Rightwing bigot wrongly accuses U of T student Zahra Vaid in Pickering school stabbing

Ensuring Socio-economic Justice

Crescent International

Jumada' al-Ula' 18, 1437 2016-02-27

Daily News Analysis

by Crescent International

Vicious Islamophobic bigots miss no opportunity to accuse Muslims of all kinds of wrongdoing. Their latest victim is 21-year-old U of T student Zahra Vaid who commented on her Facebook page that a 14-year-old girl, accused of stabbing fellow students and teachers, was being bullied at school. This emerged from reading the 14-year-old's Facebook. The Islamophobes immediately accused Ms Vaid of being the culprit.

Toronto, crescent-online.net
Saturday February 27, 2016, 16:03 EST

How rightwing racists and bigots distort the truth to target Muslims is illustrated yet again by a Facebook comment posted by a 21-year-old female Muslim student Zahr Vaid about the stabbing at a Pickering (Ontario) School on February 23.

A 14-year-old girl stabbed a number of students and teachers but according to police the injuries were not life threatening. On her Facebook page, Ms Vaid commented that after reading the 14-year-old accused's blog, it was clear she'd been suffering. It has since emerged that she was being bullied at school.

"We need to take better care of our children and understand the complexities of these issues, particularly around mental health," she told CBC News. "This young girl was going through so many difficult things in her life … whether it was mental health, bullying, things around her identity. So it was quite alarming." Zahra Vaid, whose sister’s friends go to the same school, was also interviewed by the Toronto daily, the Globe and Mail in which she expressed similar sentiments.

Instead of bothering to even read the complete blog or Ms Vaid’s full interview, Jim Hoft, the rightwing blogger for Gateway Pundit ran with the story accusing the 21-year-old university student of being the culprit. Hoft just picked her religion—Islam—and her name and ran with it saying she was the 14-year-old girl involved in stabbing and she did it because of her religion.

"Canadian Muslim Girl Goes on Mass Stabbing Spree – 8 Injured => Authorities Baffled on Motive Behind Attack" wrote the rightwing blogger. This is gutter journalism and only vermin from the sewers can sink so low.

Unfortunately, even the CBC tried to make light of the Islamophobic attempt to besmirch Islam and an innocent Muslim student by claiming, “American blog Gateway Pundit made error based on Globe and Mail story” (CBC News Posted: Feb 26, 2016 11:23 PM ET). It was no error; it was deliberate. We know American Islamophobes are quite stupid; how else does one explain confusing a 21-year-old university student with a 14-year-old school student?

Hoft is active in the rightwing Tea Party movement to which the likes of Sarah Palin belong. Ignorance and arrogance are their trademarks. Their racism and bigotry would have been ignored but for the fact that these people also get viciously violent.

Zahra Vaid was shocked when she saw the initial version of the blog late Thursday (February 25). What concerned her even more was that the headline mentioned she is “Muslim”. That, she says, led to a barrage of hateful comments online.

"It was misinterpreted in such a dramatic, almost violent way against me," she said.

Who is Jim Hoft? In 2013, he was awarded an ‘honor’ from a self-described news watchdog group called 'Accuracy in Media', along with Fox News journalist Catherine Herridge. Identifying a minor accused of a crime is unlawful in Canada under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

Some accuracy, some media, some honor for a rightwing racist, bigot and Islamophobe.

END

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