The organizer is trying to make the protest against 2SLGBTQ+ representation in schools an annual event.
Canadian Anti-Hate Network
A screen capture taken from a video posted to the RAIR Foundation website showing Kamel El-Cheik.
Source: RAIR Foundation
On September 20th, various groups will be keeping their children home from school or making them take part in protests against 2SGLTBQ+ representation, sexual health, and gender identity education. This is the second year of the 1 Million March for Children, which has been built on the basis of an uneasy alliance between socially and religiously conservative Muslims and Christians.
Spawning from what is often referred to as the “parental rights” movement, protests targeting sexual health and gender identity (SOGI) education and 2SLGBTQ+ inclusive education policies have taken place across the country over the past several years. Numerous different networks, groups, and individuals have come together in hundreds of protests, with many outside of schools, libraries, and school board meetings.
In a strange case of aligning interests, then man behind the Ottawa leg of the protest and the group Hands Off Our Kids (HOOK), El-Cheik recently did an interview with the RAIR Foundation USA, which has been listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-Muslim hate group.
RAIR embedded a video statement recorded by El-Cheik during what the article called a “fundraising event” for a truck driver allegedly facing legal consequences for their participation in the 2022 convoy protests. “It’s now an annual event,” El-Cheik says in the video.
The article, which referred to El-Cheik as Kamil Al Shiek, claimed that government funded individuals showed up to counter-protest the event.
“Trudeau government allocated $1.5 million to these so-called ‘anti-hate’ organizations to organize counter-protests,” RAIR wrote, misrepresenting the funding the federal government allocated to Pride organizations to increase security measures amidst rising anti-2SLGBTQ+ hate.
This year’s march is scheduled for Friday, September 20, 2024, and will run from 8 am to 6 pm local time. Like the previous year, HOOK has released dozens of posters advertising events all over the country. While some cities’ demonstrations have been claimed by local activists, it is unclear whether all events have confirmed local organizers.
HOOK's website states, "We encourage you to take [your kids] out of school and bring them along."
Last year, HOOK appeared to generate posters for cities based on demand from social media followers, without clear indication that locals were behind the events. Unlike last year, there does not appear to be a competing “brand” vying for support, and the organizing seems to be more centralized under the HOOK brand.
A response to a request for comment sent to HOOK was not received by publication.
The largest online space gathered under the “1 Million March for Children” label is a Facebook group with nearly 40,000 members, which was created by Calgary activist Mahmoud Mourra’s group “YYC Muslims.”
The Facebook group is littered with an array of far-reaching conspiracy theories, ranging from chemtrails to weather control to vaccines. Posts in the group that target the 2SLGBTQ+ community are frequently hateful.
A post from earlier this week promoting Friday’s planned demonstrations encourages participation from group members saying “together, we can stop all the devils.” A post from earlier this year calls the Alberta Teachers Association “satanic queer indoctrinators.”
HOOK’s website lists 15 organizations under the heading “United Together for Our Children.” This includes far-right groups such as Veterans 4 Freedom and the Christian nationalist Liberty Coalition Canada.
While noteworthy as a hateful protest movement with a significant degree of conservative Muslim leadership and participation, there is also a strong presence of social conservatives of all religious backgrounds, as well as activists across the political spectrum who, in their confusion and concern for their children, are lending their support to a hate movement.
These protests are supported by a big tent of far-right and conspiratorial groups, including Christian Nationalists, COVID-19 conspiracy theorists, sovereign citizens, and anti-public education activists. Built off of this big tent of ideologies and religions, the 1 Million March contains friction.
Christian nationalist group Action4Canada refused to support last year’s protests because the founder felt supporting a Muslim-led movement was “counterproductive” to her group’s goal of “raising this country up as a Christian nation," and complained that “white Christians” had been on the “frontlines” of this fight for years.
