MONTREAL - A Canadian imam known for his pacifist sermons warned Friday that Islamist militant group IS was actively recruiting in Canada and said one member issued him a death threat.
Syed Soharwardy, founder of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada (ISCC), called on Canadian and Western authorities to intensify the fight against jihadist movements. -Absolutely I am convinced that this recruitment is going on right here in this country, under our noses, in our universities, in our colleges, in the places of worship, in our community,- he told CBC public television.
Soharwardy added that a Muslim man from Ottawa who was fighting with IS in Mosul in northern Iraq had sent him a death threat on Facebook. -He was condemning me for condemning ISIS, and he was saying that ‘You are a deviant imam and your version of Islam is not the right version,’- Soharwardy said, using another acronym by which IS is known.
The Calgary-based imam said such threats were nothing new.
-I get death threats from everybody,- he said, adding that -just last month I had a death threat posted on a website.- In February, intelligence services said at least 130 Canadians were fighting with IS in Iraq and Syria. -Three Calgarian young fellows died in Iraq and Syria fighting for ISIS. One of them was very known to me,- he said.
-These people are brainwashing people here in this country,- he added. Soharwardy also began a 48-hour hunger strike -to create awareness about the dangerous nature of ISIS- and pay homage to American journalist James Foley, who was executed by his jihadist captors in a video released Tuesday by IS. IS declared itself a -caliphate- in late June and has since added a swath of northern Iraq to territory it already held in eastern Syria. The move has prompted a US campaign of air raids backing regional Kurdish and Iraqi forces fighting IS in the country’s north.