A 27-year-old student has been charged with six counts of murder and five counts of attempted murder in connection with Sunday's gun attack on a mosque in Quebec City.
Alexandre Bissonnette, the only suspect in the killings, made a brief appearance in court on Monday as the charges against him were read.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Six men aged between 35 and 65 were killed in Sunday's attack and another 18 people injured, five of them seriously.
Witnesses say a man entered the mosque and opened fire with a weapon described as similar to an AK-47. Dozens of worshippers had lingered to chat after the evening prayer service.
"Provincial police are treating the attack as a terrorist act," CBC reports.
Bissonnette is reported to have called police himself shortly after the massacre to tell them his location.
The political science student, studying at Quebec City's Laval University, had no previous criminal record. A neighbour described him as "solitary", while former school friends told Radio Canada he was an introvert who enjoyed playing chess.
"An archived screenshot of his Facebook page showed he 'liked' a wide range of pages, including those of US President Donald Trump, far-right French politician Marine Le Pen and atheist scientist Richard Dawkins," the Toronto Star reports.
Francois Deschamps, who runs a Facebook group welcoming refugees to Quebec, told La Presse that when he saw Bissonnette's photo in the news, he recognised him as an online "troll" who he claimed had targeted foreigners and feminists in posts.
Six dead in Canada mosque shooting
30 January
Six people were killed and several others wounded when gunmen opened fire on worshippers inside a mosque in Quebec City, Canada, during evening prayers yesterday.
Police have arrested two suspects and a security cordon remains in place around the Quebec City Islamic Cultural Centre, where at least 50 men, women and children were believed to have gathered for evening prayers.
Mohamed Yangui, the centre's president, said the shooting happened in the men's section of the mosque.
A witness told CBC's French language service Radio-Canada: "A bullet passed right over my head. There were even kids. There was even a three-year-old who was with his father."
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemned what he called a "terrorist attack on Muslims in a centre of worship and refuge", while Philippe Couillard, the premier of Quebec, said the city "categorically rejects this barbaric violence".
He added: "Our solidarity is with the victims, the injured and their families. We unite against violence. Solidarity with Muslim Quebecers."
The motive for the attack is still being investigated, says Sky News.
Yesterday's shooting follows a number of incidents in mosques in Canada. Last June, a pig's head was left at the same mosque while in 2012, a mosque in Quebec's Saguenay region was splattered with pig's blood and in 2015, a mosque was set on fire in the neighbouring province of Ontario, a day after the Bataclan theatre attack in Paris.
"Quebec has struggled at times to reconcile its secular identity with a rising Muslim population, many of them North African emigrants," says CNBC. However, it adds that "mass shootings are rare in Canada, which has stricter gun laws than the United States, and news of the shooting sent a shockwave through mosques and community centres throughout the mostly French-language province".
-
Inside Minnesota’s extensive fraud schemesThe Explainer The fraud allegedly goes back to the Covid-19 pandemic
-
‘What a corrective to such nonsense’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
TikTok secures deal to remain in USSpeed Read ByteDance will form a US version of the popular video-sharing platform
-
How Bulgaria’s government fell amid mass protestsThe Explainer The country’s prime minister resigned as part of the fallout
-
Normalising relations with the Taliban in AfghanistanThe Explainer The regime is coming in from the diplomatic cold, as countries lose hope of armed opposition and seek cooperation on counterterrorism, counter-narcotics and deportation of immigrants
-
Femicide: Italy’s newest crimeThe Explainer Landmark law to criminalise murder of a woman as an ‘act of hatred’ or ‘subjugation’ but critics say Italy is still deeply patriarchal
-
Brazil’s Bolsonaro behind bars after appeals run outSpeed Read He will serve 27 years in prison
-
Americans traveling abroad face renewed criticism in the Trump eraThe Explainer Some of Trump’s behavior has Americans being questioned
-
Nigeria confused by Trump invasion threatSpeed Read Trump has claimed the country is persecuting Christians
-
France’s ‘red hands’ trial highlights alleged Russian disruption operationsUNDER THE RADAR Attacks on religious and cultural institutions around France have authorities worried about Moscow’s effort to sow chaos in one of Europe’s political centers
-
Sanae Takaichi: Japan’s Iron Lady set to be the country’s first woman prime ministerIn the Spotlight Takaichi is a member of Japan’s conservative, nationalist Liberal Democratic Party
