send them all back to the middle east
the only good muslim is a dead muslim
An incident Sunday is the most recent in a spate of assaults on Islamic
individuals and places of worship in the Detroit area.
A group of boys around the age of 15 threw shoes at mosque members while
they were praying, said Abdul Motlib, president of the Al-Islah Islamic
Center.
"I feel bad about it, of course. I feel bad because this is a religious
place," Motlib, a Bangladesh native and Hamtramck resident of eight years,
told CNN that afternoon.
Teenage boys, sometimes in groups of five or six, have been harassing
members of the large mosque daily in recent weeks, including several
muggings in the past two weeks, Motlib said.
Boys have thrown rocks at the mosque's windows, and in one instance, struck
the mosque's imam, Muhammad Uddin, with a plastic snow shovel, Motlib added.
No worshippers were injured Sunday or during any of the other incidents,
Motlib said.
He said that he contacted the FBI Wednesday after finding local police
efforts were not enough.
"I hope it'll be OK," Motlib said.
"This isn't a store or something. We are going into a mosque to finish our
prayers, and we want to come back."
FBI Special Agent Dawn Clenney said several agents have been sent to the
Hamtramck area to investigate the allegations. FBI investigators were
scheduled to meet with Motlib and local police Thursday afternoon.
The Detroit metro area ranks fifth nationwide in the number of Muslim
residents, according to the Michigan chapter of the Council on
American-Islamic Relations. About 600,000 Muslims live in Michigan, nearly
500,000 of them in the southeastern portion of the state, CAIR said.
The Michigan chapter has called for an increased police presence in the area
around the mosque.
"We are disturbed by the vandalism of the mosque and the high frequency of
attacks that have taken place in a very short time span," CAIR-MI Executive
Director Dawud Walid said in a statement released by his press office.
About 15 Muslim merchants have been mugged in the past two weeks in the
Hamtramck area, the statement added.
"The situation is both tense and troubling," said Harold Core, a spokesman
for the Michigan Department of Civil Rights. "Tense for the community and
troubling for the geographic community."
.
|
