This is heartbreaking.
Sep. 30th, 2008 05:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jhameiaHappy Raya, (for my Malaysian friends), and Happy Eid for those the world all over. I hope you had a good celebration after your holy month of Ramadhan. The fact that this fasting month is a pillar of Islam makes what I'm going to share with you all the more horrendous. But it has to be done, because major media outlets probably won't touch on this at all, because ... well, we'll see.
From the Daily Kos:
On Friday, September 26, the end of a week in which thousands of copies of Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West -- the fear-mongering, anti-Muslim documentary being distributed by the millions in swing states via DVDs inserted in major newspapers and through the U.S. mail -- were distributed by mail in Ohio, <a "chemical irritant" was sprayed through a window of the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton, where 300 people were gathered for a Ramadan prayer service. The room that the chemical was sprayed into was the room where babies and children were being kept while their mothers were engaged in prayers. This, apparently, is what the scare tactic political campaigning of John McCain's supporters has led to -- Americans perpetrating a terrorist attack against innocent children on American soil.
From the Dayton Daily News:
DAYTON — A 10-year-old girl sprayed in the face with a chemical Friday, Sept. 26, while at a local Islamic mosque was not the victim of a hate crime, police Chief Richard Biehl said.
The girl was watching children whose parents and relatives had gathered at the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton, 26 Josie St., to celebrate Ramadan when she noticed two men standing outside a basement window about 9:40 p.m., according to police.
One of the men then sprayed something through the open window and into the girl's face from a white can with a red top, according to a police report. The girl said she immediately felt burning on her face and felt "sick to her stomach," the report stated.
Other children and a woman in the room felt affects from the chemical and the mosque was evacuated.
"The men didn't say anything to her (before she was sprayed)," Biehl said. "There was nothing left at the scene or anything that makes us believe this is a biased crime."
HAZMAT crews called to the scene started testing for chemicals less than 20 minutes after a member of the mosque called 911, team coordinator Denny Bristow said.
"Whatever chemical was released it dissipated too quickly for us to determine what it was," Bristow said. "We can test for about 130 to 140 chemicals, including pepper spray, and all our tests came back negative."
Bristow said there were no chemicals found on the 10-year-old girl.
A few of the 300 people celebrating the last 10 days of Ramadan with dinner and a prayer session were treated for eye irritation at the scene.
Mosque board member Tarek Sabagh said many people within the mosque speculated that the incident was the result of a DVD about Islamic radicalism titled "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West" that was mailed to area homes by its producers and circulated as a paid advertisement with more than 70 newspapers, including the Dayton Daily News.
"We are not linking the two at all," Sabagh said.
Biehl said the incident will be assigned to a detective today, Sept. 30, since it happened over the weekend. The detective will determine if a crime was committed. The police report of the incident was filed Monday afternoon. He said a detective was at the scene Friday.
Normal prayer services were held at the mosque through the weekend and on Monday, Sabagh said. The 10-year-old girl and the woman who was in the room with her have returned to the mosque, he said.
Ramadan is the ninth month of the Muslim calendar. During the month, Muslims fast (do not eat) from sunrise to sunset. In the evening and in the morning before the sun comes up, they eat small meals. During this month, they take extra time for family, inner reflection, and spiritual growth.
What kind of horrible being do you have to be to spray chemical poison into a basement room full of children??
And to do this while their parents are in the next room, celebrating another day passed that they have fasted, sharing food and prayers? Just practising their religion in a peaceful manner that is completely non-threatening to other folks (look, fasting means you generally don't have time to get a hate-on for anybody else), and some anti-Muslim freak thinks it's a good idea to spray chemicals at children?
And how blind can police be to not call this a hate crime? Particularly in light of the fact that just a week ago, a DVD containing anti-Muslim polemic was released and distributed all over the place? Do these people honestly not see how a "documentary" like that could provoke someone to commit a hate crime?
And why aren't more papers reporting this? This shit would be all over the papers if it had been a church. It would have been called a hate crime if, a week before, Muslims had been distributing anti-Christian DVDs.
So, I'm sharing this with you, as Racialicious says:
If you have a blog, if you are a journalist, if you just have a lot of friends on your email contact list - write about this. It is completely abhorrent to me that almost no one, so far, is talking about this. Let’s prove to ourselves that our society is not as horrifyingly racist as it appears to be today.
