Mouood Mouood English Edition
Two US Islamic centers discovered destroyed remnants of Qurans outside of their mosques as their communities participated in the last days of Ramadan.
According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations of the Sacramento Valley, police are now investigating the incidents that occurred outside of the Islamic Center of Davis and the Masjid Annur Islamic Center.
While the Islamic Center of Davis was leading its Friday night prayers, someone drove by and threw pages torn from a Quran at the religious organization.
Just last week, on June 16, Lauren Kirk-Coehlo was sentenced to five years of probation for targeting the same mosque, destroying the building and other property and leaving bacon on door handles.
Less than 24 hours later, a citizen led Sacramento County Sheriff’s deputies to temporary fencing set up between the Masjid Annur Islamic Center and the sheriff’s department. A burned Quran filled with bacon was left hanging by handcuffs on the fence.
According to Tony Turnbull of the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department, the South Sacramento incident is being investigated as a possible hate crime. The sheriff’s department reports the FBI as well as the Regional Terrorism Threat Assessment Center have been made aware of the incidents.
“When they want to rip out pages of any book in their homes, there’s not issue,” said Basim Elkarra, executive director of CAIR- Sacramento Valley. “But when you try to intimidate a community … unfortunately, we’ve seen a lot of these types of cases around the nation.”
CAIR recently released an app to help the victims of hate crimes called “Make Democracy Work for Everyone.”
