Tuesday, January 31, 2017

The Suspected Quebec City Mosque Attacker Was a Right-Wing Troll and Trump Fan

But Fox News and the White House quickly pointed toward Islamic terrorism.

By Mark Follman, Mother Jones
January 30, 2017

Late Monday, Canadian authorities charged Alexandre Bissonnette, a white 27-year-old university student, with multiple counts of murder for an attack on a mosque in Quebec City that left six dead and many others injured. According to a report in the Globe and Mail, the 27-year-old Bissonnette "was known in the city's activist circles as a right-wing troll who frequently took anti-foreigner and anti-feminist positions and stood up for U.S. President Donald Trump." He also reportedly became a fan of far-right French leader Marine Le Pen after she visited Quebec City last March; a childhood friend and fellow student told the Globe and Mail that Bissonnette had become a xenophobe and was "enthralled" by racist nationalism.

With every mass shooting, the initial news is almost always riddled with inaccuracies—misidentification is common, and rarely is there more than one attacker. By now this is very well-known in newsrooms. Earlier on Monday, an additional suspect was reportedly in custody: a man of Moroccan origin. Sure enough, Quebec officials soon clarified that this second person was considered a witness, not a suspect in the attack.[...]

Read the full article:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/01/fox-news-quebec-city-mosque-attack-right-wing-shooter

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