February 23, 2010

TORONTO – The cross-burning at the Nova Scotia home of an interracial couple, who were also the targets of racial slurs, is deeply troubling to Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) and the Atlantic Jewish Council (AJC).

 ”We join all right-thinking Canadians in condemning this outrageous attack,” said Canadian Jewish Congress president Mark J. Freiman.  “The racial slurs are reprehensible in themselves and have no place in the inclusive and multicultural society of today’s Nova Scotia and Canada.  The cross-burning goes beyond the merely reprehensible.  As the calling card of the racist Ku Klux Klan in its terrorist campaign of violence and intimidation of African-Americans, a burning cross is the embodiment of hate and malevolence that in our view represents prima facie a hate crime of the most serious magnitude.”

Atlantic Jewish Council Executive Director Jon Goldberg added, “We urge the RCMP to investigate this intolerable incident with a view to pursuing the potential hate crime dimension of any criminal charges that may be laid.”

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