NOVANEWS
houstonpress.com
As a group of Muslims came to pray last night at the Islamic Outreach Center on Wilks Drive near Mueschke Road in Cypress, they made a sickening discovery.
There was a dead pig on the deck of the deck at the entrance of the mosque.
“Although Muslims do not abhor any animal, it is not allowed (not Halal or not Kosher) for Muslims to eat the meat of pig,” reads an email from a mosque spokesman.
“At times pig is used symbolically against Muslims, and similar things have happened in the past across the world, and in the recent past in another part of Houston region, when pig races were held in Katy besides a Muslim place of worship.”
Way to keep it classy, Houston exurbs!
Mosque spokesman Ilyas Choudry says a hate crime report has been filed with local police.
“They are looking at it, but we believe the pig was placed there,” he tells Hair Balls. “It was right in the center of the deck.”
Judging from the wound on the animal, and hearing Choudry’s description of where it was found, it does indeed seem unlikely that the poor critter limped there to die.
Mustafaa Carroll, executive director of the Texas chapter of CAIR, America’s largest Muslim civil liberties organization, issued the following statement:
It is very alarming to see Houses of Worship being targeted with such an offensive gesture. It compromises the Muslim community’s sense of safety. We ask for everyone’s support during this time. We ask that law enforcement investigate this incident and perpetrator be held accountable. There is no place for hate at houses of worship. The increase of Islamophobic in American society rhetoric is contributing to these unfortunate occurrences.
Interfaith leaders were slated to hold a press conference today at 11:30 at the Cypress mosque.
This summer, dead pigs or pig parts have been found near a proposed mosque site in Chino, California and a mosque in Montauban, France.
In Cheltenham, England, a British army veteran was sentenced to four months in prison for fastening a pig’s head to the gates of a mosque; he claimed to be outraged after he saw British Muslims burning poppies. Since World War I in the UK, poppies have been symbolic of fallen soldiers.
The Cypress mosque has announced plans to install a security system.
