Palestinian-owned restaurant in Winnipeg vandalized

Winnipeg police are investigating an incident at a local cafe after two individuals were caught on camera damaging the property. The owner of Habibiz Cafe says windows were smashed, and a note containing hateful language was later discovered.

Around 5 a.m. on Sunday in Winnipeg. The owner of Habibiz Cafe was informed of an incident by one of his staff members and rushed to the restaurant. Once arriving, he not only found his two front windows smashed, but after checking out the damage, he also found a note that said to leave their country, called them terrorists, and ended with a slur.

“Coming to the restaurant and seeing what happened, my mom was upset, she was crying, she wanted us to close, my staff are scared, but that doesn’t give us no reason to close and go home,” said Ali Zeid, owner of Habibiz Cafe.

While this incident was shocking to the café, the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) says this incident was not a surprise.

“This follows a much larger pattern, well establish pattern of rising anti-Palestine racism and anti-Muslim sentiment across our country, both in Manitoba and across Canada. So, we are ready to see some action, increased action on the part of our elected officials on this,” said Sadaf Ahmed, Government Affairs and Public Policy Officer with NCCM.

At a press conference on Monday, Winnipeg police services said they are investigating the incident and said they take all hate-motivated incidents very seriously. As for the café, despite everything going on, they remain in high spirits.

“There’s no words to what happened, right? There’s no words you can say, except thank you to the community, thank you to the public, that made us stay strong together, made us believe in one another, made us stay open, we never closed, we are gonna fix it and continue on,” said Zeid.

“Listen, there is no room for hate in this beautiful country. There’s no hate in Winnipeg, there’s no hate in Manitoba.”