A video posted on social media showed a Toronto-area school board meeting erupting into rage as some attendees shouted Islamophobic comments and one man ripped pages out of the Qur’an.
The video footage, taken at a Peel District School Board meeting last week when religious accommodation was on the agenda, also captured images of a lone woman demanding the protesters “take your hate elsewhere.”
That woman has been identified as actress and social activist Christina Dixon, who told CTV News Channel on Wednesday that she was shocked by the comments and knew she had to stand up.
“I’ve lived in the Peel Region my whole life,” Dixon said. “I was raised in my home to be loving and accepting of all people of all faiths and I think I carried that into my adult life very naively,” she added.
Dixon said she “never expected to experience something like this in my community, where my child attends school.”
“Love has to be louder than hate,” she added. “Everyone deserves to be treated with respect, and dignity, and love, and those messages have to be so much louder than any hateful message.”
The cellphone video, recorded by Syed Imam and posted on his Facebook page, shows unidentified men yelling “shame!” and “radical Islam is here.”
Warning: Some viewers may find the following video content disturbing:
tldr: please fight bigotry and racism everywhere. Those of you who know me, will know that I try my best to avoid...
Posted by Syed Imam on Thursday, March 23, 2017
