Thorold Muslim family say they were denied local burial for their daughter

The Muslim community in the City of Thorold says they’re in a battle with city hall over a basic human right.

They say as Muslims, they’re being denied the right to bury their dead in a cemetery in their own city.

This story starts with a tragic highway fatality last week when 18-year-old Alina Masud of Thorold, a Brock University student, died when she was struck by vehicles on the road after a single car accident on Highway 406 in St. Catharines.

The terrible accident was then compounded by another shock days later when an hour before the funeral service for Alina, the family was told they couldn’t go ahead with the burial at Thorold’s Lakeview Cemetery and had to move her to a cemetery in Niagara Falls.

“He cried,” said Imam Asad Mahmood, the founder and president of Mosque Aisha in Thorold of the father. “He said, ‘you know what, I’m new and for me to drive that far to see my daughter every day, it was going to be difficult.'”

Mahmood says burial is a basic human right, in a city where they pay taxes.

“This is a basic need of any citizen anywhere in the world,” said Mahmood. “If we are living here, of course we’re going to die here.”

He said the family was preparing for the burial on Saturday at Thorold’s public Lakeview Cemetery, when they were told by a city official that almost all city councilors opposed burying Masud in the cemetery and that, “the city doesn’t want the cemetery to be segregated.”

READ MORE: Woman, 18, dead after single-vehicle rollover on Hwy. 406 in St. Catharines

He says Muslims are buried facing Mecca in the east, but says they follow all of Ontario’s funerary laws, and they’re accepted in other cemeteries throughout the region.

“They should give us an explanation, what is the actual reason that we cannot bring our loved ones to the cemetery?” asked Mahmood. “Do they need money? Are we not paying them? I would like to see that this is a concern as a human towards another human.”

No one from the city would do an interview Monday with CHCH News but city staff provided a statement saying, “a grave was inadvertently sold in an area” that had not been opened yet and “unfortunately, the City was not able to accommodate the family’s preference.”

It further says they “provided an alternative which the family declined,” but added, “we sincerely apologize for the added burden this situation has caused.”

Councilor Tim O’Hare, who wanted to let the funeral go ahead on Saturday, told CHCH News in a statement, “A municipal cemetery should be for all residents regardless of religion, and we should accommodate religious practices fairly,” later adding, “there is too much hatred in the world.”

Mahmood says they’ve been trying for two years to get access to the Thorold cemetery, and says at one point the city allowed a stillborn Muslim child to be buried there, before saying no.

That child’s grave is now isolated from other community members.

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