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Thursday,
October 31, 2002 ~ An Ontario man convicted of promoting
hatred against Muslims says his community-service sentence
has included indoctrination into Islam.
After
losing an appeal to Canada's Supreme Court on Oct. 17,
Mark Harding must resume his sentence of two years probation
and 340 hours of community service under the direction
of Mohammad Ashraf, general secretary of the
Islamic Society of North America in Mississauga, Ont.
Harding,
47, said he had one session under Ashraf in 1998 before
an appeal process stayed the sentence.
Ashraf,
according to Harding, said that instead of licking stamps
and stuffing envelopes, "it would be better if you
learned about Islam."
The
cleric made it clear, Harding recalled in an interview
with WorldNetDaily, that during the sessions nothing negative
could be said about Islam or its prophet, Muhammad.
"He
said he was my supervisor, and if I didn't follow what
he said, he would send me back to jail," recounted
Harding, who had been prevented from speaking publicly
about his case under a gag order.
Harding
was convicted in 1998 on federal hate-crimes charges stemming
from a June 1997 incident in which he distributed pamphlets
outside a public high school, Weston Collegiate Institute
in Toronto. Harding - who said that until that point he
spent most of his time evangelizing Muslims Ð was
protesting the school's policy of setting aside a room
for Muslim students to pray during school hours.
In
one of his pamphlets, Harding listed atrocities committed
by Muslims in foreign lands to back his assertion that
Canadians should be wary of local Muslims.
The
pamphlet said: "The Muslims who commit these crimes
are no different than the Muslim believers living here
in Toronto. Their beliefs are based on the Quran. They
sound peaceful, but underneath their false sheep's clothing
are raging wolves seeking whom they may devour. And Toronto
is definitely on their hit list."
"The
point I was trying to make is you shouldn't have a violent
religion like Islam allowed in a school when Christianity
or Hinduism or Buddhism is not allowed," he told
WND.
Harding,
an evangelical Protestant, insists he has love rather
than hatred toward Muslims and wants to see them go to
heaven.
A
lawyer for Harding, Jasmine Akbaralli, says she is trying
to obtain permission for her client to serve out his sentence
in an Islamic community closer to his current home in
Chesley, Ont., north of Toronto and about a three-hour
drive from the Islamic Society of North America.
The
plea is based on humanitarian grounds, she said, due to
her client's poor health.
Harding
said he has suffered four heart attacks since 1997, and
he and his wife and two children are penniless because
his health has prevented him from maintaining his trade
as a cabinetmaker.
Akbaralli
said she would not comment on Harding's previous experience
with Ashraf, noting that she was not representing him
at the time. Calls to Ashraf and others at the Islamic
Society of North America on Tuesday and Wednesday were
not returned.
Understanding
Islam
During
his 1998 session with Ashraf, Harding was told to read
a book called Towards
Understanding Islam, by Sayyid Abul A'la Maududi.
On
page 12 of the book, Harding noted, it gives a description
of a "kafir," or infidel, a person who does
not follow Islam.
"Such
a man ... will spread confusion and disorder on the earth,"
the book says. "He will without the least compunction,
shed blood, violate other men's rights, be cruel to them,
and create disorder and destruction in the world. His
perverted thoughts and ambitions, his blurred vision and
disturbed scale of values, and his evil-spelling activities
would make life bitter for him and for all around him."
"It
was obvious that he intended to make sure I understood
that I was a kafir," Harding said of Ashraf.
Harding's
1998 conviction on three counts of willfully promoting
hatred was commended by Canadian Muslims.
"The
verdict sends a message to Christians, Muslims and Jews
that personal views of that nature can't be allowed in
a public forum," said Shahina Siddiqui, coordinator
of community relations and social services for the Manitoba
Islamic Association, in a report by the Canadian evangelical
publication Christian Week. "There's a fine line
between freedom of expression and hatred. Harding crossed
that line."
Mohamed
Elmasry, president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, said
after the verdict that "spreading hate is against
Canadian values and against Canadian law, and it doesn't
matter the group that is victimized."
The
verdict was not a suppression of free speech, Elmasry
insisted, according to Alberta Report magazine, arguing
that he would not consider scholarly books in the library
that criticize Islam to be hate literature. Harding "is
just trying to stereotype and put out hate literature,
and he was found guilty by the courts," he said.
Harding
asserted at the time that he meant to criticize only Islamic
terrorists, not all Muslims. But he added that faithful
Muslims will always engage in jihad, or holy war, against
non-Muslims because it is required by Islamic teachings.
Many
Muslim scholars in North America argue that jihad essentially
means "struggle" and is not necessarily violent.
But
Harding said that after his case became public, he no
longer felt safe, due to threats from Muslims. When he
entered court for the first time for his trial, he required
police protection as a large crowd of Muslims gathered,
with some chanting, "Infidels, you will burn in hell."
Harding
said he received many death threats among more than 3,000
hate-filled calls that came to his answering service in
1997. Similar calls were received by police and the Ontario
attorney general, he said.
"I
had a call from someone who said they were from (Louis)
Farrakhan's (Nation of Islam) group, and they were going
to break my legs," he said. "Another caller
said he would rip out my testicles."
The
Islamic Society of North America in Canada, where Harding
is required to fulfill his community service, describes
itself as a "broad-based unity of Muslims and Islamic
organizations committed to the mission and movement of
Islam: nurturing a way of life in the light of the guidance
from the Quran and Sunnah for establishing a vibrant presence
of Muslims in Canada."
The
organization shares facilities with the Canadian
Council on Islamic Relations, an affiliate of the
controversial Council on Islamic-American Relations, or
CAIR, in Washington, D.C.
CAIR
spokesman Ibrahim Hooper indicated in a 1993 interview
with the Minneapolis Star Tribune that he wants to see
the United States become a Muslim country.
"I
wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't
like the government of the United States to be Islamic
sometime in the future," Hooper told the Star Tribune.
"But I'm not going to do anything violent to promote
that. I'm going to do it through education."
Hate
Crimes
Judge
Sidney B. Linden's 1998 ruling against Harding was based
on Canada's
genocide and hate-crimes law. The judge determined
he was guilty of "false allegations about the adherents
of Islam calculated to arouse fear and hatred of them
in all non-Muslim people."
The
law bars a public statement that "willfully promotes
hatred" against groups "distinguished by color,
race, religion or ethnic origin." The code has an
article that excuses statements expressed in "good
faith," including religious expression. But the trial
judge found that Harding had either "tried to incite
hatred or was willfully blind to it," according to
lawyer Akbaralli.
Canadian
Christian groups are fighting a
bill reinstated this month by a homosexual parliament
member that would add "sexual orientation"
as a protected category in the hate-crimes statutes. Known
previously as bill C-415, it is now registered as C-250.
Evangelicals
have supported Harding in principle, though many have
signaled their opposition to his aggressive tactics or
have expressed reservations.
Harding
said he's received support from Christians who immigrated
to Canada from Muslim countries, where minority religions
experience discrimination and persecution.
"I
have a lot of Pakistani and Egyptian friends helping me
through this because they understand what Islam is all
about," he said. "When they heard about me in
the news, they called to offer their support."
Related
story: The
Bible as 'hate literature'?
Art
Moore is a news editor with WorldNetDaily.com.
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