I'm so ... angry. And sad. And angry. This is so many degrees of fucked up. Just like other hate crimes are. Am I being optimistic in hoping you'll get angry too?
From the Daily Kos:
On Friday, September 26, the end of a week in which thousands of copies of Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West -- the fear-mongering, anti-Muslim documentary being distributed by the millions in swing states via DVDs inserted in major newspapers and through the U.S. mail -- were distributed by mail in Ohio, <a "chemical irritant" was sprayed through a window of the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton, where 300 people were gathered for a Ramadan prayer service. The room that the chemical was sprayed into was the room where babies and children were being kept while their mothers were engaged in prayers. This, apparently, is what the scare tactic political campaigning of John McCain's supporters has led to -- Americans perpetrating a terrorist attack against innocent children on American soil.
From the Dayton Daily News:
DAYTON — A 10-year-old girl sprayed in the face with a chemical Friday, Sept. 26, while at a local Islamic mosque was not the victim of a hate crime, police Chief Richard Biehl said.
The girl was watching children whose parents and relatives had gathered at the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton, 26 Josie St., to celebrate Ramadan when she noticed two men standing outside a basement window about 9:40 p.m., according to police.
One of the men then sprayed something through the open window and into the girl's face from a white can with a red top, according to a police report. The girl said she immediately felt burning on her face and felt "sick to her stomach," the report stated.
Other children and a woman in the room felt affects from the chemical and the mosque was evacuated.
"The men didn't say anything to her (before she was sprayed)," Biehl said. "There was nothing left at the scene or anything that makes us believe this is a biased crime."
HAZMAT crews called to the scene started testing for chemicals less than 20 minutes after a member of the mosque called 911, team coordinator Denny Bristow said.
"Whatever chemical was released it dissipated too quickly for us to determine what it was," Bristow said. "We can test for about 130 to 140 chemicals, including pepper spray, and all our tests came back negative."
Bristow said there were no chemicals found on the 10-year-old girl.
A few of the 300 people celebrating the last 10 days of Ramadan with dinner and a prayer session were treated for eye irritation at the scene.
Mosque board member Tarek Sabagh said many people within the mosque speculated that the incident was the result of a DVD about Islamic radicalism titled "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West" that was mailed to area homes by its producers and circulated as a paid advertisement with more than 70 newspapers, including the Dayton Daily News.
"We are not linking the two at all," Sabagh said.
Biehl said the incident will be assigned to a detective today, Sept. 30, since it happened over the weekend. The detective will determine if a crime was committed. The police report of the incident was filed Monday afternoon. He said a detective was at the scene Friday.
Normal prayer services were held at the mosque through the weekend and on Monday, Sabagh said. The 10-year-old girl and the woman who was in the room with her have returned to the mosque, he said.
Ramadan is the ninth month of the Muslim calendar. During the month, Muslims fast (do not eat) from sunrise to sunset. In the evening and in the morning before the sun comes up, they eat small meals. During this month, they take extra time for family, inner reflection, and spiritual growth.
What kind of horrible being do you have to be to spray chemical poison into a basement room full of children??
And to do this while their parents are in the next room, celebrating another day passed that they have fasted, sharing food and prayers? Just practising their religion in a peaceful manner that is completely non-threatening to other folks (look, fasting means you generally don't have time to get a hate-on for anybody else), and some anti-Muslim freak thinks it's a good idea to spray chemicals at children?
And how blind can police be to not call this a hate crime? Particularly in light of the fact that just a week ago, a DVD containing anti-Muslim polemic was released and distributed all over the place? Do these people honestly not see how a "documentary" like that could provoke someone to commit a hate crime?
And why aren't more papers reporting this? This shit would be all over the papers if it had been a church. It would have been called a hate crime if, a week before, Muslims had been distributing anti-Christian DVDs.
So, I'm sharing this with you, as Racialicious says:
If you have a blog, if you are a journalist, if you just have a lot of friends on your email contact list - write about this. It is completely abhorrent to me that almost no one, so far, is talking about this. Let’s prove to ourselves that our society is not as horrifyingly racist as it appears to be today.
I'm so ... angry. And sad. And angry. This is so many degrees of fucked up. Just like other hate crimes are. Am I being optimistic in hoping you'll get angry too?