Source: Aljazeera
The religion of the attackers who went on a shooting rampage in California should not be become the main focus of the investigation, critics say, after the FBI announced the deadly assault was an “act of terrorism”.
Fourteen people were shot dead and 21 wounded after Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik allegedly stormed a party in San Bernardino attended by his co-workers and opened fire on Tuesday. The couple were later killed in a shoot-out with police.
Lawyers for Farook’s family noted media coverage has quickly moved to portray the attackers as Muslims, while past shootings by those of other religions never brought their faith to the forefront.
“He [Farook] was an isolated individual without any friends,” lawyer David Chesley told reporters on Friday.
“When a Christian goes to shoot up an abortion clinic, the headlines don’t say ‘extremist Christian Catholic’ just like every headline is saying ‘Muslim massacre’ or ‘Muslim shooters’.”
Chesley noted while the FBI announced on Friday that the massacre was an act of terrorism, it did not say it had direct evidence of links to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
US-based law professor Khalid Beydoun told Al Jazeera there are violent “fringe elements” within the Muslim-American community, but he noted the same goes for other ethnic or religious groups in the United States.
Beydoun said more than 350 gun crimes this year in the US were carried out by white men, while 63 percent of mass shootings have been committed by white males since 1982.
“This conversation needs to happen across racial lines, across religious lines… One religious community should not be indicted, and that’s the narrative being shaped right now within the popular media space,” Beydoun told Al Jazeera.
Meanwhile, in the first poll on views of Muslim Americans taken after the mass shootings in Paris and San Bernardino, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed 51 percent of Americans view Muslims living in the US the same as any other community.
Only 14.6 percent said they were generally fearful.
Amaney Jamal, a politics professor at Princeton University, said it’s “healthy” to see the majority positively viewing Muslims, but cautioned about growing fears.
“If terrorism is designed to create a larger gap between Muslims and Westerners, unfortunately they’re succeeding,” Jamal said. “The threat of terror is going to be fought by Muslims and non-Muslims together. You would like to see those gaps close so people are working together and not being fearful.”
Categories: Americas, Law and Religion, Religion, Terrorism, The Muslim Times, United States
The threat of terror is going to be fought by Muslims and non-Muslims together
But Peaceful or good Muslim should lead to fight the threat of terror, because this is Muslim problem, only Muslim the one who know to fix this problem.
Wassalam
With love
They should fix the refugee problem too because it is created by them instead of pushing it to others who nothing to do with it.
@ Namelee— you wrote ;–others who nothing to do with it.–I do not agree that..
Extremist Sunni and Extremist Shia has been fighting since Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)’s death—until today.
Non Islam ( Western and Rusian ) have taken aside for his interest. Western support Muslim Sunni and Rusia support Muslim Shia. so every nation has been involving this fighting between Muslim Sunni and Muslim Shia.
I admit that as long as Muslim Sunni and Muslim Shia do not obey Human Right, there is NO a permanent peace in this world.
Muslim Scholars has to learn from the conflict between Catholic and Protestant 700 years ago, now both parties can live in peace, harmony and prosperity because both accept the differences and respect each other,
Good Muslim and Good Non Muslim have to work together to fight our enemy–extremist Muslim and non Muslim.Extremist are Evil-Army
We, Muslim and Christian have to spread love to the world. ONLY love can make peace in this world as God says in His Books.
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Love in the seed of peace,happiness, and hatred is the seed of the darkness, and violence.
Wi all my love