NY mosque vandalized with hate graffiti

Friday, the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called on the FBI to investigate vandalism of a New York mosque as a hate crime.

Suffolk County police are investigating hate graffiti, including "RIP US Ambassador" and "The War Will Rise," spray-painted on the outside wall of the North Bay Shore Masjid Darul Quran mosque. The vandalism is believed to have occurred sometime between September 12th and 13th, in response to the recent killing of America's ambassador to Libya.

CAIR and other American Muslim organizations have condemned the ambassador's killing and have issued appeals for calm to the Muslim world.

Mosque congregants say that the attack was unprecedented. One of them, Athar Suhail, told FIOS 1 News, "That thing is really upsetting because we've been in this community for the past more than 20 years, two decades or so. We know almost everybody in the neighborhood. We talk to them on a daily basis [...] Usually it's a pretty quiet, pretty friendly neighborhood."

The Suffolk County hate crimes unit is asking the public for help to catch the vandals.

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D. Beeksma

One of the growing crowd of American "nones" herself, Deborah is a prolific writer who finds religion, spirituality and the impact of belief (and non-belief) on culture inspiring, fascinating and at times, disturbing. She hosts the God Discussion show and handles the site's technical work. Her education and background is in business, ecommerce and law.

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