Jamaat al-Muslimeen Condemns Charleston, SC Shootings

Press Statement

 

Nadrat Siddique

Jamaat al-Muslimeen National Majlis-e-Shura Member

Washington, DC

June 19, 2015

 

Jamaat al-Muslimeen condemns the massacre of four Black pastors and five other church-goers by a White Supremacist shooter at the Emmanual African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Charleston, SC, yesterday. We offer our deepest condolences to the families of the victims.

 

It is particularly saddening that such an occurrence took place at a church which is nearly 200- years old and considered a historical landmark. As many are aware, the church was founded around 1820, by the great slave rebellion leader Denmark Vesey, who was forcibly brought to Charleston, but later bought his own freedom. He organized a slave rebellion in 1822, which was betrayed by some of the participants. Vesey and 34 others, including his son, were hanged. The church was razed by the authorities.

 

Jamaat al-Muslimeen notes the image of police officer Michael Brelo in Cleveland, standing on the hood of a car and shooting unarmed motorists Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams 15 times through the windshield at point blank range. We note the choking death of the asmatic Eric Garner by a New York police officer.

 

Internationally, we note the 2007 shooting spree by a U.S. Apache helicopter in Baghdad, deliberating targeting and gunning down 12 civilians, and laughing “Ha ha I hit ‘em.” We note the murder of large numbers of civilians by drone strikes—in violation of international law—in places like Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia.

 

In these cases and countless others, the perpetrators went unpunished. It is deeply troubling that these acts of terrorism and countless others against people of color by those representing the U.S. government, here and abroad—in violation of the United States Constitution and the U.S. military handbook—send the message to potential White Supremacist terrorists that there is no punishment for taking innocent lives.

 

We note that incidents such as the Charleston massacre indicate the inability of the U.S. government to protect its own citizens, and point to the compelling need for U.S. intelligence services to refocus their efforts. Instead of engaging in entrapment, fraudulent/ preemptive prosecutions, and Thought Crime prosecutions of Muslims and others, we encourage U.S. intelligence services to refocus their efforts on what is clearly a very real threat by White Supremacist extremists—domestic terrorists in the U.S.

 

END