February 11, 2015

Atheist activist charged in killing of three Muslims

Middle East  Eye - A shooting in the US, which has reportedly left three Muslims dead in a North Carolina university town... According to local news media, police officers responded to a report of gunshots in Chapel Hill ... Students Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, and Yusor Mohammad, 21, both from Chapel Hill and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19, from Raleigh, were all pronounced dead at the scene, according to local news reports. Some outlets described the killing as "execution-style."

Barakat was responsible for the Syrian Dental Relief program for Syrian refugee students in Turkey and had raised over $20,000 towards the program.

In January, he wrote on his Twitter account: "It's so freaking sad to hear people saying we should 'kill Jews' or 'kill Palestinians'. As if that's going to solve anything."

Deah Barakat and Yusor Mohammad married a month ago and photos of their wedding have been circulating since the killing.

In a statement, local police reported that a 46-year-old man, Craig Stephen Hicks, had been charged with three counts of first-degree murder and is being held in the Durham Country Jail after turning himself in.

Police said “an ongoing neighbour dispute over parking” might have been the motivation for the killing.

“Our investigators are exploring what could have motivated Mr. Hicks to commit such a senseless and tragic act,” said Chapel Hill Police Chief Chris Blue, according to CNN. “We understand the concerns about the possibility that this was hate-motivated and we will exhaust every lead to determine if that is the case.”

Independent, UK  - Activists speculated about a hate crime motive for the crime and were quick to point to the suspect’s Facebook page in which he apparently brands himself as an ‘anti-theist’..

Along Hicks’ Facebook banner photo was written:

“I don’t deny you your right to believe whatever you’d like; but I have the right to point out its ignorant and dangerous for as long as your baseless superstitions start killing people.”

Among the other images on Hicks' Facebook page was a photo of a gun in a holster, with the caption: "Yes, that is 1 pound 5.1 ounces for my loaded 38 revolver, its holster, and five extra rounds in a speedloader."

A press statement from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, called for "state and federal law enforcement authorities to quickly address speculation of a possible bias motive in this case".

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

ok, so we don't know what was the motivation, etc, but even this short summary speculates on a parking dispute, not connected to any religious issues at all...
but, since the guy is an atheist, its allright to speculate it was because of that...
do tell...
so why not identify all the religious affiliations (or lack thereof) with all the other crimes we read about ? ? ?

well, because atheists are hated even more than moose limbs...

hypocritical pukes...