A Mississauga website has taken down an article which claimed that Mayor Bonnie Crombie was trying to convert the city to Islam so “they can kill her son just for being gay.”

A statement posted on the website of the Mississauga Gazette, addressed “men on the phone” who issued “death threats” to the staff of the paper, and claimed that as a result of their actions “a young lady” quit the paper.

“I have taken this article down for now as I don’t want violence brought upon my team,” the statement read. “Journalists and Columnists should be free to report on the news in Canada without fearing for their lives . . . Freedom of speech is dead.”

The statement is credited to Acton Michaels, who had also been listed as the author of the article published Friday morning headlined, “Bonnie’s Muslims Are Molesting Teenage Girls in Mississauga Highschools.” In it Michaels claimed he was told by the father of a Grade 10 student at Rick Hansen Secondary School that she has been routinely assaulted by Muslim boys there but the problem is being kept quiet.

“Mississauga, if you want the truth you are going to have to take the law into your own hands,” stated the article, which prompted Crombie to file a hate-crime complaint with Peel police. (Crombie told The Canadian Press on Sunday that she has also asked her lawyers about other legal avenues.)

The article was replaced on the Gazette website on Sunday by the statement, which lamented the fate of the country: “Canada is just about dead . . . I weep for the Maple Leaf and I weep for the future . . .”

When contacted via the email address listed on the site for Michaels — the Gazette’s editor in chief — a person claiming to be Michaels replied: “I am going to have a meeting with my staff tonight. Let’s hold off anything that I may have to say until I know everything I need to know.

“As usual, this has been blown way out of proportion, and I want to ensure that nobody gets hurt before anything further is to be said.”

With files from The Canadian Press

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