Christians and Muslims brawl.--West Bank? Baghdad? New Jersey.
An emotional holy war broke out yesterday on the streets of Jersey City, where Muslims and Christians clashed and lobbed insults at the funeral for a devout family of Egyptian immigrants who may have been slain for their religious beliefs.
While mourners inside the St. George & St. Shenouda Coptic Orthodox Church prayed for peace in the wake of a murder that escalated religious tensions at home and abroad, fights erupted amid the crowd that spilled outside the church, where angry Coptic Christians pointed accusing fingers at their Muslim counterparts.
Hossam Armanious, 37, his wife, Amal Garas, 37, and their two daughters, Sylvia, 15, and Monica, 8, were found dead in their Oakland Avenue home early Friday after relatives told police nobody had heard from them in days.
Investigators said each victim was bound, gagged and stabbed in the neck, and the early focus was on anti-Muslim remarks Armanious made in a popular religious chat room after a relative said Armanious was threatened online for expressing his Christian beliefs.
Officials said the religious persecution theory is still under investigation, but said some evidence points to robbery as a motive.
[Even though the police have said that nothing was taken from the premises.--Jen]
Members of the city's Coptic community — many of whom left Egypt like Armanious to escape religious threats* — believe there is a connection between their faith and the murders.
[Mubarak's government isn't all that tolerant of or kind to non-Muslim Egyptians, especially Christians--not to mention Jews-- even though the Egyptian Coptic Church goes all the way to the birth of Christ himself.--J.T.]
That sentiment was expressed loudly by one parishioner inside who began yelling at Muslims, including a sheik, who attended the service.
"Muslim is the killer," he said over and over before he was dragged from the church by five police officers who hustled him into an unmarked police car and quickly drove away.
Tensions were high even before the first copper-colored casket arrived, when, during a procession to the church from Journal Square, family members asked mourners to put away anti-Muslim protest signs.
But emotions really boiled over in the moments after the wistful service when a skirmish broke out as the four black hearses adorned with the victims' pictures were being loaded.
Punches were thrown, people were shoved and police rushed in to break up the brawl that had moved up Bergen Avenue to a nearby parking garage.
[...]
Those too sad to be angry had kind words for the deeply religious family, especially young Sylvia, who died a day before her Sweet 16 party.
[Police said that her stabbing and murder was the most vicious of all, based on the stab wounds and her cut throat, and theorize it is because that her defense of her Christian faith vs. Islam was the most impassioned of the family.]
Jersey City Councilman Steve Lipski recalled her unselfish work to help the destitute during Thanksgiving during a program sponsored by the church.
[...]
"It doesn't appear to be random," said Assistant Hudson County Prosecutor Guy Gregory. "It appears to be a specific act. Someone was able to gain access without forcing entry."
Investigators learned that a relative of the victims had helped prosecutors in their case against Lynne Stewart, the lawyer charged with passing messages to followers of her client, blind Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, a convicted terrorist ringleader.
[Of course, he's the "spiritual leader" behind the first WTC bombing in '93 and is also Egyptian. Lynne Stewart, the IslamoNazis favorite defense lawyer, has been blogged about here a few weeks ago. She is on trial for aiding and abetting terrorists and will probably get convicted. Hoo-ray!]
But sources close to the case said there is no connection between the relative and the murders.
But we're supposed to have Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Speech in this country!
In a land where we Christians have been censured for saying Merry Christmas, are we going to let murder for jihad stand within our borders?
Note this is also the second instance of murder that was supposedly instigated by what someone said in an internet chat room, the other being the woman whose baby was carved out of her before Christmas.
Perhaps we should all watch we say online and to whom we say it, but words do have power and we know that.
We are at war with IslamoFascism and these vicious murders may show that the battlefront of the war moved a lot closer to home.
You seem to still have enemies amongst you.
I hope the Jersey City police are all over this and catch the perpetrators quickly and decisively!
The butchers who did this must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law or New Jersey may be the first U.S. state on its way to experience the imposition of
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