Alwaght- A top US Muslim advocacy has condemned Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's inflammatory rhetoric after he promoted a hoax tale about Muslims being killed with bullets “dipped in pig’s blood.”
“Donald Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric has crossed the line from spreading hatred to inciting violence,” Nihad Awad, the national executive director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said in a statement.
“By directly stating that the only way to stop terrorism is to murder Muslims in graphic and religiously-offensive ways, he places the millions of innocent, law-abiding citizens in the American Muslim community at risk from rogue vigilantes,” the statement continued.
The Republican presidential candidate told supporters at a rally in Charleston, S.C., on Friday about US General John Pershing executing Muslim prisoners in the Philippines the early 20th century.
“He took 50 bullets and he dipped them in pig’s blood,” Trump said. “And he had his men load his rifles and he lined up the 50 people, and they shot 49 of those people. And the 50th person, he said, ‘You go back to your people and you tell them what happened.’ And for 25 years there wasn’t a problem."
According to fact-checking websites, Trump’s tale is false.
Meanwhile ten veterans of "Veterans Challenge Islamaphobia" unfurled a 10-foot long banner during Trump's speech. The banner read: “Mr. Trump: Veterans are not props for hate. We stand with our Muslim sisters and brothers.” The US veterans who launched this effort have served in Afghanistan, Iraq and Vietnam. Many were also decorated for their valor.
"Mr. Trump's hateful rhetoric insults both my Islamic faith and my military service. As a U.S. Marine who served in Iraq, I find it shameful that a major Presidential candidate would impugn my patriotism — or that of other Muslims — because of our faith," said Ramon Mejia who served with the U.S. Marines in Iraq (2001-04).
Since the November 13 attacks in Paris, hate crimes against Muslims have gone up threefold in the US, relative to the monthly average of 12.6 in previous years. It is no coincidence that at the same time, the Republican Party’s leading candidate is stoking xenophobia and Islamophobia at unprecedented levels.
