A lesbian couple was brutally beaten by group of men in Halifax. Police still haven't filed charges

for those who haven't read the woman's FB post, here is a clip:

"..were attacked on Saturday night by a group of 7-10+ middle eastern men, believed to be from Syria, aged 18-25"

Canada has a lot of issues at this moment, stemming in part from increased immigration in the last 3 years (causing housing issues, etc). This sort of event, "brown people beating up white women" could be a dangerous racial catalyst.

I hope this gets dealt with as a single incident, but given current affairs, I am not optimistic.

Immigration is such a fucked up issue almost everywhere. You've got the right blaming everything on brown people and the left claiming all immigrants are just peace loving pacifists looking for a better life.

As with most issues the truth is in the middle and any immigration policy should absolutely demand that any immigrant coming into a country assimilate and fully support our values of equality for all.

You cannot tell me you support equality for all when your religion makes your wife walk 5 steps behind you in a beekeeper suit at 30c weather while you get to strut around in shorts and flip-flops.
- As with most issues the truth is in the middle and any immigration policy should absolutely demand that any immigrant coming into a country assimilate and fully support our values of equality for all.
  
  First generation migrants tend to be, in most receiving countries, less likely to commit crime than native-born population.
  
  http://www.antoniocasella.eu/nume/Bersani_2012.pdf
  
  They found that immigrant men and women were less criminally active than native-born men and women in regard to self-reported crime, being stopped by the police, being charged with a crime, and having contact with a criminal justice agency. This pattern of lower levels of criminal activity among immigrants compared to the native-born held in models controlling for key background characteristics including a variety of educational, employment, and family history measures.
  
  The problem comes with latter generations, if the receiving country isn't doing an adequate job at integrating them. If the parents work really long hours, aren't capable of spending much time with their kids, have trouble to pay kindergarten and have trouble teaching their kids the local language, if the kids are victimized by racist bullying at school, have less means to do well academically and land a good job, and are generally otherized by society, they're at a larger risk getting alienated and engaging in antisocial behavior and even crime.
  
  So, if you don't want migration to be a problem, invest in public schooling (including kindergarten), offer classes teaching the local language to adults, empower unions, protect labor, and fight racism.
- As with most issues the truth is in the middle and any immigration policy should absolutely demand that any immigrant coming into a country assimilate and fully support our values of equality for all.
  
  America is hardly a country of "equality for all" sadly
  
  Edit: This was literally 4 posts down
- As with most issues the truth is in the middle and any immigration policy should absolutely demand that any immigrant coming into a country assimilate and fully support our values of equality for all.
  
  Plenty of born Canadians do not support these principles at all
- I agree, and it goes both ways. I was taking to a Mexican immigrant yesterday who hasn't been home to see his mother in more than 20 years as he doesn't have the ability to cross the border, and she has continuously been denied visas without explanation.
  
  There's a lot of shit the US puts immigrants through as they walk on the edge of being allowed to exist here. My opinion is that we should both open our borders, and document the people who come through.
Why are they believed to be from Syria?
- Police said one man stayed and made a statement, in the US at least this means identifying yourself, so they have a likely reliable way to identify the men involved
I hope this gets dealt with as a single incident, but given current affairs, I am not optimistic.

Genuine question. Is it a single incident though?

There have been a lot of reports of issues with people coming to western countries and not holding the same standards of respect for women.

I think it should be dealt with as a single issue iff it is a single issue. If it isn't a single issue why should it be treated as such?
I don't think a lot of Syrians were allowed into Canada as much as Germany and Sweden (at least proportionately in the latter case).

Violent people should be brought to justice, this is unacceptable.

There are many Muslim or Islamic immigrants who live in Western countries just fine, what happened here? Many Muslim and Islamic immigrants are LGBT+.

The root cause of the issue in this incident should be examined, and if all else fails violent immigrants should be deported.

