All Posts Tagged With: "hate-crime"
Student alleges hate crime at Seneca
School conducting review
A 22-year-old student at Seneca College in Toronto alleges he was the victim of a hate crime on campus, according to Xtra.ca. The police are calling it an “altercation that turned into a fight.” The student came to Canada with the help of the Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees. He alleges that on Nov. 25 he was attacked by a male student he has classes with. He says the fellow student accused him of gawking, punched a nearby telephone booth, pulled his hood down over his face and then cut his throat, most likely with a ballpoint pen. During the attack he was called “faggot” and “bitch.” Tony Vella of the Toronto Police Service told Xtra that a 21-year-old man was arrested in connection with the incident, charged with one count of assualt with a weapon and then released. Seneca officials say they are “conducting a general review into the matter.”
Should attacking women be a hate crime?
UW female students feel unsafe on campus
Female students at the University of Waterloo say they no longer feel safe on campus, due to the actions of an anonymous person who uses Facebook, email and campus election posters to make hateful attacks on women. Student leaders are concerned that the women’s centre and the gay and lesbian support centre may become targets, and both centres have been closed until further notice.
During the Federation of Students elections last week, the attacker covered the posters of female candidates and sent out a mass e-mail, pretending to be the university president, which said “Expose the defective moral intelligence of womankind.”
Some students are fearful, worried that this person is likely somewhere on campus. One student, Jaelle McMillan, was quoted in the Record as saying:
“I feel so targeted right now that I made my stepfather walk me around campus when I had to hand something in. I definitely feel targeted as a female.”
One part of the story that surprised me is that attacking women is apparently not a hate crime. The article in the Record mentioned that many students and faculty are frustrated to hear that even if the attacker is caught, he or she can’t be charged with a hate crime (instead, they would be charged with crimes of mischief and impersonation). At a university-wide meeting that was held on Friday, the director of the University of Waterloo’s police force said that gender is not a category included in federal hate-crimes legislation- ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation are covered, but not gender.
According to an article on the CBC website, section 319 of the Criminal Code of Canada address hate crimes. It says: “Every one who, by communicating statements in any public place, incites hatred against any identifiable group where such incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace…”
Isn’t this the perfect example of a hate crime? A specific, identifiable group being targeted in a public place? Some people are arguing that these students are overreacting, however, if this fits the description of a hate crime as perfectly as it apparently does, why doesn’t it ‘count’ as a hate crime?
Are college towns havens for hate?
Canada’s biggest hate-crime capitals are three Ontario university towns
For many, it may come as a shock to find out that Canada’s biggest hate-crime capitals are three Ontario university towns. Kingston, London and Guelph boast the country’s highest rates of police-reported hate crimes, according to Statistics Canada.
But Barbara Perry, a professor and associate dean of social sciences at the University of Ontario Technical Institute in Oshawa, Ont., isn’t that surprised. All three populations have traditionally been homogeneous—white, Christian and English-speaking. And, says Perry, “like many other communities, they’re experiencing a lot of fairly rapid demographic change. These sorts of relatively small cities are struggling to come to grips with these shifts.” Guelph and London tied for first at 8.2 hate crimes per 100,000 citizens in 2008. And Kingston followed with a rate of 7.7 per 100,000. (Among Canada’s 10 biggest cities, Vancouver and Hamilton ranked the highest with a rate of 6.3 per 100,000.)
The presence of post-secondary schools, says Perry, can be a double-edged sword. Although those in university and college towns are likely to be better educated, roughly six out of 10 people charged with hate crimes were between the ages of 12 to 22. “Perhaps the victims themselves are more aware of their rights,” says Perry, “but I also think more youth means more offending.”
Since hate-crimes, which can include crimes motivated by race, religion or sexual orientation, are generally underreported, some experts see a silver lining in a city’s higher rates. Perry says it may have something to do with a greater awareness among citizens. Or, she says, perhaps the police are better trained and more perpetrators are being brought to justice.
