Sunday 13 Dec 2015 - 11:52 Makkah mean time-2-3-1437
Khalid Latif, executive director and chaplain for the Islamic Center at New York University, is joined by supporters in New York to protest against increasing hate speech. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Washington, (IINA) - The recent mass shooting in San Bernardino, California and terror attacks in Paris have helped spark “an unprecedented and dramatic increase” in violent and hostile incidents against Muslims in America, advocates said.
Such incidents have also, however, prompted spontaneous displays of community support.
In a febrile atmosphere stoked in particular by comments from U.S. Republican Presidential hopeful Donald Trump, incidents ranging from arson to assault have been recorded across the US. Children have faced bullying and sectarian insults in schools, the Guardian reported.
In California on Saturday, the FBI was investigating a fire at a mosque in Riverside County that authorities said was set deliberately.
Fire broke out at the entrance to the Islamic Center of Palm Springs on Friday afternoon, while a small number of members were engaged in prayer. No one was injured but local US congressman Paul Ruiz said an incendiary device may have caused the fire and urged the incident be investigated as a hate crime. On Saturday, it was reported that a suspect had been arrested and charged.
The mosque, in Coachella, is in the same part of California as San Bernardino, where a couple believed by law enforcement to have become radicalized carried out a shooting at an office earlier this month. Fourteen people died and 21 were wounded, later on police killed the man and woman who carried out the shooting.
Elsewhere, in Georgia on Friday it was reported that a 13-year-old schoolchild who was wearing a hijab was asked by her middle school teacher whether she had a bomb in her backpack.
The girl, who has not been named, said the question “was very disrespectful”, according to a local report. Abdirizak Aden, the girl’s father, said his daughter was singled out. “We are Muslims, we live in America, I didn’t teach my children to hate people,” he said.
A spokeswoman for Gwinnett county public schools, on the outskirts of Atlanta, confirmed the incident and said the remark was inappropriate, but said the unnamed teacher had no “ill intent”. The principal has apologized to the family.
On Saturday a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), told the Guardian the Gwinnett incident was just one of a growing number it believes are indicative of rising prejudice against Muslims in America.
CAIR says such sentiments are being fueled by inflammatory remarks by politicians, made in light of recent attacks. On Monday, at a rally in South Carolina, Trump called for all Muslims to be barred from entering the US.
“This is clearly symptomatic of the rising anti-Muslim sentiment in our society,” said Ibrahim Hooper, national communications director for CAIR. “When we get this kind of casual stereotyping and bigoted comments towards American Muslims, in particular young people, it’s very damaging.”
Hooper said the group was still compiling statistics but had detected a distinct increase in attacks. He numbered such recent incidents in “the dozens”.
“We are seeing an unprecedented and dramatic increase in anti-Muslim displays and hate crimes and a level of hysteria in our society,” Hooper said.
The CAIR head office in Washington and a regional office in Santa Clara, in the Bay Area of California, were both evacuated on Friday after suspicious packages containing white powder were delivered. The substances turned out to be harmless.
Among other incidents in recent days, a mosque was reported vandalized in Phoenix, Arizona, though no motive was immediately established. In Pflugerville, near Austin, Texas, a copy of the Qur’an, torn and smeared with faeces, was placed at an entrance to a mosque.
According to local reports in Florida, two Muslim women in the Tampa Bay area were attacked after leaving prayer meetings, one was shot at and the other almost driven off the road and her car pelted with stones.
After the incident in Pflugerville, it was reported that neighbours who were not Muslims made donations, left flowers and cards and spoke against the unpleasant gesture.
In nearby Irving, where the authorities recently attracted notoriety for arresting a 14-year-old schoolboy, Ahmed Mohammed, on suspicion of making a bomb that turned out to be a clock, an armed anti-Muslim and anti-gun control group was expected to organize a demonstration on Saturday.
Also in the last few days, in New York a man was charged with criminal mischief and attempted assault as hate crimes, in relation to a violent incident involving Muslim members of staff at a pizza shop in the city. In California, a man was arrested and accused of spraying anti-Islamic state graffiti outside a Sikh temple in Buena Vista park.
In Omaha, Nebraska, several atheist and humanist groups planned to visit the local Islamic Center on Saturday to express their support. The building has been vandalized three times since the summer, most recently after the attacks in Paris.
Cards expressing support, which came flooding in after a recent incident of vandalism, are prominently on display at the Center, according to a local report.
In his weekly address on Saturday, US President Obama called for unity and an end to prejudice and discrimination in America.
SM/IINA
This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service - if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at http://ift.tt/jcXqJW.
No comments:
Post a Comment