Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha’s best friend talks about her and about the murders. She’s very generous, and very level-headed.

As told to Latoya Peterson.

Words can’t really describe who she was. She’s such an amazing person. I feel like people always say that after they lose someone. This isn’t to boost her after her death—she really was a good person.

She always put others ahead of herself, just like her husband, Deah Barakat. I am the person I am today because of her. She’s a really sweet person, you never catch her angry. She’s patient, very loving, like her mom, she’s caring. She’s a good person. She was newly married and getting used to that life transition. She had just been accepted at Chapel Hill for dentistry.

Over the summer, Yusor went to Turkey. I’m a teacher at a small private school in Raleigh, and my school ran a collection drive for Project Refugee Smiles. My students were so excited to help. They collected so many toothbrushes and packages of dental floss that Yusor couldn’t carry it—she had to pay extra bag fees. She went with her mom to assist.

Not someone we could afford to lose, if you ask me.

I don’t know if I believe she was targeted for her beliefs. I don’t think so – I think the shooter, Craig Steven Hicks, is just an angry person. I know Yusor didn’t do anything to him – there’s no way she could have said even one thing wrong to him because she doesn’t get mad. She never says anything back even if someone yells at her. Her husband is even nicer, her sister is even nicer – none of them would have said anything to make someone that angry.

Three lives literally are gone just to justify…whatever he was thinking.

That’s what I mean by generous. Just an angry person – that’s a very unvindictive explanation.

I understand people look down on our religion. They think a lot of things, like we are terrorists. People don’t understand us Muslims are embarrassed of these people who are using Islam in bad ways to justify being cruel. Yusor and Deah represented a big part of our community—they were two good Muslims. Yusor believes in her religion. She is peaceful and she was raised well. She chose a healthy way of life. We weren’t extreme. We are the middle path. We aren’t strict on stuff outside of the head covering. I think there is a lot of misinterpretation of what Islam is.

I can’t understand why someone would hate them enough to kill them.

I read articles about this guy and they say he’s an atheist, but I don’t really know if that’s the connection the media makes it out to be. I’m not really sure if he thinks his act is justified.

Honestly, I don’t want to say, “Why her?” because I don’t want this to happen to anyone. What we’ve been feeling over the last 12 hours I don’t want anyone to ever feel.

More generosity.

I have so many questions for him.

She’s so young. Would you not let her blossom a bit more? What went through your mind? I mean, as you pulled the trigger you clearly killed people. You killed one, then you killed a second time, a third time. And you walked away from the scene. You took three young people. I don’t know if he has kids but how could you do that to someone’s child? And then just walk away. What is his motive? I wonder what would have happened if we were there? Would he have killed us all, since we were a bunch of hijabis? I can’t imagine. I have so many questions I don’t know how to word them all. And I want to know exactly what happened, all the details. I need to know.

There’s more. It’ll break your heart if you read it.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

The Huffington Post has some more details on Deah Shaddy Barakat, Yusor Mohammad, and her sister Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, and on Craig Hicks.

Barakat and Mohammad were newlyweds who helped the homeless and raised funds to help Syrian refugees in Turkey this summer. They met while running the Muslim Student Association at N.C. State before he began pursuing an advanced degree in dentistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Mohammad planned to join her husband in dentistry school in the fall.

Abu-Salha was visiting them Tuesday from Raleigh, where she was majoring in design at N.C. State.

She was visiting. If she’d been in Raleigh she’d still be alive.

Imad Ahmad, who lived in the condo where his friends were killed until Barakat and Mohammed were married in December, said Hicks complained about once a month that the two men were parking in a vistor’s space as well as their assigned spot.

“He would come over to the door. Knock on the door and then have a gun on his hip saying ‘you guys need to not park here,'” said Ahmad, a graduate student in chemistry at UNC-Chapel Hill. “He did it again after they got married.”

Both Hicks and his neighbors complained to the property managers, who apparently didn’t intervene. “They told us to call the police if the guy came and harassed us again,” Ahmad said.

“This man was frustrated day in and day out about not being able to park where he wanted to,” said Karen Hicks’ attorney, Robert Maitland.

And then there’s his favorite movie…

Hicks’ ex-wife, Cynthia Hurley, said that before they divorced about 17 years ago, his favorite movie was “Falling Down,” the 1993 Michael Douglas film about a divorced unemployed engineer who goes on a shooting rampage.