Tanya Gaw confirmed that Action4Canada will not support the Million March for Children because the march was initiated by a Muslim. Action4Canada will only work to elevate Christians and Christianity in Canada. (They *are* Christian Nationalists, after all.) pic.twitter.com/lIMu1Z72Ut
— windward antifascist (@windward_afa) September 11, 2023
The RAIR Foundation—standing for Rise Align Ignite Reclaim—is the project of Amy Mek, who writes most of the content for the group’s website. Predominantly focused on spreading hatred towards Muslims, Mek is listed as the author of the interview with El-Cheik.
Her other more recent work picked off RAIR’s landing page includes “Islam’s Centuries-Old War Against Christianity: France on the Brink of Collapse,” “Stop Hiding the September 11 Terrorists' Motivation: ISLAM” and “Muslim Migrant Politician Desecrates Holy Christian Symbols, Exposing Islam’s War on Christianity While Europe Bows in Surrender.”
A screenshot of RAIR Foundation’s home page showing recent articles. Source: RAIR Foundation
According to a Huffington Post article that revealed Amy Mek to be a pseudonym used by Amy Mekelburg, she has used social media to repeatedly lash out at Muslims, calling the Prophet Muhammad a “pedophile” and a “mentally sick conman” while referring to the religion as a “pervert cult.”
She has also advocated for mosques to be banned in the United States.
RAIR was originally the acronym for Resistance Against Islamic Radicals, an organization that intended to “stop the Jihadi infiltration in our American communities.” According to the Huffington post, the original site contained a list of “accomplices” that included the name, photos and contact information of people and groups she believed to be collaborating with Jihadi terrorists.
Last year the first 1 Million March for Children managed to stage protests across Canada. “We will never virtue signal to the Pride community as our Abrahamic faiths have highlighted that clearly, although we are not looking to oppress either,” El Cheik said in a statement in 2023. “This is a movement for the children and straight families, we are not going to make it about any other group or political agenda, we are non-partisan.”
Part of the swelling of anti-2SLGBTQ+ street protests, the first coordinated demonstrations under the 1 Million March brand started in September 2023. Events opposing comprehensive sex education and teaching about gender identity in public classrooms took place in multiple locations with some of the largest taking place in Red Deer, Alberta; Toronto, Ontario; and Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Windsor, Ontario saw over 800 people walk through the streets to a local school board office in protest.
Some cities, like Ottawa, Toronto, Halifax, Vancouver, Kamloops, St. John’s, and Prince George saw large counter-protests from those who support the 2SLGBTQ+ community, and in some cases outnumbered the anti-trans activists.
Many did not.
Surrey saw a large and heated anti-2SLGBTQ+ protest, where a counter-protester was allegedly struck with a rock.
In Calgary, where local media reports that the anti-trans protesters outnumbered the counter-protesters, the organizer, Mahmoud Mourra brought up individuals to speak to the crowd.
In a video of the event, as one young boy waited to come up to the microphone, Mourra said, “Those guys, they want to tell my son or my daughter for she can be he and now they come with the new term she can be it, a cat or a dog.” Mourra, who was charged by Calgary Police with anti-2SLGBTQ+ hate motivated criminal harassment from online incidents in June 2023, then characterized the 2SLGBTQ+ community and their allies as "unacceptable, confusing, mentally ill."
The boy, who was around six or seven years old, told the group "I'd like to say that the gays are psychopaths and we're not psychopaths."
He added, "The gays, they are disgusting!"
As with last year, opponents to the event will be staging counter-protests or community events to stand up for the 2SLGBTQ+ community, teachers, and education. The website for A Million Voices For Inclusion has a list of opposing events and counter protests being organized in separate cities.
Check out our Pride Defence Guide for safety tips and ideas.
The $44 million lawsuit against the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, the government, and banks failed to show any evidence of CAHN involvement in a (non-existent) wide-ranging conspiracy.
Bubba Pollock is awaiting sentencing after being convicted of criminal harassment against a member of the 2SLGBTQ+ community, after he taunted her with photos he took of her sleeping father in a hospital room.
