Muslim mother In Fairfax assault has Marine son
09-10-2003
By Caryle Murphy
Washington Post:
A Muslim woman who said she was stabbed in the back outside a Fairfax County shopping mall and called a “terrorist” by her assailant is the mother of an active-duty U.S. Marine Corps corporal who recently returned from a three-month tour in Kuwait.
Michelle Rothstein-Latif, 47, who was not seriously wounded in the Sunday attack, said she was offended that anyone would think she supported terrorism.
“I don’t believe in fanaticism, I’m just a regular American Muslim,” said the Woodbridge resident, who converted to Islam in 1987. "That’s why I got very offended. Sure I wear a scarf, but I’m far from a terrorist. I’m pro-America. When I hear people talk anti-American, I say ‘Why don’t you go back to where you come from?’ "
Rothstein-Latif also said that more attention is given to incidents in which Muslims are perpetrators of violence. “If a man named Abdul attacked me and I wasn’t Muslim,” she said, “it’d be front page news.”
Fairfax County police said they are investigating the reported attack as “an apparent bias crime” and seeking information on the assailant, whom they described as a white male in his teens.
“We haven’t found any witnesses yet,” said county police spokeswoman Jacqi Smith.
Fairfax police met yesterday with FBI agents who are considering launching a civil rights investigation into the attack, said Mary Anne Jennings, Fairfax police spokeswoman. She said police visited three mosques in the Franconia district this week, checking to see if similar incidents had occurred and gone unreported. None were discovered, she said.
The reported attack on Rothstein-Latif is among an increasing number of reported physical assaults against American Muslims, or people perceived to be Muslim, according to the Washington-based Council on American Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy group. Those incidents have included a cross-burning outside an Islamic school in College Park in July, a recent arson at a Georgia mosque and the kidnapping and beating of a Massachusetts pizza delivery man whose attackers thought he was Muslim.
Research director Mohamed Nimer said the council has received reports of at least 62 hate crimes against Muslims since the start of this year, a 50 percent increase over the previous 12 months. Nimer said that is only a partial list. Rothstein-Latif said she was leaning into her parked car near Kmart at Springfield Plaza about 1 p.m. to unlatch the seatbelt on her 7-year-old daughter. She said she felt a punch in her back that pushed her into the car. As she turned around, she saw her attacker, in baggy blue jeans, a blue top and a cap, running away. She said he shouted “terrorist” and another word that Rothstein-Latif said she believed was either “pig” or “the b word.”
She said she did not realize she had been stabbed, but then noticed blood. Rothstein-Latif said a doctor at Inova Fairfax Hospital confirmed that she had suffered “some kind of small knife-type wound.”
Rothstein-Latif grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y. She is the daughter of Russian Jews and later had a Catholic stepfather, but she said she never practiced any religion until her conversion to Islam.
“I have no regrets,” she said, “but lately it’s been very stressful because if you hear that a guy named Muhammad does something wrong, all the Muslims are to blame.”
A mother of five children, Rothstein-Latif said she is “very proud” of her 28-year-old son, Alan Tirol, who returned from Kuwait last month. A spokesman for the Marine Corps confirmed that Tirol is on active duty with the 3rd Marine Air Wing.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A914-2003Oct8.html
Comment:
Despite muslims compromising their islam and calling themselves things which are not from the quran and sunnah i.e american muslims or british muslims or even joining the armies of usa and uk, they are still coming under attack from non-muslims who obviously regard them as being part of the global muslim ummah. We muslims have a unique identity with our own values which are different from western values as the night and the day are different. Islam is perfect and free from error unlike the man made ideologies like capitalism. So we should hold our heads high and follow Islam and never compromise our deen or ally with the enemies of Islam.