No respite for the unbelievers

It's a concept dear to Muslims hearts everywhere.

Yes, I said Muslim. Flat out Muslim. I'm no longer going to use tepid pre/postmodifiers like "fundamentalist" or "Jihadist". Anyone who is a serious Muslim is, by the doctrine of their belief, Jihadists, and are therefore completely supportive of those Muslims who lop off people's heads for giving God the wrong name.

But they don't just lend passive approval to these blood-letters for the Lord. They sometimes turn out in force to harass the grieving relatives of a Christian family who was slaughtered by Muslims, because of their advocacy of Christianity, and because the head of the family said unpleasant things about Islam in an online chatroom.

January 18, 2005 -- An emotional holy war broke out yesterday on the streets of Jersey City, where Muslims and Christians clashed and lobbed insults at the funeral for a devout family of Egyptian immigrants who may have been slain for their religious beliefs.

While mourners inside the St. George & St. Shenouda Coptic Orthodox Church prayed for peace in the wake of a murder that escalated religious tensions at home and abroad, fights erupted amid the crowd that spilled outside the church, where angry Coptic Christians pointed accusing fingers at their Muslim counterparts.

Hossam Armanious, 37, his wife, Amal Garas, 37, and their two daughters, Sylvia, 15, and Monica, 8, were found dead in their Oakland Avenue home early Friday after relatives told police nobody had heard from them in days.

Investigators said each victim was bound, gagged and stabbed in the neck, and the early focus was on anti-Muslim remarks Armanious made in a popular religious chat room after a relative said Armanious was threatened online for expressing his Christian beliefs.

Officials said the religious persecution theory is still under investigation, but said some evidence points to robbery as a motive.

Members of the city's Coptic community — many of whom left Egypt like Armanious to escape religious threats — believe there is a connection between their faith and the murders.

That sentiment was expressed loudly by one parishioner inside who began yelling at Muslims, including a sheik, who attended the service.

"Muslim is the killer," he said over and over before he was dragged from the church by five police officers who hustled him into an unmarked police car and quickly drove away.

Tensions were high even before the first copper-colored casket arrived, when, during a procession to the church from Journal Square, family members asked mourners to put away anti-Muslim protest signs.

But emotions really boiled over in the moments after the wistful service when a skirmish broke out as the four black hearses adorned with the victims' pictures were being loaded.

Punches were thrown, people were shoved and police rushed in to break up the brawl that had moved up Bergen Avenue to a nearby parking garage.

For a while, cops kept the crowd separated with a metal garage gate until they could restore order.

"I think people here have fueled it," family friend Henry Simon, 35, said of the tension.

"The sheik came at the wrong time. It's like spitting on their graves."

The people here have fueled it? I suppose he means the distraught relatives and friends who (for some unknown reason) resent a large crowd of Muslims, lead by one of their witchdoctors, turning up in order to further intimidate the Coptic community.

There's a large number of Egyptian Copts who live in my neighbourhood. I can state unequivocally that no large uninvited gathering of Muslims would be welcomed at their church. Not ever.

But perhaps Muslims are just different. Because they are the religion of peace, and so on. Here's a thought. Perhaps we should seek to return the favour. We'll gather together several thousand devout Atheists, Agnostics, Christians, Mormons, Hindus, Jews and Buddhists, and we'll go camp out on the front steps of the Lakemba Mosque.

We'll choose the day of the funeral of a murdered family of Muslims to do it.

I'm sure they'll be thrilled, and we'll be welcomed with open arms.

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