Illustration: Nidal El-Khairy
By Sumayya Kassamali
Briarpatch Magazine
One icy evening in December 2007, a friend and I walked through a large Toronto mosque collecting signatures for a petition to grant members of the Toronto 18 – a group of young Muslim men arrested and imprisoned under allegations of terrorism in June 2006 – the legal rights of regular prisoners in the maximum security facility where they were being detained. Many of the men had been kept in solitary confinement since their arrest more than a year prior, and reports of routine humiliation, denial of access to prayer facilities, and targeted discrimination had begun to reach the mainstream media. The petition was put together by an ad hoc coalition of the group’s family members and community organizers, and cautiously abstained from commenting on innocence or guilt, instead requesting solely that they be treated like all other prisoners in the facility. Yet when approaching members of this mosque, many of whom I grew up alongside, I was surprised to be met with significant hesitation. While many signed willingly, grateful for the reminder that the devotional space was not isolated from its socio-political context, others did not. “I’m not sure…” one young woman trailed off. “Let me think about it,” muttered another, visibly uncomfortable with the request. Read the rest of this entry »
