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Don't believe my icon, which is commenting on the attitude apparently taken by the national news media. I believe this calls for National Attention!!!
A few days ago, a mosque in Dayton, Ohio was attacked while the people inside were at prayers celebrating the start of Ramadan. The incident occurred when two unknown men sprayed what is now believed to be pepper spray through an open window into the face of a ten-year-old girl in the room where children and infants were being cared for while their parents prayed. My first introduction to this incident was through an article in the Dayton Daily News, Report of chemical irritant empties church, which I read after following a link in a post in![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
barackobama2008, and then clicking past the article on Daily Kos (because I recognize that they are reputed to be biased in their reporting).
The initial article filled me with a great deal of sadness and anger when I read it yesterday, but I didn't do anything more than e-mail the link to my husband, in the expectation that this would hit the national news very quickly. Now, I'm sorry I didn't blog about it, because so far as I'm aware, there has been a resounding silence about this attack.* Then, this evening,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tillianion, who lives in Australia, posted this:
If you click the graphic, or the tinyurl link, you can read a Dayton Daily News article by Lucas Sullivan, Police: No evidence of hate crime at local mosque, in which he reports that the police are claiming that there is no evidence of a hate crime, because the men who sprayed the irritant into the church nursery didn't say anything.
I can't believe that the police would suggest, about a similar attack on a Christian church, that there was no evidence that it was a hate crime. I'd suggest that the first piece of evidence is the attack on the mosque itself, followed by the timing of the attack and the fact that the attackers were willing to spray a ten-year-old girl in the face. This is terrorism, plain and simple, born of hatred. Regardless of your feelings about hate crime laws (and my opinion there is that making the motivation for a crime illegal is wrong), it's important for us to be aware of and to repudiate crimes that are motivated by hatred.
Oh, and in a little piece of painful irony, I happened to notice and click on a link to another Dayton Daily News article: There are several faith events slated for this weekend. Please notice that all of the "faith events" listed are for Christian faiths.
* As Rachel Maddow would say, somebody talk me down. Even when I went to the MSNBC website and checked the local news for Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus, (the only available choices), I found no mention of this. Please, if you're aware of a mainstream, national media outlet that has reported this story, let me know.
A few days ago, a mosque in Dayton, Ohio was attacked while the people inside were at prayers celebrating the start of Ramadan. The incident occurred when two unknown men sprayed what is now believed to be pepper spray through an open window into the face of a ten-year-old girl in the room where children and infants were being cared for while their parents prayed. My first introduction to this incident was through an article in the Dayton Daily News, Report of chemical irritant empties church, which I read after following a link in a post in
barackobama2008, and then clicking past the article on Daily Kos (because I recognize that they are reputed to be biased in their reporting).The initial article filled me with a great deal of sadness and anger when I read it yesterday, but I didn't do anything more than e-mail the link to my husband, in the expectation that this would hit the national news very quickly. Now, I'm sorry I didn't blog about it, because so far as I'm aware, there has been a resounding silence about this attack.* Then, this evening,
tillianion, who lives in Australia, posted this:
This is in support of the Muslim children attacked in Ohio. Everyone has the right to believe what they want to believe.
<div align="center"><a href="http://tinyurl.com/3gag6m"><img src="http://www.the-principle.net/images/freedom-of-religion.gif"></a></div>
If you click the graphic, or the tinyurl link, you can read a Dayton Daily News article by Lucas Sullivan, Police: No evidence of hate crime at local mosque, in which he reports that the police are claiming that there is no evidence of a hate crime, because the men who sprayed the irritant into the church nursery didn't say anything.
I can't believe that the police would suggest, about a similar attack on a Christian church, that there was no evidence that it was a hate crime. I'd suggest that the first piece of evidence is the attack on the mosque itself, followed by the timing of the attack and the fact that the attackers were willing to spray a ten-year-old girl in the face. This is terrorism, plain and simple, born of hatred. Regardless of your feelings about hate crime laws (and my opinion there is that making the motivation for a crime illegal is wrong), it's important for us to be aware of and to repudiate crimes that are motivated by hatred.
Oh, and in a little piece of painful irony, I happened to notice and click on a link to another Dayton Daily News article: There are several faith events slated for this weekend. Please notice that all of the "faith events" listed are for Christian faiths.
* As Rachel Maddow would say, somebody talk me down. Even when I went to the MSNBC website and checked the local news for Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus, (the only available choices), I found no mention of this. Please, if you're aware of a mainstream, national media outlet that has reported this story, let me know.
