Islam in Canada > One of the most iconic intersections in Canada closed by Muslim prayers on Friday afternoon. Why?

 

Canada: Pro-Hamas Muslims disrupt Toronto’s busy Yonge and Bloor intersection with prayers on loudspeaker

Mar 21, 2025 9:00 am By Christine Douglass-Williams

The corner of Yonge and Bloor is a major intersection and key transfer point for the Toronto Transit Commission subway line, with some 220,000 passengers passing through every day. Pro-Hamas demonstrators decided to disrupt the intersection with their Islamic prayers, on loudspeaker, with shouts of  “Free, free, free Palestine,” and “Allahu akbar” in between. But we must not connect Hamas violence and support of it with Islam; that would be “Islamophobic.”

I’m glad I have the privilege of going to work and paying taxes to support these foreigners right to impede all traffic during work hours

If I wasn’t working and supporting them, they might have to also go to work and couldn’t enrich is culturally like this https://t.co/Gdf6OqfQSH

— Plisken (@PliskenMGS) March 19, 2025

Toronto Police didn’t disappoint with their two-tier policing. They stood by and did nothing, or rather, enabled the problematic crowd, later justifying the disruption as “fundamental rights protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”

Unless you are a truck driver.

The praying protesters outside of the Israeli Consulate drew criticism from a woman who said she lives there.

“This is a roadway for emergency service. If we have fire or whatever. You are not allowed here,” said the woman. “I live here and this roadway, (it) is against the law to block. In Canada, it’s against the law.”

Police said she was wrong. She was shouted down with chants of, “Free, free, free Palestine,” and also blocked by some protesters as she tried to walk through the crowd. While some tried to impede her, others offered her a safe path to get through, telling people to “not touch her.”

As she was moving through the crowd, the woman said this road is “for safety, to get to our jobs and the TTC,” calling the gathering “totally unacceptable.”

This is particularly disgusting considering the recent uproar over two Toronto Police Muslim liaison officers who praised October 7 for leading more people to Islam. Toronto Police also released pro-Hamas 18-year-old Hissa Abed after she was arrested for violently assaulting a man 70 years her senior at a Toronto pro-Israel rally. The 88-year-old man was taken to the hospital for treatment.

BREAKING:

A judge has dropped the assault charge against 18-y-old Hissa Abed in a plea deal saving her from prison after she punched the 88-y-old Jewish man Joel Sacke in the face & body-slammed him.

She also stole an Israeli flag from Joel at the pro-Israel protest in Toronto pic.twitter.com/bG91PNquRk

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) March 15, 2025

Toronto Police also charged Amir Arvahi Azar with 29 criminal counts, including “advocating genocide” against the Jewish community, but the National Post reported that “despite allegedly being caught with three loaded handguns and being accused of an eight-month antisemitic crime spree – he’s been released on bail.”

Canadians need to wake up before it’s too late.

Folks are free to pray, but should that mean shutting down Yonge?

by Joe Warmington, Toronto Sun, March 19, 2025:

In Canada, people are free to pray as part of any faith they choose and wherever they choose.

But should that include shutting down one of Toronto’s busiest streets while they do it?

And for no particular reason, other than 'they can'! And because they are above Canadian laws and Canadians in general.

It’s a great debate thanks to what occurred Tuesday at about 7:30 p.m. at Yonge and Bloor Sts. A mass prayer involving hundreds of people may have looked like it was happening in Mecca, but it was actually in Toronto…..