“That always freaked me out,” Hurley said. “He watched it incessantly. He thought it was hilarious. He had no compassion at all,” she said.

I’ve always avoided seeing that movie, because the premise revolts me, and this is why. Most people obviously don’t take that kind of inspiration from that kind of movie, but then there are the others…

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

The Charlotte [North Carolina] Observer reports that the father of the two women murdered in Chapel Hill says it was a hate crime.

…the women’s father, Dr. Mohammad Abu-Salha, who has a psychiatry practice in Clayton, said regardless of the precise trigger Tuesday night, Hicks’ underlying animosity toward Barakat and Abu-Salha was based on their religion and culture. Abu-Salha said police told him Hicks shot the three inside their apartment.

“It was execution style, a bullet in every head,” Abu-Salha said Wednesday morning. “This was not a dispute over a parking space; this was a hate crime. This man had picked on my daughter and her husband a couple of times before, and he talked with them with his gun in his belt. And they were uncomfortable with him, but they did not know he would go this far.”

Abu-Salha said his daughter who lived next door to Hicks wore a Muslim head scarf and told her family a week ago that she had “a hateful neighbor.”

“Honest to God, she said, ‘He hates us for what we are and how we look,’” he said.

The police and prosecutors are still investigating.

Chapel Hill police found all three victims dead at the scene, after responding to a report of gunshots on Summerwalk Circle at 5:11 p.m. Tuesday. A woman who called 911 described hearing gunshots as she walked through the complex of apartments and condominiums adjacent to the Friday Center.

“I heard about eight shots go off in an apartment – I don’t know the number – about three girls, more than one girl, screaming, and then there was nothing,” the unidentified caller said. “And then I heard about three more shots go off.”

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Mayim Bialik, the anti-vax tv star, has a Facebook post saying she is not either anti-vax so stop being poopy to her.

i would like to dispel the rumors about my stance on vaccines. i am not anti-vaccine. my children are vaccinated. there has been so much hysteria and anger about this issue and i hope this clears things up as far as my part.

It’s not rumors. I’ve read interviews in which she explains why she’s anti-vax. Tara Smith at Science blogs has more:

So did she really change her mind and her stance?

If so, why? Or is she just jumping on the “I’m not anti-vaccine” bandwagon like Jenny McCarthy and others who claim not to be anti-vaccine, but at the same time spew vaccine fear and misinformation? Are her kids fully vaccinated, or did they only have the ones she mentioned previously (such as polio for international travel)? Is she walking back statements that are basically anti-vaccine talking points, and removing her support of anti-vaccine doctors like Bob Sears and Lauren Feder (or her own pediatrician, Jay Gordon)?

I really hope so. But I won’t hold my breath, and take her statements that she’s “not anti-vaccine” with a big grain of salt. After all, that statement, itself, is often an anti-vaccine talking point.

Bialik’s post doesn’t look like a change of mind at all. It looks like saying she’s not anti-vax and never has been, which is very different from saying she was and has now fortunately changed her mind.

And she has the gall to be miffed about what she calls “hysteria and anger.” Yeah gee why would anyone be angry that Hollywood celebrities use their fame to help promote an anti-vax stance that can help to trigger epidemics? Don’t forget, measles was eradicated in the US until the anti-vax bullshit got going.

Shame on you, Mayim Bialik.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Damn. Twitter is full of photos of the three murdered students and they’re heartbreaking. They looked so happy…

There’s also a Facebook for them set up by their families.

One post -

Yusor dancing with her father at her wedding. Her wedding was a little more than a month ago.

May Allah have mercy on the bride and groom in paradise.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Three students were murdered in Chapel Hill, North Carolina yesterday, two sisters and the husband of one of them. All three were Muslims, but the police are saying the shooting may have been to do with a parking dispute.

A 46-year-old man has been charged with murder in the shooting deaths of three students in an apartment near the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus.

Police said “an ongoing neighbor dispute over parking” may have been a factor in the shootings Tuesday evening.

The suspect, Craig Stephen Hicks, turned himself in to police later in the night and is being held in the Durham County Jail without bond. He was cooperating with investigators, police said Wednesday morning.

You know what? He’s on Facebook. He’s a vocal atheist. I’m not FB friends with him but I have no fewer than 49 mutual friends with him, which is creepy as hell.

Ex-Muslims of North America posted on the subject an hour ago; a public post.

