Quebec hockey league apologizes after racist scoffs force black participant from ice

A Canadian semi-pro hockey league has apologized to a black player who left the ice within the middle of recreation because he and his circle of relatives inside the stands had been subjected to racist abuse from spectators.

Jonathan Diaby, a 24-year-antique defenseman for Marquis de Jonquière of the Ligue Nord-Américaine de Hockey (LNAH), an independent league based totally in Quebec, stated the abuse began after he obtained a penalty in the course of the primary duration of Saturday’s recreation in opposition to Pétroliers du Nord in Saint-Jérôme, about 60km northwest of Montreal.

Video pictures suggest enthusiasts mountain climbing the boards and hurling racist insults at Diaby from at the back of the glass with one fan displaying Diaby snapshots of a monkey on his smartphone.

“Other human beings have been announcing: ‘You large nigger,’ and ‘You baboon,’ telling my dad to head lower back home,” Diaby advised CTV Montreal on Tuesday. “At one factor I turned into within the penalty container, and I pulled my shirt over my face due to the fact I was nearly crying.”

The network pronounced that several enthusiasts surrounded Diaby’s family inside the stands throughout the game, pushing his father and pouring beer on his girlfriend.

The former 0.33-spherical draft pick of the NHL’s Nashville Predators said he might want to see the harassment of his family from the ice. After serving a high-sticking penalty during the second period, Diaby left the sport, modified in the locker room and departed the 1,264-seat Regional Arena Rivière-du-Nord with his circle of relatives earlier than the game had ended.

LNAH commissioner Jean-Francois Laplante apologised for the incident in a Facebook video, announcing: “Racist, sexist and homophobic remarks are unacceptable and intolerable.”

He introduced: “Intolerance of variations is based totally in lack of information. To combat this trouble we should denounce it and talk it, and it’s for this reason that I invite you to proportion this video.”

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