By M. Bilal Kenasari
WASHINGTON
Hundreds of mourners gathered in the U.S. capital Washington on Thursday night for three young Muslims who were shot dead in North Carolina.
The crowd, including close friends of the young students, displayed wedding pictures of Deah Barakat, 23, his wife Yusor Mohammad, 21, and of her sister Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19.
Initial media reports of the shooting said the deaths were linked to a dispute over parking but the victim’s father has suggested a hate-crime motive lay behind the triple homicide.
Despite the cold weather, about 300 people joined the gathering, which was organized by the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Civil rights groups and different religious organizations, like, the Jewish Voice for Peace, or JVP, also took part in the gathering.
“We all know that if a Muslim man had killed three Christians or Jews, Hindus or atheists it would be a terrorist act, a hate crime," said Zach Morris from the Jewish Voice for Peace. "The initial issue might have been a parking space, a barking dog or any other minor incident but only hatred and discrimination causes an otherwise normal person to commit such a horrible act.”
Abdullah, 21, who is in his second year at Georgetown University, said he “feels threatened."
"Despite Muslims being pictured as potential terrorists, they are actually the target for discriminations," he said.
The three were shot dead in a residential complex in Chapel Hill on Tuesday evening. Forty-six-year-old Craig Stephen Hicks reportedly surrendered to police after the attack.
Barakat was a second-year student at the University of North Carolina’s School of Dentistry, who was raising money on YouCaring.com, an online fundraiser site, to provide dental relief to Syrian refugees in Turkey.
His wife, Yusor, was planning to begin her dental studies at the same school in the fall, and her sister, Razan, was a student at North Carolina State University.
