“I come to Canada, a country that carries the name of human rights…I came here to be free…where can I go now?”
These are the words of hate crime victim Mojtaba, originally from Iran. He was beaten and his throat slashed on the campus of Seneca College, while his assailant, allegedly a fellow student named Daniel Da Silva, mouthed the usual right-wing slurs:
“While he hit me, he was saying things like ‘faggot,”bitch,’ and ‘go back to your country,’ ” said Mojtaba.
His country? Mojtaba still has painful memories of what that was like:
In 2007, Mojtaba was detained and tortured in custody for attending a gay party.
Being gay is illegal in Iran and is punishable by death, flogging or imprisonment.
“There was about 15 of us. To scare us, the police would pick a man from the group and bring him to the bathroom and he never came back. Some of those people from that party, I don’t know what happened to them,” said Mojtaba, of the detention.
“There is no mercy. I’ve known people who have been executed,” he explained.
A video interview with Mojtaba here. More on the story here: Seneca College cack-handedly attempted to muzzle him, but is now trying to walk that back.
Da Silva has been arrested and charged with assault with a weapon. No onerous bail conditions for him, it seems—it’s not as though he pitched a tent in a public park or something. According to Mojtaba, he’s still wandering around the campus. The Seneca College administration has, however, suspended him from classes pending an “internal investigation,” which I find myself hoping will involve the liberal use of sounds and lube.