Mojtaba, who asked that his surname not be published, says he was taunted over his sexuality during last week’s incident. The 29-year-old says he came to Canada in 2009 in part to escape the discrimination, violence and even torture he faced in his homeland.
“I’m afraid now,” he told Canada’s Postmedia News.
“I come to Canada, a country that carries the name of human rights, and you see some- thing like this happen at a college…. I came here to be free…. Where can I go now?”
Mojtaba said he was waiting for a friend at Seneca College in Toronto around 11:30 a.m. when someone he recognized from one of his classes looked at him suspiciously. “He said, ‘What are you looking at?’ I said, ‘Nothing,’ “ Mojtaba recounted.
Moments later, the same man reappeared, but this time with a woman believed to be his girlfriend.
“He was whispering some- thing to her and when he was walking near me, I said, ‘What’s wrong?’ Then he pulled my hoodie over my head and he began to beat me,” said Mojtaba.
He said the woman held him down while the assailant, punched him repeatedly for several minutes as a handful of students stood around and video-taped the assault.
Mojtaba said he was able to break free when a stranger intervened and he ran to his program coordinator to report what had happened. “That’s when my teacher asked about my neck. I didn’t even know I was cut because I was in so much shock,” he said. The bloody line across Mojtaba’s throat was apparently cut by a sharp pencil.
Toronto police say Daniel Da Silva, 21, has been charged with assault with a weapon. Mojtaba said he shared classes with the accused, but that they never spoke to each other. Chris McGrath, dean of students at Seneca College, said the accused has been suspended until the police and the school’s internal investigation is complete.
The assault has brought back haunting memories of life in Iran for Mojtaba. In 2007, Mojtaba was arrested, detained and tortured in custody for at- tending a gay party. “There was about 15 of us. To scare us, the police would pick a man from the group and bring him to the bathroom and he never came back.
Some of those people from that party, I don’t know what happened to them,” said Mojtaba. When he was released several days later, Mojtaba took a train from his home in Shiraz, Iran, to seek asylum in Turkey, where many persecuted gays and lesbians go to escape.
After a year, he came to Canada and is now a permanent resident. Mojtaba arrived in Toronto with the assistance of the Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees, a non-governmental organization that helps Iranian gays, lesbians and transgendered people seek asylum in such countries as Canada.