An atheist whose Facebook postings reflect “progressive” and “anti-religion” causes – and who “liked” the Southern Poverty Law Center, Freedom From Religion Foundation and MSNBC talker Rachel Maddow – should be charged with hate crimes, the father of two of the three students shot and killed in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, said Wednesday.
It’s not the first time SPLC has been tied to violence. In 2012, a man convicted of domestic terrorism said he got the idea to target the Family Research Council from SPLC’s website, which lists the Christian organization as a “hate group.”
In the current case, Mohammad Abu-Salha, who has a psychiatry practice in Clayton, North Carolina, told the Charlotte News Observer the violence went far beyond what police said was a dispute over neighborhood parking.
Mohammad Abu-Salha is the father of Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, 21, and her sister, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19.
The two were shot and killed, along with Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha’s husband, Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23. Police have accused Craig Stephen Hicks of the deaths of his neighbors, who were Muslim.
“It was execution style, a bullet in every head,” Mohammad Abu-Salha told the Observer. “This was not a dispute over a parking space; this was a hate crime. This man had picked on my daughter and her husband a couple of times before, and he talked with them with his gun in his belt. And they were uncomfortable with him, but they did not know he would go this far.”
A report at PJMedia described the leftist views of the suspect.
“A review of the Facebook page of the man charged in these murders, Craig Hicks, shows a consistent theme of anti-religion and progressive causes. Included in his many Facebook ‘likes’ are the Huffington Post, Rachel Maddow, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Freedom from Religion Foundation, Bill Nye ‘The Science Guy,’ Neil deGrasse Tyson, gay marriage groups, and a host of anti-conservative tea party pages.”
The report included an image posted recently by Hicks that stated: “People say nothing can solve the Middle East problem. Not mediation, not arms, not financial aid. I say there is something. Atheism.”
Official police reports said all three victims were dead at the scene Tuesday.
Hicks, 46, was arrested and charged with three counts of first-degree murder. He was being held without bond.
Police said the preliminary investigation indicated a “dispute over parking” was the trigger.
But Mohammad Abu-Salha told the newspaper his daughter had complained about the hate emanating from her neighbor.
He quoted her as saying: “Honest to God. He hates us for what we are and how we look.”
Authorities reported they had not yet decided whether a full-scale federal hate crimes investigation was warranted.
Thomas Walker, a federal prosecutor, told the Observer the Muslim community “has been good partners with law enforcement on a variety of fronts.”
“It’s vitally important that their concerns not be ignored. We think it’s appropriate to closely monitor the investigation to determine any motivation in this case,” he said.
Hicks made his first appearance in Durham County District Court Wednesday and asked for a public defender. Judge Marcia Morey scheduled a probable cause hearing March 4.
The Observer also noted Hicks’ leftist leanings.
“I give your religion as much respect as your religion gives me,” he posted on Facebook, the paper said. “There’s nothing complicated about it, and I have every right to insult a religion that goes out of its way to insult, to judge, and to condemn me as an inadequate human being – which your religion does with self-righteous gusto.”
His diatribe continued: “When it comes to insults, your religion started this, not me. If your religion kept its big mouth shut, so would I. But given that it doesn’t, and given the enormous harm that your religion has done in this world, I’d say that I have not only a right, but a duty, to insult it, as does every rational, thinking person on this planet.”
The PJ Media report noted Dean Obeidallah, “who was part of the group of American Muslims who met with Obama last week,” exonerated atheism and blamed the Republican Party.
His tweet stated: “I don’t blame atheism for murder of 3 Muslim Amer students. My focus is the GOP officials+professional anti-Muslim bigots.”
Another commenter posted, “Frothing left: Why is nobody covering the UNC story?”
Another said, “Should be awesome seeing the SPLC condemn a hate crime by a fan of theirs.”
The New York Daily News noted Hicks frequently posted quotes of prominent comedians and atheists, including the prominent British atheist, professor and author Richard Dawkins.
Haya Barakat, a relative of one victim, tweeted: “My cousin, his wife and sister in law were murdered for being muslim. Someone tell me racism/hate crimes don’t exist.”
Kill ‘as many people as I could’
As WND reported, Chief U.S. District Judge Richard W. Roberts in Washington sentenced homosexual activist Floyd Lee Corkins to 25 years in prison for attempting a mass shooting at the headquarters of the Family Research Council.
The judge noted it was clear the defendant intended to commit mass murder because he had rehearsed his crime, practiced shooting his weapon and had brought 95 bullets with him on the day of the crime.
It was Aug. 15, 2012, when a heavily armed Corkins walked into FRC headquarters and began shooting with the intention of killing “as many people as I could.”
He managed to shoot and injure just one person, facilities manager Leo Johnson, who is credited with heroically stopping the attack.
Corkins admitted he picked FRC because the organization was listed as an “anti-gay” hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center on its website.
FRC promotes traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs about the family and homosexuality, but SPLC claims the organization’s “real specialty is defaming gays and lesbians.”
Corkins, a former volunteer at an LGBT community center, pleaded guilty to terrorism.
A video shows Corkins entered the building and approached Johnson, then leaned over to place his backpack on the floor. When he straightened up, Corkins pointed a semi-automatic handgun directly at Johnson and fired. Despite being wounded in the arm, Johnson was able to subdue Corkins after a brief struggle.
[jwplayer UfJlrAZI]
Corkins fingered SPLC as his inspiration during an interview with the FBI.
Asked how he picked the FRC to attack, Corkins stated, “It was a, uh, Southern Poverty Law, lists, uh, anti-gay groups. I found them online. I did a little bit of research, went to the website, stuff like that.”
He said he spotted FRC on SPLC’s “hate map.”
The FBI interview with Corkins included this exchange:
FBI: “What was your intention. … You’re … a political activist you said?”
Corkins: “Yeah, I wanted to kill the people in the building and then smear a Chicken-fil-A sandwich on their face.”
FBI: “And you, what was your intention when you went in there with the gun?”
Corkins: “Uh, it was to kill as many people as I could.”
At the time of the shooting, Chick-fil-A was in the headlines because of its president’s opposition to “gay marriage.”
The case prompted retired Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, FRC executive vice president and a member of the board of WND.com, to urge the U.S. government and its agencies to stop working with SPLC and citing its work.
The FBI ultimately removed a link from its website to SPLC.
That the suspect also was a Rachel Maddow fan probably would not have surprised WND columnist Bradlee Dean.
He launched a legal action against Maddow, accusing her of distorting his positions, “in hopes of bending the truth to form public opinion rather than having to abide by the laws of the land.”
Bradlee explained: “On Aug. 9, 2010, Rachel Maddow and MSNBC took a one-minute piece out of the center of one of my radio broadcasts. This specific show aired on May 15, 2010, where I made reference to the fact that, ‘Muslims are calling for the execution of homosexuals in America.’ Again, I said that the Muslims were calling for the execution of the homosexuals. (What is interesting here, friends, is that the radical Muslims who stand by this practice have yet to be called into question by the radical homosexuals for what they advocate.)
“What Rachel Maddow and MSNBC did was take my radio clip, omitted the one-minute piece from the center of that clip and then merged the two end pieces together as one piece,” he wrote.
What was left was the suggestion Bradlee was calling for executions.
“Of course, my comments were clearly taken out of context and twisted,” he said.
