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WARNING: This story includes an image showing a swastika painted on a building.
An Islamic centre and mosque in the heart of Winnipeg’s West End is the fourth building to be defaced hate-motivated graffiti in less than a week.
A swastika was found spray-painted on the Abu Bakr Al-Siddique mosque and community centre, at the corner of Ellice Avenue and Home Street, around 8:30 a.m. Wednesday.
By later in the morning, the graffiti had already been removed.
Adnan Siddiqui, the director of the mosque, said he has been in contact with police, who confirmed they removed the graffiti.
He’s also grateful that someone took the time to report the incident.
“Canada is built on respect, diversity and freedom of worship, and we must protect those values together,” Siddiqui said.
This incident comes after similar markings were sprayed on Kelvin High School on Monday night and Shaarey Zedek synagogue was vandalized with antisemitic graffiti, including several swastikas, last Friday.
And on Sunday, a person was caught on surveillance footage smashing windows at Habibiz Café, a Middle Eastern restaurant on Portage Avenue. The person didn’t enter the building but did leave a threatening message outside the restaurant, police previously said.
Winnipeg police spokesperson Const. Claude Chancy said the major crimes unit is investigating the incident at the mosque, but it’s too early to tell if it is linked to any of the others.
A photo taken around 8:30 a.m. Wednesday shows the graffiti on the Ellice Avenue mosque and community centre. (Submitted by Nicholas Anthony)
Avrom Charach, a member of the Jewish community who volunteers to remove antisemitic and other hateful graffiti, said he’s disturbed, but no longer shocked, by such incidents.
“I’m always saddened … [but] I’m not even surprised anymore,” he said Wednesday.
“This is happening far too much all over the city — it just doesn’t get reported as often as it happens.”
Kelvin and Shaarey Zedek are both located in the city’s Crescentwood area, but Charach said he’s scrubbed graffiti in 2025 from locations around the city.
“And other people are doing it now too with me. It’s not just me, but I get a lot of the calls,” he said.
“On an almost weekly basis, we find words that shouldn’t be said in public about Israel, about Jews.”
Avrom Charach is disturbed by the latest incidents of hate-related vandalism in Winnipeg.
(Prabhjot Singh Lotey/CBC)
Charach said it’s important for Jews to stay strong and for everyone else to support any community that is being targeted by hate.
But he’d like to see the province take more action to prosecute people responsible for hate-related crimes, “no matter who they’re throwing the hate at.”
“We have lots of people out there, good people with good minds and good hearts, who don’t like seeing hate spewed against anyone,” he said. “But we have a government that’s not generally taking action.”
A year ago, provincial Justice Minister Matt Wiebe promised to appoint a Crown attorney to specifically tackle and prosecute hate crimes.
A provincial spokesperson said the Manitoba Prosecution Service now has about 10-12 Crown attorneys who are part of a hate crime working group.
Mandy Ambrose, a director in the prosecution service, has been designated to lead the group, the spokesperson said in a Wednesday afternoon email to CBC.
Prosecutors are advised to “consult with the working group when they identify a hate crime file,” the spokesperson said.
‘Moral right to do something’
Nicholas Anthony, who spotted the graffiti on the Abu Bakr Al-Siddique community centre and mosque as he was driving by early Wednesday morning, said he felt he had to do something, so he turned around to take a photo and call police.
“If the owner of the mosque were to come, or the people out there that gather to worship, it could be very devastating to witness something like that,” said Anthony, who happened to be listening to a radio program discussing the other incidents in the city at the same moment.
Nicholas Anthony saw a swastika painted on the Ellice Avenue Islamic centre on Wednesday. (Prabhjot Singh Lotey/CBC)
“My heart was definitely heavy, because driving my young son … the world I have to raise him in really filled me up with some sorrow,” he said.
“I don’t know who can wake up with so much hate in their heart to do something so heinous.”
Anthony said he couldn’t, in good conscience, ignore what he saw and just go on with his day.
“As a person in society, I have the moral right to do something like this,” he said.
“As people, we’re so busy in our routine of life, and sometimes we forget about the smaller details — but also in this sense it’s a pretty big detail not to call it in. It’s the right thing to do.”
WATCH | Winnipeg mosque latest building to be hit with hate-related vandalism:
Winnipeg mosque hit with hate-related vandalism
A mosque in the West End was vandalized with a swastika, spotted Wednesday morning by a passing driver. The Winnipeg Police Service’s major crimes unit is now investigating what is at least the fourth hate-related vandalism incident in the past six days.