(MENAFN- Daily News Egypt) The murder of three Muslims of Arab descent in North Carolina by their 46-year-old neighbour has raised the question over the crime's nature and motives.
It also raised the question of how the US media dealt with such a crime and its details € the victims having been known to be peaceful.
Deah Barakat, his wife Yusor Abu-Salha and her sister Razan were all killed in their home by gunshot by their neighbour Craig Hicks.
Somayya Yousef, a political science student and activist at the University of North Carolina, was a colleague of Razan, who studied engineering. Yousef told Daily News Egypt about the incident, and why it raised sadness, sorrow and panic.
The details
Yousef said their neighbour frequently used racist language to Yusor, and that she complained of his harassment.
He used to tell her "I do not like your look", referring to her veil, amongst other things relating to her religion. He was frequently coming to their apartment to complain, even if there was no disturbance. That day, when Razan was visiting her sister, the man knocked on the door at 5pm, this time with a pistol.
According to neighbours' testimonies, they heard 8-10 bullets. Screams were followed by silence, then a further three bullets. Hicks, detained until his trial, later surrendered himself to police.
Although Hicks' social network page has now been deactivated, other pages collected and stored were used to form a 'biography' of him. They revealed his atheism, his defence of homosexuals' right to marry, and his love (and ownership) of weapons.
He frequently wrote against Islam in particular, for instance writing: "I am not the one who began; your religion began, and as long as your religion will keep its voice high, I too will not shut up ."
Social media victory?
The violence of the crime was not the only thing dominating discussion on the issue, inside or outside the US. The US' domestic media, however, did not give the event significant focus.
Yousef describes the coverage as "frustrating", with significant delays in how news networks covered the killings. At the beginning, the news received only extensive coverage on Al Jazeera, the Associated Press news agency and some local newspapers. British newspaper The Independent wrote on the crime, describing a "media blackout".
Yousef adds that many, however, knew from social networks. The eventual media coverage, she believes, may have only been due to the social media pressure and the "hash tag devoted to the issue". She added that the overall lack of coverage led to numerous critical jokes.
Why so much grief?
Yousef recalls that Yusor and Deah were not just a couple € they were newlyweds, married last December straight after 21-year-old Yusor graduated from the University of North Carolina in the same month.
Deah, 23, was preparing for graduate studies in dentistry. They were living in a modest Chapel Hill home after their marriage, and were active in charity work. Deah's last such act was distributing food and personal hygiene items to the needy and homeless.
He also worked with Syrian refugees in Turkey, where he started a donation campaign for refugees needing medical care.
Obama speaks, targeting continues
US President Barack Obama spoke briefly on the accident saying: "The FBI investigates any breach of the law, and no one should ever be targeted for who they are, their appearance, or their religion."
This did not, however, stop a Texas mosque from being burnt, according to the mosque's Imam, Zahid Abdullah.
The 'Arab American News' reported that a veiled girl and her father were severely assaulted by two individuals in Michigan.
The perpetrators accused the victims of being terrorists, saying they should be deportated. Police did not take any witness statements, despite it being a natural procedure in criminal proceedings.
Will the case of Marwa El-Sherbeeny be repeated in America?
The victims' burials were attended by nearly 5,000 persons, including many non-Muslims and attendees from other states. Some made a connection between this case and the 2009 case of Marwa El-Sherbeeny, stabbed to death by an extremist in Germany. The hatred and violence that came with the killing, and the hype associated with both events, have been named as connections. As has the fact that North Carolina's law allows the death penalty.
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