It is the bitter end of a painful legal saga for the Muslims of Quebec. Disappointed but resigned, the community now prefers to turn this painful page of its past to better cultivate its future.
The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled: the shooter who killed six worshipers and left 17 orphans in his wake will have the right to aspire to his freedom from 2042. Alexandre Bissonnette will then have served 25 years in prison and, at 52 , will have spent almost half of his life behind bars.
The co-founder of the Islamic Cultural Center of Quebec, Boufeldja Benabdallah, hoped for a different outcome, an end that would at the very least spare the bereaved families any possibility of meeting at random, in two decades, the executioner of their father, their husband or of their brother. The highest court in the land has instead ruled that everyone, no matter how atrocious their crime, has the right to hope for redemption.
“We accept because we have no other recourse,” Benabdallah said on Friday. If we have one recourse left, it is to turn the page. »
The chapter that concludes leaves a bittersweet aftertaste for the members of the small community. Since January 29, 2017, their history has been written with a strange ink – the blood of the victims, the gall of a xenophobic mob that is unleashed at each of their public appearances, the tears that a multitude of Quebecers have mingled with theirs .
This compassion has also put “balm on the wound”, says Mr. Benabdallah. But at the same time, the past five years have also seen a surge of insensitive, even hostile, comments about Muslims on certain microphones and on social media.
“There are still people who send us hateful messages,” sighs the president of the Islamic Cultural Center of Quebec, Mohamed Labidi, who himself lost his vehicle in a fire that occurred in the months following the attack. ” [Mais] we really feel that there is a change, a change towards the positive. And that is crucial. For us, but also for the families of the victims. »
The families have the feeling that the death of the disappeared now irrigates a more harmonious and more caring society, believes Mr. Labidi. “Their blood did not go anywhere, but to a cause that will improve the general condition of society. »
The Muslim community also got to know Quebecers, continues Mr. Benabdallah. “If it wasn’t for people’s compassion, it would have been terrible, we would have felt an unbearable loneliness. Throughout these five years, people have come closer to us, and we too have made the effort to reach out to them,” said the man, who in the tragedy became one of the best-known faces of the Muslims in the capital.
Aspire to normality
The press conference convened by representatives of the Islamic Cultural Center on Friday took place in the prayer hall of the Grand Mosque, at the very spot where the shooter broke in 1944 days ago.
Since this January evening, the places have changed: the mosque welcomes its faithful in a completely renovated setting, brighter and more imposing than before. On Friday, a few kneeling men were taking communion in silence. The tranquility of the place foreshadowed a community now at peace with the violence that has scarred its recent past.
Outside, however, cameras, locks and an alarm system now fortify the building. Two police officers were even patrolling the mosque grounds, at the request of the organizers of the press conference. For five years, each jolt that occurs in the trial of Alexandre Bissonnette revives fears of reprisals.
“I too, as an individual, want to turn the page,” says Boufeldja Benabdallah. I’ve been hurt enough, I’ve cried enough… It’s time to say, “It’s over.” »
We accept because we have no other recourse. If we have one recourse left, it is to turn the page.