Human rights tribunal sides with TMU teaching assistant who decried ‘desecration by the Jews’

Toronto Metropolitan University, formerly Ryerson University. Photo by Ernest Doroszuk/Toronto Sun/Postmedia/File

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The Ontario Human Rights Tribunal has sided with a Muslim former teaching assistant who was fired after publicly denouncing “desecration by the Jews,” awarding him $7,000 for injury to “dignity, feelings and self-respect.”

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Although adjudicator Cyndee Cherniak rejected Ayman Elkasrawy’s claim that he had been fired due to Islamophobia, she nevertheless approved the cash award due to “circumstantial evidence” that some discrimination may have inflected his dismissal.

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In 2016, Elkasrawy was videotaped delivering an Arabic-language prayer at the Masjid Toronto mosque where he called for Jews to be slayed “one by one,” and for none to be spared.

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The prayer was condemned at the time by both Masjid Toronto and the Muslim Association of Canada, who called it “an inappropriate supplication that was offensive to those of Jewish faith.”

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It also prompted Elkasrawy’s dismissal from Ryerson University (now Toronto Metropolitan University) where he was working as a teaching assistant in the school’s engineering faculty.

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“One of Ryerson’s core values is our commitment to community and inclusion … your comments are in contravention of this core value, do not foster a respectful learning environment and reflect adversely on, and are to the detriment of the University,” read his dismissal letter, according to Tribunal filings.

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Clips of Elkasrawy’s prayer were first circulated by the now-defunct outlet CIJ News, which translated its lines as “Oh Allah! Count their numbers; slay them one by one and spare not one of them. Oh Allah! Purify the Al-Aqsa Mosque from the filth of the Jews!”

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In front of the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, Elkasrawy’s counsel said that this was a mistranslation, and that the comments had been “twisted, to make them appear inappropriate, violent and anti-Semitic.”

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According to Elkasrawy, what he actually said was “Oh Allah; has full cognizance of them, slay them one by one, and don’t let one escape your punishment. Oh Allah; cleanse the Aqsa Mosque from the desecration by the Jews.”

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He testified that the “slay them one by one” statement was unrelated to the second, and referred to members of Syria’s Assad regime.

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As for the second, Elkasrawy confirmed that he was referring to Israeli control of Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa mosque, but that if he could say it again he would change the prayer to “the occupying Jews.”

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These explanations were accepted by Cherniak, who characterized the prayer as a “human moment.”

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“Who amongst us has not, at some point in their lives, said something they wish they could take back and learned a life lesson because of it,” wrote Cherniak, who ruled they ultimately didn’t represent “his sincerely held beliefs.”