Jesse Pelletier, from Montreal, Quebec province in Canada, has been arrested by the police for allegedly posting a YouTube video featuring him wearing a 'Joker' mask threatening to kill "one Arab a week" to "clean up the province."
The video showed a man wearing a 'Joker' (a villain in the Batman comics) mask saying that a group of 10 and he would cleanse the province of Arabs. His YouTube username was Jack Napier, the DC Comics character's real name. In the video, he is also seen brandishing a gun which Pelletier claimed was fake after he was arrested.
"After our investigation, we targeted a home on Monsolet street, and at 1 am we conducted a search that led to the arrest of a 24-year-old-man," said the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) spokesperson André Leclair.
Pelletier, 24, has been arrested on multiple charges - of uttering death threats against the Arab community, inciting hatred, provoking fear within the Arab community by perpetrating a hoax regarding terrorist activity, and possession of a fake weapon, Vice reported.
His video was reported to both Montreal and provincial police by Imam Adil Charkaoui, whose runs a group called Quebec Collective against Islamophobia (CQCI).
Charkaoui received a panicked phone call from his mother after the video was posted on YouTube. He says, "[She] was waiting for the bus when two other Muslim women approached her and told her not to stay there, that it wasn't safe, that a man was out trying to kill Arabs and Muslims."
The arrest has reassured the residents, he added.
This is, however, not an isolated incident. There has been a growing number of Islamophobic attacks in Canada after the Paris attacks on Friday.
A Muslim woman was attacked viciously while picking up her son from school in Toronto. Teenage Muslim girls have been told to not walk to Islamic school alone at night and the Muslim Council of Greater Hamilton has asked people in traditional garb such as beards, prayer caps or hijabs to walk in groups, reported Vice News.
To neutralise the growing sense of alienation, the Muslims of Calgary group has established a volunteer community service initiative called "Your Muslim Neighbor".
