In the Name of God, the Entirely Merciful, the Especially Merciful


In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CAIR-CAN FILES CRTC COMPLAINT AGAINST TORONTO-BASED CFMT
Comments by Jimmy Swaggart "slander Prophet Muhammmad, incite violence against Muslims"

(Ottawa, Canada - 11/16/02) - The Canadian office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CAN) today filed a complaint with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) regarding comments made on Toronto-based station CFMT by televangelist Jimmy Swaggart.

In a November 10 broadcast, televangelist Jimmy Swaggart referred to the Prophet Muhammad as a "sex deviant" and "pervert." He also called for the expulsion of all foreign Muslim university students in the United States and for profiling of airline passengers "with a diaper on their head and a fan-belt around their waist." Of American Muslims, Swaggart said: "We ought to tell every other Moslem (sic) living in this nation that if you say one word, you're gone." Moreover, he even seemed to suggest violence against Muslims when he stated that others need to "clean their nose with their teeth," an apparent reference to a punch in the nose.

See: http://www.jsm.org/html/realvideo___archive.htm.  Go to "The Brazen Altar and the Golden Altar Part 2" at the bottom of the page.

Swaggart's statements are similar in tone to recent comments by other U.S. evangelists. Pat Robertson, for example, described Muslims as being "worse than the Nazis," Jerry Falwell referred to the Prophet Muhammad as a "terrorist, "and Franklin Graham called Islam an "evil and wicked religion."

This is not the first time Swaggart has attacked Islam on Canadian television.  In 1985, he attacked the Koran on a show broadcast on Global TV.  Global President David Mintz assured the Muslim community that the network would not "permit anyone at any time to talk against another person's religion."  He also enclosed a letter of apology from Jimmy Swaggart in which the televangelist promised that such attacks against Islam "will not happen again."

(See: http://www.themodernreligion.com/assault/media-bias.html).

CAIR-CAN Executive Director Riad Saloojee stated, "Mr. Swaggart's comments are shocking and clearly incite hatred against Muslims. We are calling on the CRTC to ensure that the Canadian media does not provide a voice to Mr. Swaggart's repeated anti-Islamic rhetoric."

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Contact: Riad Saloojee at 613-254-9704; E-mail: Canada@cair-net.org



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