‘America’s media, agencies have blood of Muslims on their hands’

An international lawyer in Indonesia says America’s media, its security agencies and political apparatus have the blood of the murdered American Muslim students on their hands.

Barry Grossman, who is based on the Indonesian island of Bali, made the remarks in a phone interview with Press TV on Thursday while commenting on Tuesday’s “execution-style murders” of Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, his wife Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, 21, and her sister, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19, near the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus by a middle-aged white man.

Friends and families of the victims say the killings were motivated by hatred against Muslims and Islam.

“Considering the calculated, long term, and officially sanctioned demonization of Muslims in the United Sates, at a moral level, America's media, its security agencies and political apparatus have the blood of these victims on their hands.  Of course, this in no way diminishes the perpetrator's legal and moral culpability,” Grossman said.  

“Apart from the obvious fact that this crime involves a multiple homicide, the motives behind this gratuitous spree of violence remains opaque. Certainly an alleged argument over a parking spot doesn't even begin to explain it and, without more, does not provide anything which might be considered grounds for a defense in the execution of three apparently unarmed civilians,” he added.

“The one thing we can be sure of is that if the perpetrator was a Muslim, his crime would immediately have  been spun by the propaganda machine's narrative and presented to the public as an act of Islamic terrorism,” he stated.

“Moreover, the law enforcement apparatus would almost certainly have immediately invoked America's counter terrorism laws in their handling of the perpetrator, with all the tactical advantages that entails,” Grossman noted

“Yet faced with yet another homicidal WASP, the security apparatus is once taking a softer and more appropriate approach; an approach typically denied to alleged perpetrators who are Muslims or otherwise presumed to be sympathetic to Muslims.”

The killings of three young Muslims, called “gems of their communities”, have caused outrage among Muslims all over the world. Many claim the crimes would have gained more attention if the attacker had been a Muslim and the victims were non-Muslim whites.

According to reports, all three were high achievers who regularly volunteered for charity work in the area. Barakat was a second-year student at the University of North Carolina’s graduate school of dentistry, and his wife was planning to enroll in the same institution later this year. Her sister was an undergraduate at North Carolina State University who has won an award for her artistic talents.

“Public calls for the Attorney General to assert federal jurisdiction over these homicides on the grounds that they constitute a hate crime are clearly premature and, on their face, ill conceived,” Grossman stated.

“State homicide laws provide comprehensive and far more easily established grounds for prosecuting the perpetrator than federal laws governing hate crimes. The immediate call for the federal government to assert jurisdiction can only be seen as clear evidence that many Americans no longer have any confidence whatsoever  in state administered criminal justice,” he  explained.

“Meanwhile, we have started to see viral postings appearing on twitter and in other social media which congratulate the perpetrator and declare him to be a hero. The lack of any immediate official response by the police apparatus to these mischief makers stands in stark contrast to the immediate criminal action taken in France against anyone who expressed dissent to the official narrative surrounding the Charlie Hebdo killings only a few weeks ago. The blatant hypocrisy is yet another outrage,” he said.

“Ordinary Americans should hang their head in shame and denounce both this crime and the official mindset which promotes the kind of hatred which leads to such mindless violence; but, although many ‘right minded’ Americans will no doubt do so, the sad reality is that they will be in the minority and will receive little more than token coverage by mainstream media, while many comprising the silent majority will empathize with the actions of this psychopath,” he emphasized.

“In any case, I would like to express my heartfelt condolences to the family of these unfortunate victims, and my gratitude to the many Americans and others who are standing up to denounce this horrendous crime,” the international lawyer concluded.

GJH/GJH

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