Civil and Human Rights Coalition Condemns Tragic North Carolina Shooting of Three Muslims

WASHINGTON – Wade Henderson, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, released the following statement in response to the brutal killing of three young Muslims in their Chapel Hill, North Carolina home:

“Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of these three young people, whose lives were brutally and senselessly taken away. No one community should stand alone in the face of hate violence, and we are standing shoulder-to-shoulder with American Muslims who have been victim to violence and intimidation for far too long. 

Muslims, Arabs, Sikhs, and South Asians in the United States face levels of violence and bias that is entirely unacceptable. While we do not yet know the motivation for these crimes, we do know that when crimes single out a particular community, the suffering reverberates far beyond that of the victims and their families.

There must be a thorough and thoughtful investigation into this attack, including, as the American Muslim community has urged, the initiation by the Justice Department of a federal hate crimes investigation.”  

Wade Henderson is the president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more than 200 national organizations to promote and protect the rights of all persons in the United States. The Leadership Conference works toward an America as good as its ideals. For more information on The Leadership Conference and its 200-plus member organizations, visit www.civilrights.org.

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