Ont .,: Rights Advocate and Amira Elghawaby

ont .,: Previous reporting below As Toronto police investigate an attack on a 11-year-old Muslim girl this week as a possible hate crime, a human rights advocate says that official statistics provide only a tiny glimpse into the kinds of hateful acts minority communities face in Canada, according to CBC. Khawlah Noman, a student at Pauline Johnson Junior Public School in Scarborough, Ont., was walking to school on Friday morning when a man approached her from behind and tried twice to cut off her hijab with a pair of scissors, according to police. Full details here. For those of us who wear a head scarf, it's like we have a target on us, said Amira Elghawaby, a human rights advocate based in Ottawa. They are incidents that are meant to send a message that certain communities are not welcome. Elghawaby was formerly spokesperson for the National Council of Canadian Muslims NCCM . These are message crimes. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.