Flyers asking people to keep dogs away from Muslims have popped up in an off-leash park in Pitt Meadows.
“Please be courteous to your Muslim neighbors, many Muslims live in this area and dogs are considered filthy in Islam. Please keep your dogs on a leash and away from the Muslims who live in this community,” read the flyers, which were posted in Hoffman Park and feature the logos for the City of Pitt Meadows and the U.S.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
CAIR’s Ibrahim Hooper said this is a common stunt found around the world, where racist groups post flyers in the hopes of agitating further distrust and resentment against Muslims.
“It’s just one after another and the haters just hope it will have a cumulative effect of demonizing Islam and marginalizing Muslims,” Hooper said.
Hooper said his organization had nothing to do with the flyers, saying that they “take some twisted view of Islam and try to turn people off from Islam and to create some kind of tension with the local Muslim community.”
He calls the problem symptomatic of a larger trend of growing hostility against Muslims and Islam.
Pitt Meadows Mayor John Becker also confirmed the city had nothing to do with the flyers and suspects they are the work of a lone individual.
“They’re anonymous most of the time, people don’t have the stones to get up and say ‘well this is what I believe in and here’s my name’ so I think it’s very much a minority,” said Becker.
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