EDITORIAL: The horrible effect of religious hatred

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No Canadian anywhere in our country should fear walking the streets of our nation because of their religion.

That four members of a Muslim family — a husband, wife, grandmother and daughter were killed, and a nine-year-old son left an orphan and seriously injured— in what police in London, Ontario describe as a targeted attack on them because of their religion, is horrifying.

Nathaniel Veltman, 20, of London, is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one of attempted murder, accused of deliberately driving a pickup truck into them while they were out for a walk on Sunday evening.

While these allegations have yet to be proven in court, the reality is that tragedies like this are no longer shocking in a world where deadly attacks are launched on people all the time, solely because of their religion, or sexuality, or colour, or nationality.

The victims in this tragedy, as described by heartbroken family members on a GoFundMe page, were a typical Canadian family full of love, hopes and dreams.

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Salman Afzaal, 46, was a physiotherapist, known for his love of cricket and gentle and welcoming smile. His wife, Madiha Salman, 44, was finishing her exams to obtain a PhD in civil engineering at Western University.

Their daughter, Yumna Salman, 15, was finishing Grade 9 at Oakridge Secondary School. The family matriarch, Afzaal’s mother, 74, was described as the “pillar of their family who cherished their daily walks.”

The family is survived by Fayez Salman, 9, seriously injured and recovering in hospital.

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called it a “brutal, cowardly and brazen act of violence. This was no accident. This was a terrorist attack, motivated by hatred, in the heart of one of our communities.”

Sadly, we all know it has happened before, as recently as the Quebec City mosque shooting on Jan. 29, 2017, when six worshippers were killed and five others seriously injured.

That this latest tragedy occurred on Sunday — the 77th anniversary of D-Day in which Canadians fought and died to defeat the hate-filled ideology of Nazism that murdered six million people simply because they were Jews— reminds us that hating people because of their religion inevitably leads us down the darkest corridors ofhuman history.