Javid Mirza
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Javid Mirza is a politician and community leader in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. He is president of the Muslim Association of Hamilton, and ran for the Liberal Party of Canada in the 2006 federal election.
Mirza was born in Pakistan, and came to Hamilton during the 1970s. He founded the sports equipment company Seven Star Sports in 1989, and developed it into a successful international distributor (Spectator, 7 May 2004). He has served on the Mayor's Roundtable on Community Issues, the City of Hamilton's Media Advisory Council, the Hamilton-Burlington Bay Area Leadership Council and the Hamilton District Schools Board's Advisory Council for Diverse Communities.
He became a prominent figure in Hamilton shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001, when his mosque was vandalized during an anti-Muslim backlash in the city. Mirza took part in several community and interfaith forums following the attacks, and helped establish the organization "Strengthening Hamilton's Community Initiative" (SHCI) to facilitate interfaith dialogue (Hamilton Spectator, 17 December 2001). He was especially prominent in reaching out to Hamilton's Hindu community, whose temple had also been attacked in the aftermath of September 11. Mirza also helped establish dialogue with Jewish groups, and repesentatives of the Hamilton Jewish Federation to ceremonies marking the close of Ramadan (Hamilton Spectator, 27 November 2003). In 2002, he spoke out against the planned American invasion of Iraq in 2002 (Hamilton Spectator, 9 October 2002).
Mirza was a prominent Hamilton supporter of Paul Martin's bid to lead the Liberal Party in 2003. At one stage in the leadership campaign, he accused rival candidate Sheila Copps of entering his mosque during prayer services to make a political speech directed against Martin (Kitchener-Waterloo Record, 29 November 2003). Mirza alleged that Copps named two prominent Jewish supporters of the Martin campaign, and suggested that she was attempting to cause friction between the city's Muslim and Jewish communities. Copps, in response, argued that the accusations were part of a campaign to discredit her among Hamilton's Muslim community (Spectator, 5 December 2003).
Mirza considered running for the Hamilton Mountain Liberal nomination in 2004, but was unable to do so after the party unexpectedly cut off nominations at an early date (Hamilton Spectator, 11 February 2004). He later endorsed Tony Valeri over Copps for the 2004 Liberal nomination in Hamilton West—Stoney Creek (Spectator, 4 March 2004).
Notwithstanding his cooperation with Jewish groups, Mirza has made comments strongly critical of Israel in its treatment of the Palestinians. He strongly criticized the Israeli government of Ariel Sharon in 2004, following the state assassination of Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin. During a protest rally against the assassination, Mirza called for a trade embargo against the country, and compared Sharon's government to the apartheid regime of South Africa. These comments were condemned by some in the local Jewish community (Spectator, 29 March 2004), though Mirza later argued they did not create a lasting strain in relations with local Jewish leaders (Spectator, 7 May 2004). He has argued that Muslims and Jews may disagree over Israeli policy, and yet still cooperate on other matters.
Shortly after his remarks, Mirza joined with Lorne Finkelstein, a prominent figure in Hamilton's Jewish community, to lead a fundraising effort which allowed a nine-year old boy to travel from Afghanistan to Canada to receive life-saving medical treatment not available in his home country (Spectator, 15 June 2004; Globe and Mail, 1 July 2004). Mirza and Finkelstein later cooperated in attempting to provide aid for Sudan's Darfur region (Spectator, 22 April 2005), and Mirza also helped organize fundraising efforts for relief efforts in Sri Lanka following the powerful regional tsunami of late 2004(Spectator, 8 January 2005).
Mirza considered running for the Liberal nomination in Hamilton Mountain for the 2006 election, but agreed to stand aside for Bill Kelly (Spectator, 20 May 2005). He instead contested Hamilton Centre, generally considered more difficult for the party, and received received 11,224 votes (23.49%) to finish second against New Democratic Party incumbent David Christopherson. He was forty-five years old at the time of the election (Spectator, 13 January 2006).
