You could almost hear an audible sigh of relief at Ryerson University last week after the arrest of Kevin Haas.
Haas, 21, was arrested for allegedly disseminating hate literature and issuing death threats to the presidents of both the Muslim Students’ Association (MSA) and the Arab Students’ Association (ASA). The MSA, ASA, the Jewish student group Hillel, campus security and the administration had all been on alert since the summer, when the crimes were first committed.
The incidents began last June when the words “Die Muslim Die” and a Star of David were spray-painted on the wall of Ryerson’s multifaith center, which Ryerson Muslim students use as a centre for prayer. The initial incident stunned the Muslim community.
“Ryerson is not the kind of place where these things happen”, said Nauman Abbasi, the vice-president of Ryerson’s MSA. “Ryerson is a great community of different religions and cultures in the heart of the most multicultural city in Canada.”
However, the concern of the Muslim students was further accentuated a month later when hateful flyers were posted on bulletin boards around campus. The flyers were signed by a group calling itself the “FBC Ridaz”, which also took responsibility for the graffiti at the multifaith center. Throughout this month, graffiti appeared sporadically around campus, and another group calling itself the “Full-Blooded Israeli Brigades” put up posters that read: “The Islamic infidels have no belonging in Toronto and in the world at all. Islam is a disease that has made its way into the world and it must be eradicated.”
It didn’t stop there.
In the months that followed, the president of the MSA, Ahmed Arshi, found a note in the group’s mailbox. “You’re president is next” it read.
In October, another chilling letter was sent to Arshi and the president of the ASA, Nahla Darkazanli, which read: “Those who follow the Islamic faith need to be killed in the worst possible way imaginable.”
Months of anguish for Muslim and Arab students came to a climactic end last week when two plainclothes officers observed a suspicious man allegedly putting up an inciteful flyer outside the ASA office around 7:30 pm. The security personnel apprehended the man, and later handed him over to the police.
Haas is not a student at Ryerson, but he was known by some students at non-Ryerson events held by Jewish group Hillel. Haas’s affiliation with Hillel and the nature of the crimes committed has given this case uneasy religious and political overtones. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become an issue that has sparked controversy all over Canadian university campuses such as Concordia and York. However, Amy Greenfield, the Program Coordinator for Ryerson Hillel, believes that at Ryerson, the inciter’s goal failed.
“It intended to separate two communities, but in fact, it brought us together.”
A statement on Ryerson’s website simply said, “Kevin Haas, 21, of Toronto, is charged with seven counts of mischief and two counts of threatening death. Police have indicated all charges will be pursued under hate crimes legislation, and this matter is now before the courts.”
Abbasi, who is relieved by the arrest, feels, “This guy should be persecuted to the full extent of the law because he has caused four months of anguish and torment to the community. Anything less would be unacceptable.”
