The Daily Sigh

New Crime: Hugging While Muslim?

Credit: Steven Zhou

I.

Mohammed B. sounded dejected on the phone, like someone who'd been pushed around one too many times. His voice was soft but eager, often jumping to the next point before completing a full thought. An hour of talking later and it was clear: he'd had it with just about everything.

Last summer, Mohammed, 29, couldn't have been happier. He was finally working a stable job after he and his wife, Um Kulthom Al-Nehmi, now 24, were given refugee status. The two are originally from Yemen. They have a two year old son, Zaid.

One evening last July, the trio were browsing the Bridgeport Walmart in Waterloo, Ontario where they'd rented an apartment. It was an auspicious time in the Islamic lunar calendar: the days leading up to Eid al-Adha, and Um Kulthom decided to fast by abstaining from food and water until sundown - despite the sweltering summer heat.

It was supposed to be a happy day for the young family and things were going well until, according to Mohammed and Um Kulthom, those light and banal moments at the local Walmart became nightmarish in mere seconds, almost ruining their budding lives in Canada.

"All I did was hug my wife, and this guy outside of the aisle started talking to us," Mohammed B. recalled through his light Arabic accent. His curly black hair appeared closely cropped and his goatee neatly trimmed as he waved his hands around during a long Zoom interview.

"The guy was like, 'Are you okay?' I said 'Yes.' And then he told me, 'Why are you threatening your wife like this?' I said, 'What do you mean?' He said, 'Why are you here choking your wife?'"

The two men went back and forth like this as Um Kulthom, who wears the niqab or Muslim face veil, looked on in confusion. She doesn't speak fluent English.

The intervener's name is Edwin Antwi. What was said between him and Mohammed B. remains a matter of dispute. Minutes later, Antwi, along with Walmart employees, decided to call the police on Mohammed for strangling his wife Um Kulthom.

Court documents show that Antwi later alleged that Mohammed, who has a slight but wiry build, had also justified his actions by saying, "I can do what I want with my wife, I'm Muslim."

"It's an absolute lie, I never said that," Mohammed maintains. He said Antwi walked away at first while the family, still shaken by the encounter, paid for a few things and walked to their car.

"Then all of a sudden, I see a Walmart person come outside, walking towards us, taking a picture of my car," he said. "The store manager also came out and told me the police wanted to speak to me on the phone."

The Waterloo Regional Police Service arrived at the parking lot moments after they told Mohammed and his family on the phone to stay put. According to the couple, police first spoke to Antwi, then the Walmart employees.

At no point did anyone try to get the full story from Um Kulthom that night, the supposed victim of an allegedly violent Muslim husband from the Middle East. I called the Bridgeport Walmart management, who referred me to their corporate communications. They did not reply to a request for comment.

"I had my hands in my pockets, waiting for them to finish and come talk to me," Mohammed B. said. "But then an officer came over, told me to take my hand out and put them behind my back, and then he cuffed me."