A suspect arrested was 27 years old. Police put up a security perimeter around the mosque. Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard termed the act “barbaric violence” and expressed solidarity with victims’ families. “Why is this happening here? This is barbaric,” said the mosque’s president, Mohamed Yangui. Asked who might commit such an act, or why, he said: “I have no idea. Really no idea.”It is known that someone left a pig’s head on the mosque’s doorstep in the past June, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Incidents of Islamophobia have increased in Quebec in recent years. In the neighboring province of Ontario, a mosque was set on fire in 2015, a day after an attack by gunmen and suicide bombers in Paris. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio condemned the attack. “We must stand together,” de Blasio tweeted.
