Far-right, anti-immigrant group La Meute has cancelled its planned protest outside of two Montreal mosques that were reported to have asked female construction workers to be excluded from a nearby site—a claim mosque congregants have denied.
The brouhaha erupted Tuesday when TVA reported the mosques had requested the no-women policy for the construction site during the busy Friday prayer sessions.
The TV network also said women on the site were intimidated.
A day later, mosque officials dismissed the report and said they had only asked for parking to be available on Fridays.
A statement from La Meute released Thursday evening said the groups leadership had decided to suspend Friday's protest, but not because they thought the report was bogus.
"Even though we have the deep conviction that this [report] is true, we can not risk the reputation of La Meute on rumors, we need proof, and we will look for that evidence," read a statement on the group's Facebook page, signed by the council of leaders.
It did tell members they are "free to go" protest anyway, if they so choose.
Meantime, the president of Quebec's construction commission says there is absolutely no evidence that the report was factually accurate.
Diane Lemieux said Thursday that investigators studied signed contracts and met with representatives of both mosques, all the companies involved as well as women who worked on the site.
Their conclusion was that mosque officials had not made any request or demand concerning women.
Lemieux did say it appears some women were moved around the site at certain times as part of normal procedures but that these measures were possibly linked to a surplus of personnel or to operational needs.
Despite there being no apparent smoke to this fire, some parishioners of the Ahl-Ill Bait Mosque told CJAD 800 they had received death threats following the report.
The Quebec Press Council said on Thursday it had received more than one complaint over the original TVA report, but did not specify how many.
—with files from The Canadian Press