Pro-Palestinian Display Torched at UC-Irvine; CAIR-LA asks that incident be treated as hate crime

PRNewswire ^ | May 22, 2004

[veronica]

ANAHEIM, Calif., May 22 /PRNewswire/ -- The Southern California office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-LA) today called on local and national law enforcement authorities to treat an arson attack on a pro-Palestinian university display as a possible hate crime.

University of California-Irvine (UCI) students reported to CAIR-LA that the display challenging the wall Israel is building on Palestinian land was torched late Thursday or early Friday morning. The display, made of cardboard boxes and built by the Society of Arab Students (SAS), was a replica of Israel's new wall.

Display sponsors say the symbolic wall was built to demonstrate the negative impact Israel's barrier has on the daily live of Palestinians and on prospects for peace in the Middle East. The display was one of a number of activities during a Palestine awareness week organized by the Muslim Student Union (MSU).

"Because of the ethnic and religious nature of the display and its sponsors, we urge campus police and the FBI to investigate this attack as a possible hate crime," said CAIR-LA Public Relations Director Ra'id Faraj. "Muslim and Arab students should feel safe in exercising their First Amendment rights, free of intimidation or harassment."

On Thursday, the Orange County Human Relations Commission released its 2003 annual report that showed a 50 percent increase in hate incidents directed at members of the Muslim and Arab-American community. (UCI is located in Orange County.) In April, CAIR's own annual report on the status of American Muslim civil rights showed a 70 percent increase in anti-Muslim incidents nationwide in 2003.

There are an estimated 600,000 Muslims in Southern California. CAIR, America's largest Islamic civil liberties group, is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and has 26 regional offices and chapters nationwide and in Canada.

NOTE: CAIR offers an e-mail list designed to be a journalist's window to the American Muslim community. Subscribers to the list, called ISLAM-INFONET, receive news releases and other materials dealing with American Muslim positions on issues of importance to our society.

[xm177e2]

You're off by one day. They said it was torched on thursday night or friday morning.

[TheSpottedOwl]

It's interesting that these folks started it, then when the display gets trashed, they whine like little girls. They probably did it themselves, like that crackpot professor trashing her own car.

[Piranha]

It seems to me that the pro-Palestinian display was the hate crime.

[sheik yerbouty]

I predict it will ce a CAIR "Tawana Brawley" situation.

[VOA]

this is so obviously a setup, and a typically Arab one--this display was torched
and CAIR pushed out a press release LESS THAN 90 MINUTES AFTER!
Duh, who do ya think set the fire?

My thought exactly.
We have lots of Palestinain public demonstrations on the UCLA campus (with support from
the gays that Islamics will kill as soon as Sharia is the law of the land in the USA).
I can't recall any attacks on the Palestians or their displays over at least five years.

[Damagro]

"Display sponsors say the symbolic wall was built to demonstrate the negative impact Israel's barrier has on the daily live of Palestinians and on prospects for peace in the Middle East".


This statement is hilarious. Stopping suicide bombers is going to have a negative impact on peace? Whoever took that statement should have pressed the idiot to explain it

[xm177e2]

I predict it will ce a CAIR "Tawana Brawley" situation.

I predict no one will get caught, and we will never know.