Suspect pleads not guilty for mosque vandalism

The Davis Islamic Center

A WOMAN was arrested Tuesday and charged with hate enhanced crimes for vandalizing a mosque in Davis, California and tying strips of bacon at the entrances.

Lauren Kirk-Coeho, 30, pleaded not guilty Feb. 17.

LAUREN KIRK COEHO

Kirk-Coehlo, was arrested Tuesday morning on suspicion of breaking six of the Davis mosque’s windows, damaging several bicycles at the mosque and wrapping pork around the handle of one of the mosque’s exterior doors, Davis police said. Muslims are forbidden to eat or touch pork.

She will be arraigned March 6. If convicted, she could face up to six years in prison.

A search of Kirk-Coeho's computer found searches of white supremacist websites and a tweet expressing her admiration of Dylann Roof, who killed African/American churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/crime/article133199569.html#storylink=cpy

Five days after the crime, hundreds of people gathered to demonstrate their support for the Muslim community, and the Islamic Center received more than $22,000 in financial contributions have been used to repair the damaged windows, upgrade the center’s security system and support outreach efforts such as sending local students on educational tours of UC Davis and its medical school.

“This incident showed the beautiful good will of Americans and that our communities stand united,” added Amr Zedan, the Davis Islamic Center’s president. “As a Muslim community we are forgiving and merciful, but we hope that the perpetrator has the chance to reflect upon her actions and the grief she caused our community.”

Hate incidents against Muslims have increased dramatically since the presidential campaign and rose again after Donald Trump won the Nov. 8 election, according to reports from the FBI and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

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more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/crime/article133199569.html#storylink=cpy

Texas Mosque burned down

SCREEN CAPTURE

Firefighters tried to douse the flames consuming the Islamic Center of Victoria, Center.

SO IT BEGINS.

Hours after President Trump signed an Executive Order banning refugees from seven Mid-East countries that are predominantly Muslim, a mosque in Victoria, Texas was burned to the ground.

Flames engulfed the Islamic Center of Victoria, destroying the building in the predawn hours this morning (Jan. 28) as congregation members watched from the curb, overcome with emotion.

“It’s a house of worship,” Shahid Hashmi told the Victoria Advocate. Hash  president of the center, watched the flames from across the street. 

The mosque is home to more than 100 members and serves as a place of worship and community gathering, Hashmi said.

Members of the mosque had planned to complete the day's remaining calls to prayer at the destroyed building this morning but fire investigators would not allow them near the burnt-out building while the cause of the fire is being investigated.

"They said it ... is a restricted area for now for the investigation," Hashmi said. "So, we just prayed right here on this" sidewalk.

And, members of the Victoria community, of all faiths, are invited to join members of the Victoria Islamic Center at 10 a.m. Sunday at the site of the destroyed mosque for a prayer service, he said.

Although Hashmi said the mosque was burglarized Jan. 21, he was unwilling to speculate that the fire was the result of arson.

RELATED:

• Trump signs order banning refugees
• Hate crimes vs. Muslims spike 

Friday afternoon, President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order temporarily banning Muslims from seven countries, refugees or immigrants, from entering the U.S. 

Although there is no evidence the Trump's action and the mosque burning are linked, there has been a marked spike in hate crimes, especially against Muslims, since Trump won the presidency last November.

Hashmi was reluctant to jump to conclusions, however. A Muslim man was arrested for suspicion of burning a mosque in Houston last year.

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Minnesota man pleads guilty to threatening Islamic center

The FBI reports a spike in anti-Muslim hate crimes.

A MINNEAPOLIS MAN pleaded guilty last week to a federal hate crime for writing and mailing a threatening letter to an Islamic Center. Daniel George Fisher, 57, was charged with obstructing, by threat of force, the free exercise of religious beliefs.

