The FBI will launch a probe into an Internet video that showed a man shooting a copy of the Qur’an with a military-style rifle and then leaving the bullet-riddled holy book outside a mosque in Chattanooga, Tennessee, an agent said, according to the Seattlepi.com.
The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations asked the Justice Department to investigate the incident, FBI agent Tim Burke said.
The offensive video, titled “kill the Qur’an”, was posted on a social networking Web site last month, CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said, adding that it might have been filmed last year.
The video has been removed from the site last Tuesday, Hooper said.
The man who shot the video identified himself on the Web site as "mully88", and said that he lives in Chattanooga. In his profile, he listed his heroes as “anybody that has killed a Muslim, or at least tried to kill a Muslim”. His Web page also contains slurs against Hispanics and blacks.
The provocative video shows the man buying a copy of the holy Qur’an from a bookstore, taking it to a wooded area and shooting it, then throwing it outside the door of the Chattanooga Islamic center.
CAIR said the case could be treated as a possible civil rights violation, and Legal Director Arsalan Iftikhar compared it to burning a cross.
"By throwing the bullet-riddled Qur’an at the mosque, we believe the perpetrators went beyond the limits of free speech by taking part in an overt act of religious intimidation," Iftikhar said.
The Islamic civil rights group also demanded the FBI to investigate vandalism at an Indiana mosque, and treat the case as a possible hate crime. It also cited other recent incidents of vandalism against mosques in Maine, Arizona and Maryland.
AlJazeera
The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations asked the Justice Department to investigate the incident, FBI agent Tim Burke said.
The offensive video, titled “kill the Qur’an”, was posted on a social networking Web site last month, CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said, adding that it might have been filmed last year.
The video has been removed from the site last Tuesday, Hooper said.
The man who shot the video identified himself on the Web site as "mully88", and said that he lives in Chattanooga. In his profile, he listed his heroes as “anybody that has killed a Muslim, or at least tried to kill a Muslim”. His Web page also contains slurs against Hispanics and blacks.
The provocative video shows the man buying a copy of the holy Qur’an from a bookstore, taking it to a wooded area and shooting it, then throwing it outside the door of the Chattanooga Islamic center.
CAIR said the case could be treated as a possible civil rights violation, and Legal Director Arsalan Iftikhar compared it to burning a cross.
"By throwing the bullet-riddled Qur’an at the mosque, we believe the perpetrators went beyond the limits of free speech by taking part in an overt act of religious intimidation," Iftikhar said.
The Islamic civil rights group also demanded the FBI to investigate vandalism at an Indiana mosque, and treat the case as a possible hate crime. It also cited other recent incidents of vandalism against mosques in Maine, Arizona and Maryland.
AlJazeera
