116 acts of religious terrorism in Canada since 1975
Stéphane Leman-Langlois, a criminology professor at the Université de Montréal, has published an article in the journal Criminologie analysing the estimated 116 incidents of religion-based terrorism in Canada since 1975.
So, which religious group has committed the most acts of terror? You’ll be surprised.
The Doukhobors are an orthodox Christian sect from Saskatchewan and British-Columbia who committed 47 acts of terror between 1975 and 1986. They attacked mostly railroads but also post offices, electric power lines and museums.
“The Doukhobors attacked every modern symbol of the outside world that they felt threatened their way of life,” says Leman-Langlois. “We never heard of them afterwards because the leaders of the sect were convicted to jail and the new generation isn’t interested in this sort of violence.”
Although the Doukhobors were originally an offshoot of the Russian Orthodox Church, they weren’t “orthodox”. In fact, they renounced organised religion, priests, icons, secular government, the Bible as God’s holy word, and the divinity of Jesus Christ.
For more information on the history and beliefs of the Doukhobors, click here or here or here. The sect went into serious decline after the 1960s, but some are still around.
After Doukhobors come Muslims and Sikhs.
Islamic terrorists are in second place with 38 incidents between 1989 and 2007. These include the attacks on bookstores selling Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses; the arrest of Ahmed Ressam who tried crossing the U.S. border with a car full of explosives; the attacks on Jewish schools in Montreal; the foiled ammonium nitrate attack in Toronto.
In third place are the Sikhs with 17 incidents between 1983 and 1997, including the 1985 Air India catastrophe.
Dr Leman-Langlois concludes that acts of religious terrorism are very infrequent in Canada. Let’s hope it stays that way.
[...] PEACEFUL? 116 acts of religious terrorism in Canada since 1975 …. [...]
It was not the Doukhobors who were involved in violence, but a small group of zealots (also known as ‘Sons of Freedom’). Their actions contradicted the Doukhobor spirit — and therefore they excluded themselves from the Doukhobors.