I work with middle eastern guys who are like this, they hide this side of themselves when I'm around (white guy) but it comes out when my female coworkers are alone. It's common enough that I've heard about it from multiple people. But when I'm around they're great and I consider them good work friends.
- It's hard facing this as a lefty. I met a Muslim European colleague at an all hands in tel aviv during pride a few years ago. Went for super late night constitutional with a few other internationals including fellow Americans and the whole city was alive and really queer. In depth conversation with this otherwise really nice guy about how he would minimum believe mental illness, maybe disown, his daughters for being gay or trans. I understood it's religion like anti abortion and I'll never persuade him and didn't argue, just shared perspectives and asked questions.
The root cause is Islamic conservatism.
- Root cause is religion which devalues this life for a hypothetical next one
- Maybe? I guess I want to know what efforts are made for integration. If you treat people as subhumans, they will hate their fellow countrymen

Is it weird that I’m impressed by how minor their injuries are?

A significantly broken nose can be life altering, especially if it’s too swollen to set right away, don’t get me wrong, but they both walked away.

If I was in a fight with multiple men and I ended up on the ground, I don’t think I’m walking away. I say that as a 178cm woman who’s stronger than most.

I dunno. I read it after seeing your comment and it suprised by your assessment. Black eyes take forever to heal. They have to see that every day in the mirror for weeks while also trying to deal with the trauma of the attack.

I think it's great they walked away, but then again, doesn't seem like the kind of situation where it's a group of people looking to maim or kill
- I got punched in the face at 24yr, and it never fully recovered. My eye is ok, but any time there's the slightest bit of facial swelling - tired, allergies, etc. the cheek under that eye pouches up and droops markedly.
- I’m absolutely not minimizing their injuries, but I would expect myself to die in that situation. They handled themselves much better in the fight than I think I would.
- I’m surprised how serious you take black eyes
  
  The story could easily be “racist woman gets punched in face after saying something”
They're Canadian.

Broken nose, broken teeth and black eyes? This was a normal day at whale shit hockey.
- IIUC, that's a mostly consensual activity.

atheism is the answer. until we as a whole reject religion, these incidents will be recurring.

I know homophobes that are atheists. while religion being gone would decrease it, do not expect it to be gone just because of that. People will always have issues with people different than they are.
- yes, but with religion out of the way, we can implement better education to reduce 'otherism' bias. i am convinced that the only obstacles stopping us from being better humans are all rooted in BS fairy tales.
- While true they won't have a belief system that backs it up, it won't have the power behind it.
Doesn't work. USSR murdered and prisoned both religious people and gay people alike. The answer is not being a fucking cockwomble, which is admittedly more easily done if you're an atheist, but by no means is a guarantee.
- agreed! but the path to not being a cockwomble aligns pretty well with the goals of a reason based, humanitarian, secular society.
  
  if you don't agree, what's your path towards our common goal?
Not necessarily. Plenty of chill religious people and unchill atheists. Russian homophobia, for instance, is generally secular.
- as it was under Stalin.
- Really? So why is that Krill East Orthodox Shaman announcing he hates gays every single week?
  
  Also show me the religious Muslim who isn't a homophobe
- is it really, though? provide some evidence. and if it is, do you have a better solution to reduce bias?
Homophobia and Atheism aren't mutually exclusive to one another, hell I know plenty of Atheist Transphobes.. some of whom used to be gay allies until they were radicalized by the Alt Right.
- anecdotal.
There is a really funny South Park episode about this.... Bottom line is assholes will be assholes with or without religion, which is just a convenient excuse for assholery.
- We don't actually know this, just because one southpark episode depicts it happening like that doesn't mean it would. Religion has a lot of archaic beliefs that actively harm people. It would be a lot harder for someone to be motivated to hurt someone if they didn't believe they had a reason to justify it.
- This sounds like something a member of the United Atheist Alliance would say.
- but assholes are far and few when people aren't deluded by religion. are you people actually arguing in favor of a religious society?

