This article and video was posted by Fizza Mir about me and the Eid Festival I lead in Toronto on Monday. I felt obliged to respond with my side of the story. Thank you for reading: Asalaamu Alaikum Sister Fizza and everyone else, My name is Zubair Khan and I am the organizer of the event this year. I appreciate your efforts to blur my face from the video and conceal my identity but there was certainly no need to do that. I have nothing to hide. Upon being requested, my team of volunteers and I ran the event as a service to the community. As you might imagine it is an extremely heavy undertaking while fasting, working a day job and attending to day-to-day family responsibilities. We spent many sleepless nights to put it together and it is disheartening, to say the least, that this is the first account we are reading about the event. Nonetheless, you are of course entitled to your opinion. Firstly, Rob Ford was not invited to our event. When he arrived, we were surprised but felt obliged to assign a volunteer to him to oversee his visit. He is far from our candidate of choice, but as the lead of the event I tried my best to keep his visit peaceful and composed. Shortly after, it was brought to my attention that there was tension building around Rob Ford and I looked over to see a crowd of people forming around him. I was not close enough to hear the shouts of support for him you describe but I could see was that it was loud and appeared to be getting out of hand. The event was meant to celebrate Eid, not become a protest. When I approached the crowd I saw you standing behind the Mayor holding your sign above his head while he was facing cameras. It didn’t appear that he was aware of your sign. To me that was not a mature or appropriate gesture and certainly not a positive depiction of what our event stands for – not your message, but the way you were presenting it. While I may have agreed with your message, I would rather you had approached the event staff and explained your concerns and allowed us to take action. Additionally, I had already gestured security to stand by the crowd incase their intervention was needed to maintain the safety of the attendees. I felt your sign was not helping to calm the situation. What would have happened if the Mayor had turned around to see you with your sign? I wasn’t going to wait to find out. I support freedom of speech but safety is also my priority as an organizer. Further, my actions had absolutely nothing to do with you being a woman. If I was present during the second incident (in your second video) I would have stepped in to stop the brother just the same. However, I was elsewhere trying to keep the event moving smoothly and safely. So that is the “other side” of the story. I apologize if I did anything wrong and take full responsibility for my actions. I tried my best to do what I felt was right. May Allah reward you for your efforts and intentions and may He guide all of us. May He grant sincere and honest leadership to the people of Toronto as well as the rest of the world. Jazakallahu Khair Zubair Khan
Posted on: Thu, 31 Jul 2014 03:32:17 +0000
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