This is an atrocity and should be condemned as such, by Muslims and atheists alike. We, more than anyone, understand the dangers Islamism pose to individuals and to the world. But no matter what, opposition to Islamism CANNOT become opposition to Muslims. We stand in solidarity with the Muslim community – violence is never the answer.

It’s been becoming ever more apparent over the past few years (it was apparent to some people all along, and I’m not one of those people – I was wrong) that combative atheism is attractive to a lot of mean, belligerent, hostile, sadistic people. I still think a certain amount of combativeness is necessary for movements of social change, but…now I spy a danger, to quote Polonius or whoever it was.

About those three students whose lives were taken away from them -

The victims were Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, Yusor Mohammad, 21, and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19.

Barakat was Mohammad’s husband; Abu-Salha was her sister, the school said.

Barakat was a second-year student at the UNC School of Dentistry, who was raising money on a fundraising site to provide dental care to Syrian refugees in Turkey.

He had been married for just over a month to Yusor Mohammad, who was planning to begin her dental studies at UNC in the fall, according to the school.

Abu-Salha was a student at North Carolina State University in Raleigh.

Horrendous.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Here’s George Galloway being disgusting in 2008, that time he said a gay man was executed in Iran not because he was gay but because he committed “sex crimes” – on the basis of nothing whatever, apparently.

Outspoken London MP George Galloway has said that the boyfriend of Iranian asylum seeker Mehdi Kazemi was executed for sex crimes.

The Respect politician made his claims on Channel Five show The Wright Stuff yesterday morning.

Mr Kazemi is claiming asylum in the UK.

He claims his boyfriend was arrested by police in Iran for being homosexual, forced to reveal the names of men he had relationships with, and executed.

The 19-year-old also said there was a warrant for his arrest as a result of his boyfriend’s confession and he would face execution if he was returned.

But Galloway said don’t you believe it. Galloway said it was a calumny on that nice Iran.

Mr Galloway, the MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, is well-known for his trenchant views and belief that there is a media conspiracy to portray Iran in a bad light.

“This is being used as part of the on-going propaganda against Iran,” he told presenter Matthew Wright yesterday.

“All the papers seem to imply that you get executed in Iran for being gay. That’s not true.”

Yes it is. It’s been documented. For years.

Matthew Wright: His boyfriend was hung though, wasn’t he?

George Galloway: Yes, but nor being gay. For uh, committing sex crimes, uh, against young men.

MW: Right …

GG: I mean, I’m against execution for any reason in any place, but it is important to avoid that propaganda.

Even when it’s true, apparently.

Gay rights group OutRage! has challenged Mr Galloway to provide proof of his assertions.

“We are calling on George Galloway to explain the source of his claim that Mehdi Kazemi’s boyfriend had committed sex crimes and this was the reason he was executed,” said OutRage! spokesperson Brett Lock.

“Neither OutRage! nor any other human rights group has seen any evidence to suggest that Mr Kazemi’s partner was a rapist or sex-abuser.

“Mr Galloway’s claim that gay people are not executed in Iran is refuted by every reputable human rights body, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.”

Well they’re not on Iran’s payroll.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

What else does Galloway do for the betterment of humanity? He rakes in large sums of cash from Russian and Iranian state tv.

George Galloway has earned £65,000 in just six months as a presenter and guest for dubious state-run broadcasters.

The Bradford MP is the highest earner of any MP, raking in the cash for his polemics against the West on the Kremlin-backed Russia Today and from LBP TV, a channel run out of the offices of Press TV which is now banned by Ofcom. Galloway still presents two shows for the channel, whose head was appointed directly by Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei, but on an unpaid basis.

Through his television work, Galloway has doubled his income. He earns £67,000 as a Member of Parliament, and he declared £25,600 for work on Russia Today, £21,450 from LBP TV and £18,000 from Arab-focused satellite channel Al-Mayadeen TV between January and April (he has yet to declare for May and June).

A friend on Facebook helpfully informed me a few hours ago that

His declared income is released on the Register of Members Interests each year. Last year he made £75,200 from Russia Today, £108,900 from Iranian TV, £108k from Lebanese TV and £67,060 MP Salary.

Over £290k from DictatorTV – more than four times his salary as an MP.

Back to the Huffington Post article.

Galloway hosts two programmes a month for Al-Mayadeen in Beirut, which is funded by anonymous individuals widely believed to be linked to Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah or to Syria’s Assad family members, though this is denied by the channel. He has his return flights and hotel accommodation paid for.

