Three students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill were recently murdered "execution style" by forty-six year old Craig Hicks. Apparently, the heinous act was sparked not by some racial discrimination, but rather a dispute over a parking space. Mr. Hicks had posted several comments on Facebook in support of atheism and critical of religion. Citizens have the right to freely practice religion, and I think this will probably go down as a hate crime; a murder based on the discrimination of a specific religion.
There has been a sort of global outrage on social media regarding these murders in not only the United States, but also Egypt and many Middle Eastern countries. Abed Ayoub, a member of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committe, posted a tweet calling the Chapel Hill murders an act of terrorism. As the story became more popular, many people began tweeting things like, "Muslims only newsworthy when behind a gun. Not in front [of] it."
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Questions:
Do you believe these murders were based on the hatred of religion or an ongoing dispute over a parking space?
Can the murders be viewed as an act of terrorism, or is it somewhat blown out of proportion?
Is there a sense of racial/religious discrimination in the United States?
1 comment:
I definitely don't see this as an act of terrorism. An act of terrorism is defined as "the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes." this had no political connections. I do believe that this was a hate crime, as there is evidence pointing to him being anti-religious as a whole.
Link to the more intricate details here if you want. http://edition.cnn.com/2015/02/11/us/chapel-hill-shooting/index.html
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/terrorism
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