Anti-gay attack in Minneapolis
Thursday, June 26, 2008 at 10:50 am
- 3 Comments
A man was badly beaten Saturday evening at the intersection of 6th St. and Cedar Ave. after the suspect, Abdirizak Mohamed, asked the man if he was gay. When the man "proudly answered ‘yes,’" Mohamed hit him several times in the face and told the victim that he hated homosexuals, according to Fox 9 News.
Mohamed was charged with fourth degree assault with bias which enhances the charge.
The victim has asked to remain anonymous but is "urging people to build a community of tolerance," he told Fox 9 News.
The attack comes a week before hundreds of thousands of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, and their friends and family, descend on Minneapolis for Twin Cities Pride.
Last month, a report by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs showed a sharp increase in anti-LGBT violence in Minnesota.
Follow Andy Birkey on Twitter3 Comments
Comment posted June 26, 2008 @ 1:23 pm
I’ve almost never felt unsafe when out and about in all the time I’ve lived here, but this does not make me feel good at all.
Comment posted June 26, 2008 @ 8:23 am
I've almost never felt unsafe when out and about in all the time I've lived here, but this does not make me feel good at all.
Comment posted September 2, 2008 @ 6:22 am
The truly stupid thing is that if something similar were to happen to this Mohamed fellow (i.e., a bias crime rooted in the fact he's a Muslim), he'd be up in arms about how the city / state / country / galaxy is Islamophobic. From prior experience with this particularly militant crowd, his response wouldn't be anything like the gay victim's entirely reasonable request that we “build a community of tolerance”… more like threats and flat-out demands. Well, it's high time for Minneapolis' sizable crowd of theocratic immigrants to recognize that tolerance is a two-way street — that if they want to be left alone to live their lives (as they should be), they must extend the same courtesy to everyone else. (And it's time for the political left to get back in touch with its principles of equality and individual freedom and stop demonizing those of us who criticize radical factions within Islam).
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