A spokesman for Galloway told Press Gazette: “He does believe in spreading his message as widely as he can – not just through the prism of Parliament.”

When pressed by his local paper the Bradford Telegraph and Argus, the spokesman described the work as “about two shows a week that take about four or five hours of his time, mainly at weekends.”

The issue isn’t the moonlighting, the issue is the nature of the work.

“Is he not allowed to do other things in his spare time? It is not about the money, he does it to get his message out in different ways,” he said.

It’s not about the money? He’s indifferent to that almost £300k a year? And yet they give it to him and he takes it.

Galloway’s involvement with foreign broadcast media has often attracted criticism. He famously asserted on Channel 5 show, The Wright Stuff in 2008, that the boyfriend of an homosexual Iranian asylum seeker had been killed for sex crimes, rather than because he was gay. Gay rights activist Peter Tatchell said at the time that Galloway’s claim was “refuted by every reputable human rights organisation”.

Jeezis, the man is a horror.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

In 2008 Galloway succeeded in getting a tiny London podcast shut down by suing.

London’s only Jewish community radio station has been forced to cease broadcasting after losing a High Court libel case brought against it by the Respect MP George Galloway.

Jcom, a non-profit station which broadcast online and to a small area in north-west London, was wound up after it was told to pay the MP damages of £15,000.

Mr Galloway sued the station after one of its presenters played a spoof character based on the MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, and implied he was anti-Semitic. It was also ordered to pay Mr Galloway’s court costs, thought to be £5,000. Mr Galloway said that the judgment had “categorically crushed the slur of anti-Semitism”.

Well, it crushed Jcom, at least.

During a broadcast in November, a presenter who called himself “Georgie Galloway”, the station’s “Middle East correspondent”, used the catchphrase, “kill the Jews, kill the Jews”. The station immediately sacked the presenter, Richard Malach, saying he was “young and inexperienced” and had made an error of judgment while attempting to present an edgy programme. It also issued an apology on its website and offered Mr Galloway the opportunity to appear on the station, which had a very small audience. Only 36 people were listening online at the time of the offending show.

The programme was also broadcast over the radio to an area in north-west London with a three-mile radius.

But Mr Galloway said he pursued the case as the station’s apology “fell short of the categorical retraction of the imputation of anti-Semitism that I insisted upon”.

Jeremy Silverstone, the head of Jcom, said he was disappointed that the case had led to the downfall of the capital’s only Jewish radio station.

But at least the world was shown to a certainty that George Galloway is absolutely not in any way the tiniest bit anti-Semitic.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Galloway tweeted that he has sued for libel at least 20 times and that he’s won every time he has sued. (He ignored repeated questions about how many times he has silenced people by threatening to sue.)

The BBC reported one win in December 2004, against the Telegraph.

MP George Galloway has won £150,000 in libel damages from the Daily Telegraph over claims he received money from Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq.

The Glasgow Kelvin MP had denied ever seeking or receiving money from Saddam Hussein’s government, which he said he had long opposed.

The newspaper said it was in the public interest to publish the claims, based on documents found in Baghdad.

It’s a curious thing – I’ve found other headlines about his filing of suits, but not about his winning any. Maybe I haven’t dug deep enough yet.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

So today George Galloway bullied a journalist for saying something about him that he didn’t like.

George Galloway @georgegalloway
I have begun legal proceedings against Hadley Freeman of the Guardian on her defamatory comments about me. No- one should repeat them.

Now #libelGalloway is happening.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Americans United for Separation of Church and State give us this helpful graphic showing the Alabama counties that are defying the federal court order to issue same-sex marriage licenses. Roy Moore should be kicked out of office a second time.

The defiant counties are in blue.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

The Guardian reported last Friday that George Galloway is angry at the BBC.

George Galloway has hit out at the BBC following his appearance on Question Time, saying he was set up and that David Dimbleby privately apologised to him afterwards.

The controversy centred around a question that one audience member asked about a rise in antisemitism in the UK.

But the question also included a reference to the MP for Bradford West bearing some responsibility for this rise, an inclusion he said that had not been agreed beforehand.

So what? He’s an MP – he’s expected to field questions, isn’t he? Isn’t that part of the job?

The anti-war politician said the host David Dimbleby later apologised to him for this, but it represented what he said was a set-up within the BBC.

The anti-war politician? That’s his sobriquet? But he’s not an anti-war politician; he’s not opposed to all wars or war as such.