According to the Dec. 1 guilty plea, in September 2015, Fisher wrote and mailed an anonymous letter to the Tawfiq Islamic Center (TIC), located in Minneapolis. In the letter, the defendant threatened to “blow up your building with all you immigrants in it.” The letter also included statements demonstrating strong anti-Muslim animus. Fisher subsequently admitted to the FBI that he wrote the letter to scare and intimidate the TIC’s Muslim members. 

“America protects the free exercise of religion for all people in every community,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

“Threats of violence that target religious communities violate federal law; corrode the ideals of our democracy; and threaten the foundation of an inclusive, free and open society. The Justice Department will continue to vigorously prosecute hate crimes that target people because of where they worship.”

“Threatening to blow up a mosque is simply un-American,” said U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger. “It is a bedrock principle of our country, enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution, that all people are free to practice their religion of choice. Tens of thousands of law-abiding Muslims do so in Minnesota. The U.S. Attorney's Office and FBI will not allow any resident of our state to have that most basic freedom jeopardized by the threat of violence.” 

U.S. District Judge Wilhelmina M. Wright of the District of Minnesota accepted Fisher’s plea. Fisher faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. 

A recently released report by the FBI confirmed an uptick in anti-Muslim hate crimes. Another report by the Southern Poverty Law Center shows a sharp increase in anti-Muslim incidents since the Nov. 8 election attributed to the hateful rhetoric of the Donald Trump campaign.

REPORT:

• Trump inspired hate continues to ooze out of America's sewers
• Hate crimes vs. Muslims spike, reports FBI

A photocopied letter received by the Islamic Center of Ann Arbor on Nov. 30 was also sent to mosques across the country this week, addressing Muslims as "children of Satan" and declaring President-elect Donald Trump as the "new sheriff in town." It is the same letter sent to three mosques in California last week.

"Mr. Trump, for an entire year, stirred up xenophobia and racism in our community to give a level of public acceptability for expressing those things," said Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan Chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations. "I blame him for this more caustic climate we live in right now. If he is to be a real leader, he should be much more robust in speaking out against all these different expressions of hate that are being done in his name."

Hate crimes triple against Muslim/Americans since November Paris attack

Mosques in America have been targeted by bigots.

THE MUSLIM MEN had just finished praying at a public park in Castro Valley, Ca. when a woman began verbally attacking them.

One of the men tried to explain to Denise A. Sla that they were simply praying, something they were not doing anything wrong.  She continued to rant at the men. Rasheed Albeshari began using his cellphone to tape the confrontation and the woman threw here coffee at him.

This is the first step toward justice," Albeshari said after learning that two misdemeanor charges of battery on park property and violation of civil rights -- the latter considered a hate crime -- were filed against Slader.

The incident was another hate crime added to the growing number hate crimes against Muslim Americans. Since the Paris attacks earlier his year, attacks against Muslim Americans have tripled. The shootings in San Bernardino have added fuel to the fire. 

"We’re seeing so many of these things happening that it’s unbelievable,” said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on Islamic-American Relations, said today (Dec. 18). “It’s off the chart -- and I don’t think we’ve seen the end of it.”

The recent GOP debate among the presidential candidates may have fueled mare stupidity among the ignorant. The debate focused on foreign terrorism, forgetting completely the terrorism spurred by American terrorists (except for San Bernardino).

In addition, CAIR reports, there have been 29 incidents where mosques have been vandalized or torched.

"The terrorist attacks, coupled with the ubiquity of these anti-Muslim stereotypes seeping into the mainstream, have emboldened people to act upon this fear and anger," said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University San Bernardino.

"We must resolve to always speak out against hatred and bigotry in all of its forms -- whether taunts against the child of an immigrant farmworker or threats against a Muslim shopkeeper," President Obama told a group of new Americans last week. "We are Americans. Standing up for each other is what the values enshrined in the documents in this room compels us to do -– especially when it’s hard. Especially when it’s not convenient. That’s when it counts. That’s when it matters -- not when things are easy, but when things are hard."

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