“A group of men walking on the other direction made a comment to me. My girlfriend, Tori, said ‘hey that’s my girlfriend,'" MacLean told CTVNews. “They continued walking and Tori followed them to basically say: ‘That is not OK’.”

Don't ever do this, no matter who you are.

I'd encourage LGBTQ folk to relocate to western and northern Europe. It ain't perfect, but you're very unlikely to get the shit kicked out of you.

I'm not sure about that for the UK at least. My British friends say Labour is going anti trans
- That's true. They don't call it terf island for nothing.
Europe seems to be swinging hard right these days though isn't it?
- Depends where in Europe. It is a bit bit arguably not as hard right as the states. You also have to consider that the cut off for left and right differ wildly between countries. AOC is pretty much center for Scandinavia. Joe Biden is center right... Which is why we're so concerned about trump.
These Syrian Islamists are also here. Like here in the Netherlands a couple of months ago two Syrians beat up an old Iraqi immigrant because he was wearing a cross. And in May a Syrian father honor killed his daughter with the help of his sons. This shit happens everywhere these Syrians fled to in huge numbers.
- Yeah, sure, European reactionaries are so well known for their inclusive position towards the LGBTQ community; it's those damn immigrants protesting drag shows and criminalizing abortion.
  
  Stop instrumentalizing the discrimination minorities face to legitimize discrimination of other minorities, you xenophobe.

👁️4️⃣👁️

have books become too heavy for men?

If you beat someone with a book that would be considered assault with a weapon.

It's too bad that happened, and I dunno if I'm victim blaming or whatever... But the one girl followed the group and said that's not ok. Yeah she called them out, but there's consequences to stuff like that. Either way hope they catch those pricks

The point was that those men weren't supposed to harass them in the first place.
- "Weren't supposed to"
  
  Yeah the real world with it's infinite variables doesn't work like that.
Yes there is being right but also being stupid.

Here lies the body of William Jay, Who died maintaining his right of way— He was right, dead right, as he sped along, But he's just as dead as if he were wrong.
- Exactly, gotta pick your battles and be wise about shit
- A guy I worked with would pull shit like this on the road all the fucking time. I remember once my wife was dropping me off at work, she starts complaining that the guy in the right lane is deliberately not letting her merge, look over and sure enough it's the guy I work with.
  
  He is going to get someone killed one day
Are you saying she provoked them somehow, and they didn’t even know she was gay? I am just trying to clarify the point here
- According to the article it started with them insulting one of the girls due to appearance, then the girlfriend defended and followed the group. According to the group of guys the women got violent first but who knows who’s telling the truth.
- I dunno man, it's really hard to make a judgment just based on an article. Who knows what facts were left out. But if a group of men are talking shit, yeah maybe it'll make your blood boil and you could say "fuck off bully" or something as just a counter, but to actively follow them? Just escalating and not the hill you wanna die on just to stand up... my opinion is colored though from my interactions with other female sex couples and found they argumentative and just crazy in general. Whatever logical fallacy or argument rule I broke I don't know, just stating my opinions here.

Pigs being pigs in klanada, what a shocker

Remember incidents like these are a direct result from republican politics.

The thugs are being enabled by the politicians.

Edit: I thought Halifax is in the USA.

Nova Scotia is not a US state.
- Hey man don't push your politics on me
  
  -Christopher Walkens
- Let's hope it stays that way. I feel like Trump would pull something.
There are, in fact, 7 states with cities called Halifax. And if others aren't aware, that republican authoritarianism is spreading around the globe - enabled by their same corporate/elite backers and think tanks. I believe your point still stands.
- Must suck to be Canadian and just be a passive intellectual vessel that ideas are poured into.
Not only did this happen in Canada, these men who assaulted these women....are not Republicans, they're a completely different kind of authoritarian and they're already at the violence level.
- To be honest they are the role model of republicans, they are everything republicans dream to become
Nothing to do with Islam, right. Hey thanks for giving us Canada btw, it's like New England but more so.
no.