VPD investigating vandalism at Al Masjid Al Jamia after red graffiti message; hate-crime charge not yet pursued

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Vancouver police are investigating vandalism at Al Masjid Al Jamia, after security footage captured a person spray-painting red graffiti on the mosque’s front doors on Thursday night.

Police said the message sprayed in red—"UK BLOOD IS ON YOUR HAND"—was posted across the doors, but its meaning remains unclear. Sgt. Adam Donaldson said the VPD is “alive to the fact that this is on a mosque” and that the wording appears intended to intimidate, but the department does not yet know what it means. On that basis, he said the case could not be investigated as a hate crime on the available evidence, and the VPD would pursue a hate-crime charge only if additional evidence supports it.

Donaldson said the VPD will investigate the alleged vandalism as a crime of mischief for now. Through Friday, extra police patrols were deployed in the Fairview area where the mosque is located.

Mosque director Haroon Khan said he was shocked and “profoundly sad” to learn the mosque had been vandalized Thursday night, adding: “It’s heartbreaking to see something like this.” He said he had not believed the report at first when he saw a photo, thinking it might be from elsewhere.

Khan said he wants to speak with the person who committed the act to connect and dispel any misunderstandings, and described the hatred he said he sees around the mosque as “very real and virulent.” He said the comments on social media in response to the incident were “insane” and “the worst of the worst,” and he pointed to what he called ignorance and fear as factors that allow hate to “come forward in a very real and destructive way.”

Al Masjid Al Jamia opened in 1963, originally operating as a cultural centre for Vancouver’s growing Pakistani Canadian community. The building was converted into a mosque in the mid-1980s and now serves a diverse congregation of Muslims, which Khan described as the mosque’s “spiritual home.”