In an incident that reminds us again that there is still racism practiced against Arabs and Muslims in one way or another, some students at Gloucester High School located in the Canadian capital Ottawa and affiliated with the OCDSB public school board, bullied their classmate and beat him in a brutal and violent manner, in addition to verbally abusing him with racist terms.

The student named Anas Al-Hassan is originally Syrian and is fifteen years old. He arrived in Ottawa from the city of Windsor a month ago to join this school at the beginning of the new academic year.

A special video was published on Instagram showing the violent and brutal manner in which Anas was attacked in this assault.

Anas said in audio recordings received by Arab Canada News, a copy of which was received, that the reason for the assault was that the class supervisor had placed him in a study group consisting of a female student and two other male students.

He explained that after leaving the school, several students met him, and one of them asked him, "Are you an Arab Muslim, and why are you talking to this girl?!"

In the audio recording, Anas adds that his classmate who assaulted him told him during their conversation to stay away from this girl because she is their friend.

The following day, when he went to Tim Hortons to buy his necessities, he found the attacking student who said to him, "Why did you do that with the girl?" When Anas replied that he had not done anything... the attacker told him "You are a liar!"... and then a group of students began to beat him brutally as was clear in the video.

Anas was taken to the hospital for treatment, and he has now begun to recover but still suffers from bruises in various parts of his body.

A police report was filed about the incident by a group of parents in the area, demanding that the matter be followed up and necessary measures taken to ensure such an incident does not happen again.

On the other hand, parents of Arab descent expressed their outrage and anger over this brutal assault.

Canadian parents of Arab origin at this school also expressed their concern for their children about such violent behaviors and the bullying that was practiced against Anas.

The parents issued a petition/request and obtained thousands of signatures supporting their demands for the necessity of providing protection for their children in schools and ensuring that such an incident, which awakened previously absent fears, does not recur.

The parents began warning their children not to participate in any incidents involving violence and emphasized the necessity of adherence to rules.

A group of concerned parents are now working hard to transfer Anas from his current school to another school to ensure he is kept away from the group of attackers who threatened to kill him if he reported to the police what they did to him, according to Anas’ audio recording.

The petition submitted by the parents stated:

We, as parents of children attending OCDSB schools, put ourselves as parents of the victim as well, and therefore we feel extreme anger and shock that this is actually happening in our safe communities and among school students.

We wish to express our sincere condemnation of the arbitrary behavior that occurred and express our deepest concerns about the safety of our children.

We also wish to see practical steps implemented on the ground to ensure this violence never happens again, especially against visible minorities or due to race, religion, gender, or any other discrimination that might indicate vulnerability.