Galloway said:

“To accuse a parliamentarian of 27 years of being responsible for a spike in antisemitism is totally ludicrous.”

??? Why on earth? A parliamentarian is well placed to cause a spike in attitude, better placed than most people. What’s ludicrous about saying so?

Fellow panel member and Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland also did not escape the Respect party MP’s ire, as he said he had stoked the fires and for that he would never forgive him.

“There was not a single Muslim person in the audience even though there are 50,000 Muslims in the borough,” he said.

“Jonathan Freedland was the prosecutor-in-chief, he lit the touch paper and then smugly retired and for that I will never forgive him.

“Any antisemitic attack of any kind is utterly despicable but there are at least ten times the number of attacks on mosques. Mr Freedland claimed there had been 1,000 attacks on Jews but there have actually been 84.

“The impression was given that people are roaming around the UK looking for Jews to attack but far more people are walking around Britain looking for Muslims.”

Freedland said: “I certainly did not set out to prosecute George Galloway. I simply pointed out that he has in the past inflamed an already tense issue by making wild, unfounded accusations – a point he did not address. I too was disappointed at the way some in the audience behaved. As some viewers saw, I wanted them to respect George Galloway’s right to make his case.

“I did not ‘smugly retire’: I wanted to speak again but was not given that chance. If I had, I would have repeated my long-standing condemnation of Islamophobia and objected to some of the attitudes voiced by members of the audience. On the numbers, the Community Security Trust report showed more than 1168 antisemitic incidents last year, the highest ever figure. Still, Jews and Muslims are not in competition over who is hated most: that’s not a competition anyone would want to win.”

More spotlight for George.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

The Twitter account @GlobalCivility has a lot of tweets about that terrible “global civility” protest in Downing Street yesterday. I followed Raquel’s example and asked if they’d be protesting things like the flogging of Raif and Boko Haram massacres and mobs killing alleged “blasphemers” in Pakistan. It took them maybe 10 seconds to block me.

Demonstrating.

Global Civility @GlobalCivility · Feb 8
Demonstrating our love

All men in the first; all women in the second. Civility.

There they are. Not petitioning Saudi Arabia to stop torturing a liberal blogger, but petitioning all of us to shut up about their prophet. If they represent their prophet, then he’s a horror.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Raquel Saraswati posted some photos from that “shut up” protest in London yesterday, along with some (cough) skeptical comments.

Raquel E Saraswati @RaquelEvita 21 hours ago
That awkward moment when these guys in London used freedom of speech to protest against freedom of speech today.

.@GlobalCivility blocked me after I suggested demos against lashing of #RaifBadawi + against gender based violence.

How…civil.

Alex ‏@Alexdurrant7 21 hours ago
@RaquelEvita Wow, very diverse crowd there…

Raquel E Saraswati @RaquelEvita
@Alexdurrant7 some of the men are shouting and some are merely scowling. So diverse!

Ha! That’s a good one.

Raquel E Saraswati @RaquelEvita 2 hours ago
So the London march was also segregated by gender. #hijabdesk

Global civility indeed.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

More from Greg Epstein on the Harvard Humanist of the Year award to Anita Sarkeesian.

Greg Epstein @gregmepstein 23 hours ago
Loved hosting @femfreq, our @HarvardHumanist of 2014 awardee. Humanism requires feminism; feminism=good f/all genders

So sad for the harassers. Streisand effect. If they hadn’t harassed her…

…well we’ll never know now.

Greg Epstein @gregmepstein 23 hours ago
.@femfreq’s message was so reasonable, so dare-I-say moderate, the controversy is sad. It must be said far, wide: humanism requires feminism

Proud of 100+ men who attended today’s event, joined others in 3 standing ovations. Hope it becomes known: @humanisthub, you meet good guys

As opposed to raging misogynist shits. Yes that does make a difference.

Greg Epstein @gregmepstein 23 hours ago
.@D4M10N Blocking people who tweet insensitive, ugly language at me isn’t about thin/thick skin. It’s to say: our community is a safe space.

.@GRIMACHU ‘I’m not sexist BUT Humanism makes feminism redundant’? No. It IS sexist to deny women’s history, reality. Strong men see this.

And “non-sexist” men who feel so entitled to call a strong woman “fraud” or “liar” if you dislike her success? Blocked. #Notinourcommunity

.@femfreq You spoke powerfully; your message is vital to the humanist community. All of us @HarvardHumanist thank you

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)