Killing of imam in New York act of Islamophobia, hate crime: Religious figure

Press TV has conducted an interview with Mohammad Elahi, an imam at the Islamic House of Wisdom, about the American Muslim community’s response to the fatal shooting of a mosque imam and his associate in New York last Saturday.

A rough transcription of the interview appears below.

Press TV: Many blame the rhetoric by people like Donald Trump and the rise in Islamophobic sentiment throughout the country for these murders. Your take?

Elahi: That’s true. First of all, it’s a shocking tragedy for the imam’s family and their congregation, their community. Our thoughts, our condolences and our prayer go with their families and congregation.

The police [are] still investigating. They made it clear that the motive was not money. And it’s obvious; if it is not money, what would be the motivation to target two imams who are known in their community for their contributions, their services, men of faith, men of family? If money is not the motive, then what else can be [the motive] in this Islamophobic atmosphere as we are approaching elections?

Unfortunately, as you know, the campaign in many cases is not based on integrity and intellect but irresponsibility and emotion, irrationality. Everybody just thinks to win. It’s not based on honesty in many many cases.

So it is tragic, and as the community of those two imams believe, there should be a hate crime. It’s an act of terrorism. It’s funny that we didn’t hear any media to describe this disaster as a terrorist case. If it is not terrorism, if it is not hate crime, if it is not Islamophobia, then what is it?

Press TV: That’s a good point. And, imam, it seems that many lawmakers have taken little or no steps to counter anti-Islam sentiment and some say they actually feed... the negative portray of Islam in the country.

Do you feel that Washington has taken measures to protect the Muslim community in the light of the recent hate crimes and the rise in hate crimes we’ve seen throughout the country?

Elahi: I think they should take these cases very very seriously and bring the criminals to justice. Just two days ago, there was a case in Chicago. If somebody doubts in the case of the imams, there’s no doubt about the case of that mother and her daughter who were stopped — they were driving — by a person and they were harassed in a horrible way and they were attacked by all those F words and B words and S words. It was obviously influenced by Islamophobia and ignorance of the person.

So, these cases are happening. Unfortunately, it’s getting worse than what happened after 9/11. And since some politicians... that is part of their agenda just to win even without honesty. And obviously, Islamophobia advances their agenda and they don’t hesitate to use that, to promote fear-mongering.

And also, in this country, there are more than 70 groups that officially identify themselves as promoters of Islamophobia. In the last few years, they have been spending, based on the study that the University in California did recently, more than 200 million dollars paid by those 74 groups just to promote Islamophobia and hate against Muslims.

So, it’s amazing that, since this happened in New York, no media even contacted me because in situation, if the victim was non-Muslim and there was, like, something that accusation even about the murderer, we would hear all of these emotions in the media, but looks like they’re not interested to deeply discuss the details of this crime because they don’t show any innocence of Islam, that this religion is about peace, about service, about contribution to the country and to the world. Other than that, these guys just did their prayers in the mosque and they left the mosque after their service and they were shot in the head.

So, the term is not terrorism and it’s not even hate crime? So, they should tell us after this investigation what is really the motive.

We consider this a horrible crime and we know that, in one side, we have to have more outrage and educate people because as long as ignorance continues, this injustice and hatred and racism will continue. So, education is one, and bringing these people to justice is another side of the story.

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