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In just the latest example of sanctioned extremism on a Canadian university campus, a controversial Muslim preacher is scheduled to deliver a sermon at the University of Victoria.
South Africa-born imam Younus Kathrada has publicly called for the “annihilation” of Jews, has praised the Taliban, and has said that Canadian society is “evil and filthy” for its tolerance of homosexuality.
On Nov. 24, Kathrada is scheduled to be the invited guest of the UVic Muslim Student’s Association, where he will deliver a lecture entitled “The Importance of Connecting with the Muslim Community.”
“This is a great opportunity to learn about the value of unity, support, and connection among fellow Muslims,” reads a description by the association, which is a sanctioned University of Victoria student club.
Kathrada operates Muslim Youth of Victoria, a Victoria, B.C., Islamic centre located just two kilometres north of the B.C. Parliament buildings. It operates out of the second floor of a nondescript commercial building that includes a pawn shop and a catering company.
His Muslim Youth of Victoria sermons, many of which are available on Facebook or YouTube, have been regularly featured by the Middle East Media Research Institute, a U.S. non-profit that provides translations and transcriptions of extremist content.
In 2020 – after a teacher in France was murdered and beheaded by Islamic radicals – Kathrada said that the murdered teacher was “a cursed, evil-spirited filthy excuse for a human being.”
In a February video, Kathrada could be heard praising the October 7 massacres for bringing “humiliation” to the Zionists. “Oh Allah, bring annihilation upon the plundering aggressor Jews,” he said.
In December, Kathrada uploaded the sermon “Jihad and Martyrdom,” in which he said that Islamist terrorists are figures to be respected.
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“The enemies and opponents of Islam mock the mujahideen, they label them as terrorists, and whatnot. I warn myself and the rest of you: Let us not mock those who are fighting for the sake of Allah,” he said.
In advance of the 2019 federal election, Kathrada urged Canadian Muslims not to vote, as candidates from all parties supported homosexuality.
“They are all evil. Every single one of them. There may be some rare circumstances, where we would say: ‘Okay, voting may benefit us.’ This is not one of them! They are all evil and filthy,” he said.
That same year, Kathrada said that uttering the words “Merry Christmas” was worse than murder or adultery. “They are nothing compared to the sin of congratulating and greeting the non-Muslims on their false festivals,” he said.
Kathrada’s extreme views have been public knowledge for more than 20 years.
In 2004, Kathrada was profiled by CBC in connection with a virulently antisemitic sermon he delivered at the Dar Al-Madinah Islamic Society in Vancouver. In audiotape obtained by the broadcaster, Kathrada refers to Jews as “the brothers of the monkeys and the swines, the people whose treachery is well known.”
The Islamic centre had caught the attention of CBC after one of its congregants — Vancouver-based actor and model Rudwan Khalil Abubaker — was killed by Russian security forces soon after joining up with Islamist militants in Chechnya.
When contacted by Canadian Press reporters about the “monkeys and swine” sermon, Kathrada told them his language was no “rougher than what is used against us.” “It’s in our Qur’an,” he said.
In 2019, Victoria’s only official mosque, Masjid Al-Iman, distanced itself from Kathrada in comments delivered to the Times Colonist. Kathrada’s Muslim Youth of Victoria “do not represent the view of the Muslim youth in Victoria nor the view of the mosque,” read a statement from the mosque’s imam, Ismail Nur.
Kathrada is not the first extremist to be hosted by the UVic Muslim Student’s Association.
Earlier this month, the group advertised an event with Ayman Al-Taher, an Ontario imam who has recently uploaded videos to his YouTube page urging children to listen to a 1998 interview with Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder of Hamas. He also claimed that Yassin’s 2004 assassination by Israel was an “honourable martyrdom.”
In fact, a mere six days after Kathrada’s scheduled lecture, the Muslim Students Association is hosting a virtual talk by Moazzam Begg, a former terror detainee at Guantanamo Bay who has previously been denied entry to Canada.
“Cursed be Israel from its inception to its end. May we see it dismantled and destroyed in our lifetime,” Begg wrote on his X.com account only two weeks after the October 7 attacks.
Begg’s talk, organized in conjunction with Muslim Youth of Victoria, is entitled “Where’s Our Sister?” and it’s on the subject of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani national currently serving an 86-year sentence in U.S. prison following her conviction for plotting a deadly attack on U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
The Muslim Students Association also tried to sponsor an August event in Victoria featuring Assim Al-Hakeem, although the soiree was eventually cancelled due to “unforeseen circumstances.”
Assim Al-Hakeem is a Saudi cleric who is on record claiming that Jews “are against Islam and Muslims” and referring to them as “our enemies.”
IN OTHER NEWS
Remember in early 2023, when the United States allowed a Chinese spy balloon to cross its entire airspace unmolested – and then overreacted by shooting down a whole bunch of unidentified objects that turned out to be science experiments or party balloons? Well, the details have just emerged about one of those objects shot down over Lake Huron by a U.S. Air National Guard F-16, and then recovered by Canadian authorities. Department of National Defence documents obtained by CTV reveal that it was probably a weather balloon that had been launched by the U.S. National Weather Service. Details of the wreckage were never publicly released, possibly because the whole thing was too embarrassing.
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