VIA Rail Apologizes To Muslim Man Told 'Don't Pray In Here' At Ottawa Train Station (VIDEO)

VIA Rail Canada has issued an apology after a pair of now-viral Tiktok videos showed a Muslim man being told not to pray inside a train station.

In two videos posted on March 21, a man is seen being spoken to at the VIA Rail Ottawa station by an employee who tells him "don't pray in here," and later threatened that he would complain to the man's employer.

"VIA Rail Canada was dismayed to learn of an incident that occurred at our Ottawa Station on March 20th, 2023," the company said in a statement. "First and foremost, we want to apologize unreservedly to the individuals involved and to the entire Muslim community."

The statement goes on to say that VIA Rail strongly condemns and "will not tolerate any form of discriminatory behaviour," and that the incident is currently under investigation.

VIA Rail added it will "take the appropriate actions pending the outcome of that investigation."

Both videos of the incident have tallied over half a million views in their first 24 hours online.

"I go to this empty hallway and I’m in the corner minding my own business praying. [...] I come back to where I left my stuff and my coworker tells me that the security said you can't pray here. And I’m like wtf?" reads the caption of the first video posted to Tiktok by @a.p416. "I thought she was trolling."

In the second video, a VIA Rail employee can be heard approaching the man asking "what is the problem?" before he told him, "don't pray in here, we don't want you praying in here. You're bothering our other customers."

He then told the man to "pray outside next time," and as they both argued, the employee added, "I'm going to complain to your employer," before he walked off.

The man who posted the video admitted, "a lot of this whole situation wasn’t recorded," and clearly didn't believe the employee's claim that his praying was bothering other people.

"A bunch of people came to check on me and said don’t mind him, this isn’t Ottawa," the man wrote in the caption of his second video. "We apologize keep doing your thing you’re not bothering anyone."

The incident comes ahead of the start of Ramadan on Thursday, which is observed by Muslims around the world as a month of fasting.

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