Islamophobic Groups And Activists Are Trying to Organize With Conservative Muslims Against 2SLGBTQ+ Pride

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Conservative Muslims have been organizing and taking part in anti-2SLGBTQ+ protests recently. 

At the same time, a number of far-right individuals and groups are inviting conservative Muslims to far-right anti-2SLGBTQ+ protests, and celebrating Muslim-led protests. 

They’re trying to form an alliance.

The Muslim community is not just one community, but several, and not all Muslims agree with these protests. In fact, some Muslim communities have already been having conversations about this happening, pointing out that some Muslims are protesting alongside Islamophobes.

Canada’s modern day far-right movement started as an anti-Muslim movement, which opposed Motion 103, a symbolic gesture by the government to condemn Islamophobia. Racist, Islamophobic, and Christian nationalist groups fought against Muslim students praying in schools, they tore up Qurans, held weekly protests, and argued that M103 would lead to the Islamization of Canada.

These same groups and individuals started calling themselves Yellow Vests Canada, then the movement became the so-called Freedom Convoy. Now it’s protesting against Pride and 2SLGBTQ+ materials in schools.

This means that many of the same groups and individuals who are celebrating and joining the anti-Pride protests being carried out by some members of the Muslim community are Islamophobic, and some of them are full-blown white supremacists.

Here are some of the groups and individuals involved.
 

• Action4Canada has said “The only solution is to ban all manifestations of Islam in the West.” Signs with the Action4Canada logo and web address were seen being held by members of the Muslim community outside the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board. 
  
  
• Cultural Action Party (CAP) has published multiple articles praising the Muslim community protesting Pride. CAP’s leader, Brad Salzberg, is active in the Muslim Conservatives of Canada Facebook group. Salzberg says the racist, Islamophobic Great Replacement Theory that motivated the Christchurch killer “is real, tangible and rooted in statistical data.” He also believes “there is an element of falseness to the Christchurch event.” 
  
  
• The leader of Diagolon has said “Muslim immigration will destroy Western countries.” Members of Diagolon took photos with members of the Muslim community at an Ottawa protest, holding the Diagolon flag. Associates of Diagolon, including Save Canada, appeared with members of the Muslim community at a protest outside the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board. 
  
  
• While Josh Alexander and Save Canada, who have appeared with members of the Muslim community at protests in Ottawa, have not spoken about Islam directly, they have:
  
  …appeared on Kevin Johnston’s web show. Kevin Johnston is a convicted hate promoter who owes Muslim community leader and businessman Mohammad Fakih 2.5 million dollars for calling him a terrorist, among other hateful things. Johnston was also charged in 2017 for offering $1000 for videos of Muslim children praying in schools.
  
  …spoke at a legal fundraiser for Jeremy Mackenzie, leader of Diagolon (see above). Josh Alexander and Save Canada have been working closely together over the last six months.
  
  …shared a stage with and been endorsed by Christine Anderson, a German Member of European Parliament who is involved with the anti-Islam group PEGIDA.
  
  
• LifeSiteNews (LSN) has published many, many anti-Muslim articles, including ones with titles like "Remembering when Christian cavalry smashed the Muslim army and saved Europe" (2020); "Gruesome new Muslim attacks on Christians prove jihad is central to Islam" (2020); and “It’s reasonable for European Christians to be fearful of mass Muslim immigration" (2020). LSN has published favourable coverage of the Muslim-led anti-Pride protests. LSN was founded by Campaign Life Coalition, share directors, and operate out of the same office. 
  
  
• Campaign Life Coalition (CLC) planned a protest against Pride alongside people of the Muslim faith at the Human Rights Monument in Ottawa, and encouraged supporters to attend the Muslim-led protest outside the Ottawa-Carleton District School board. Their newspaper, The Interim, has defended the expression of anti-Muslim organizations and individuals, including PEGIDA, Stephen Garvey, Act4Canada, and Mark Steyn. It may not be Islamophobic the way LifeSiteNews is, but CLC founded LifeSiteNews, share directors, and operate out of the same office.
  
  
• Rebel News is celebrating those Muslims involved in anti-2SLGBTQ+ protests, despite a history of “portray[ing] members of the Muslim community as terrorists, criminals, paedophiles, rapists, inherently evil, and attempting to take over society.” CAHN board member Richard Warman filed a formal criminal complaint against Rebel Media for hate propaganda against Muslims in 2019. 

Across Canada, white supremacists and neo-Nazis have joined anti-Pride, anti-“groomer” protests. 

Albertan neo-Nazi Jason Harley has participated in the last two anti-Pride protests organized by the Muslim Conservatives of Canada. Harley is currently a member of multiple neo-Nazi groups, as well as the now-gone Aryan Guard.

Other members of the neo-Nazi White Lives Matter group have showed up to protest Drag Storytimes and Pride events across Canada. One member was recently charged with the criminal harassment of a 2SLGBTQ+ activist’s family after he visited her terminally ill father in the hospital in a clearly threatening act of intimidation.

Leader of the now-defunct neo-Nazi Canadian Nationalist Party, Gus Stefanis, showed up to a protest against Pride Month programming, which was organized by Josh Alexander and Save Canada. They are now calling themselves Canadian Nationalist Patriots.