Let’s Stop The Hate

We must speak out against hate and violence no matter where it is directed. Whether it is against trans-people, against lesbians and gays or whether it is against other religions. Late last month there was an arson fire at a mosque in Toledo,

Arson In Toledo Mosque
Huffington Post
Religion News Service
By David Yonke
Posted: 10/03/2012

TOLEDO, Ohio (RNS) Muslim worshippers are reeling from an arson fire at the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo, but are grateful for an outpouring of support from the local interfaith community.

"All the support we get is very welcome because if you are going through a tragedy and you have a friend who is holding your hand it means a lot," said S. Zaheer Hasan, a spokesman for the United Muslim Association of Toledo.

Perrysburg Township police ruled that the Sunday evening (Sept. 30) fire was arson. Surveillance footage from the mosque shows a "person of interest" -- a white middle-aged male wearing a camouflage sweatshirt and hat -- at the mosque's entrance shortly before the fire, which was reported about 5 p.m.

Mahjabeen Islam, president of the Islamic Center, said the suspect poured gasoline in the center of the main floor where men worship at the mosque. Women pray on the same main floor, but in an area separated by a low divider.

In a later news stories it was reported that the police arrested a suspect on Tuesday, the Journal Gazette reported that,

A DeKalb County man accused of intentionally setting fire to the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo was arrested Tuesday in Fort Wayne… About 3:30 p.m., Indiana troopers, federal agents and local law enforcement officers found Linn and took him into custody in a parking lot in the 7600 block of Opportunity Drive.

This is not the first mosque arson fire, there was a fire in mosques in Joplin in Missouri on July 4^th. Since 2008 the number of attacks on mosques have increased with a number of arson cases right after President Obama took office. According the Southern Poverty Law Center the number of hate groups have increased by almost 70% in the last few years,

Since 2000, the number of hate groups has increased by 69 percent. This surge has been fueled by anger and fear over the nation’s ailing economy, an influx of non-white immigrants, and the diminishing white majority, as symbolized by the election of the nation’s first African-American president.

These factors also are feeding a powerful resurgence of the antigovernment “Patriot” movement, which in the 1990s led to a string of domestic terrorist plots, including the Oklahoma City bombing. The number of Patriot groups, including armed militias, grew by 755 percent in the first three years of the Obama administration – from 149 at the end of 2008 to 1,274 in 2011.

Let’s stop the hate!