Press Release: AMP offers condolences to families of slain young Muslims; calls for media to examine its role in country’s Islamophobic climate
Deah Barakat, his wife Yusor and Razan Abu-Salha (from Barakat’s Facebook Page.)
The American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) a national education and advocacy organization, sends our deepest condolences to the families and community of the three young Muslims who were shot execution style in a horrific, possibly religiously motivated crime on Tuesday in Chapel Hill, NC.
Deah Barakat, 23, his wife, Yusor Abu-Salha, 21, and her sister Razan Abu-Salha, 19, were all shot once in the head by a self-described atheist, whose facebook page called for all religions to ‘go away’ and that contained pictures of his fully loaded .38-caliber handgun.
The two young women wore the Islamic headscarf, or hijab, identifying them as adherents of Islam. Deah and Yusor were married in December. He received a degree in business administration from North Carolina State University in 2013 and was a second-year dental student at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Yusor graduated from North Carolina State with a degree in biological sciences and was preparing to enter dental school at Chapel Hill. The couple had raised funds to provide free dental care to students in Turkey and had planned on traveling overseas next summer to treat children, who are refuges of the Syrian civil war, according to media reports. Razan was a sophomore at North Carolina State University, majoring in design.
“While we do not know the exact motive behind this heinous act, we know that these young people died during a time of increasing Islamophobia in this country,” said Dr. Hatem Bazian, AMP chairman and director of the Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project at the University of California, Berkeley. “The result of this bigotry, which has gone unchecked by politicians, celebrities and some news media, is that Muslims in America have been stigmatized and demonized, making them easy targets for hateful bigots.”
AMP calls upon the law enforcement and justice communities to fully investigate the motive behind these murders and also calls upon the media to examine how it contributes to the Islamophobic climate in this country that is at the base of hate crimes against Muslims.
American Muslims for Palestine
10101 S. Roberts Road
Palos Hills, IL 60465
708.598.4267
Ray Hanania is an award winning political and humor columnist who analyzes American and Middle East politics, and life in general. He is an author of several books.
Hanania covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992 at the Daily Southtown and the Chicago Sun-Times. He began writing in 1975 publishing The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published “The National Arab American Times” newspaper (2004-2007).
Hanania writes weekly columns on Middle East and American Arab issues as Special US Correspondent for the Arab News ArabNews.com, at TheArabDailyNews.com, and at SuburbanChicagoland.com. He has published weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, YNetNews.com, Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel, Houston Chronical, and Arlington Heights Daily Herald.
Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.
His writings have also been honored by two national Awards from ADC for his writing, and from the National Arab American Journalists Association.
Hanania is the US Special Correspondent for the Arab News Newspaper, covering Middle East and Arab American issues. He writes for the Southwest News newspaper group writing on mainstream American issues.
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