Tampa Anti-War Committee: Mosque Arson A Hate Crime, Protest Scheduled Friday
The Tampa Anti-War Committee (TAWC) is calling on the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office to investigate last month’s arson at the Daarus Salaam Mosque in Thonotosassa as a hate crime. The mosque, which is owned by the Islamic Society of New Tampa, is the second Florida mosque to be the victim of arson in the past six months.
TAWC, which will be joined by other community organizations, will hold a protest at the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Operations Center at 2008 E 8th Ave in Tampa on Friday from 6 to 8 PM where they will also “be standing up against the Trump administration’s attacks against Arabs and Muslims and the Islamophobic violence he has emboldened,” according to a media advisory.
In a statement to Tampa Bay Social Action, Bill Aiman, a member of Tampa Bay Anti-War League said, “TAWC is calling for this action in order to stand up against the racist and Islamophobic firebombing attack of the Islamic Society of New Tampa. In the past two years, three mosques have been attacked and none of these cases have been investigated as hate crimes. We will be protesting outside of the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office to demand the firebombing be investigated as a hate crime.”
While the fire has yet to be ruled a hate crime, Tampa mayor Bob Buckhorn said that the arson was “no different than the wave of anti-Semitic attacks on Jewish community centers and synagogue and bomb threats that have been called in all across the country, including in Tampa over the recent months.”
Following the fire in February, the Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) put up a a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest or conviction of the perpetrator(s) and Wilfredo Amr Ruiz, the CAIR-Florida communications director, called on “local, state and federal law enforcement agencies to be on top of the investigation of what appears to be a heinous act of terror against the Muslim community.”
Four mosques in the United States have been targeted in fires so far in 2017, including one in Bellevue, Washington and two in Texas and CAIR documented 139 incidents of property destruction at US mosques in 2016.
For more information on the Tampa Anti-War Committee’s “Fight Islamophobia: Demand Hate Crime Investigation!” protest please visit their FaceBook Event page.
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