non-Muslim native attacks a Muslim minority, and the Trump House claims it as justification for going after Muslim minorities. In true authoritarian fashion, everything bad is the enemy’s fault, especially crimes committed against the enemy.
EveryZig
Therefore all acts of resistance actually help Trump, it’s all your fault!*
*May contain bitter cynism
@Giliell
In some sense yes. Acts of resistance can do MORE good than harm and be can necessary in many cases, but no matter how justified they will always have the cost of feeding into right-wing propaganda. The republican party has a long history of starting trouble then pinning the blame elsewhere, and I suspect that some of Trump’s seemingly mindless antics are calculated moves in that direction (if by his advisors if not Trump himself). For example, I suspect that the crowd size thing was deliberately picking a fight with the press just so Trump can say the press is always fighting him. Never mind the actual facts or circumstances, the existence of conflict in itself furthers the sense of paranoid subjectivity that Trump excels in harnessingchgt
Typo. I meant to say:
harnessing, a version of “Teach the Controversy” writ large.
Canada’s history of terrorism (the FLQ, Squamish Five, L’eCole Polytechnique) and other home-grown fanatics like Markuze meant it didn’t come as a shock to see a white face like Bissonnette was to blame. Now we get to be ashamed of our own Breivik.
The US media have made themselves a laughingstock to the world, but will anyone within the US notice or hear that the shooter was white? Will the story quickly die and be rewritten? Do they already believe their chocolate rations went up to 15g from 25g?