Media's softness on extremists, radicals and terrorists who are supremacists or belong to white majority
Shams Ur Rehman Alavi
The San Diego shooting was a terror attack at the Islamic Centre of San Diego (ICSD), which is the largest mosque in San Diego, California. A few months have passed and now it's time to revisit and the incident and focus on how the US media covered it.
It was one of the most horrific such incidents in recent times in the United States of America. The suspected terrorists were identified as teenaged, Cain Lee Clark and Caleb Liam Vazquez.
They fatally shot a security personnel and two other community members at the mosque before they escaped. They also shot at a landscaper before committing suicide. The duo had even recorded live video of the shooting and a racist manifesto was found during investigation.
They had written this manifesto that had been referenced from Christchurch mosque shootings.
Amin Abdullah, Nader Awad and Mansour Kaziha were the three persons who were killed in this attack. The San Diego police official said that it was being investigated as a hate crime.
The violent attack took place at around 11.43. One of the terror suspect's mother had told police that her son had run away with her firearms and car. She had also informed the authorities that her son was dressed in camouflage. Later, the police found the attackers dead, due to self-inflicted wounds in a vehicle.
Dozens of guns, in fact, around 30 guns and crossbow were recovered when the suspects' homes were searched. BBC reported that the attackers were dressed in military clothing, bedecked with Nazi symbols and armed with rifle, shotgun and pistol.
The police officials and the FBI investigated the crime and they found that the attackers had a written a lot against the marginalized communities, groups, especially, the religious minorities.
The hate and radicalization was clearly visible in these writings that were later recovered. More 140 schoolchildren were inside the center when the attack took place.
Amin Abdullah, 51, was the security guard who lost his life in this attack. Mansour Kaziha, 78, was a founding member and was also among the caretakers of the mosque. The incident sent shockwaves across the city and the country. The residents of the town were shell-shocked as teenaged youths turned hateful and committed an act of terror.
In the last two decades, multiple cases have occurred when right-wing extremists who were either radicalized online or got the nasty ideas through anti-immigrant or xenophobes and fanatics, took to committing hate crimes and even attacking the minorities in what could be termed as terror attacks, though media mostly avoids using the term terror strike in such cases when the attackers are right-wing supremacists.
There is a long list of such incidents that have occurred across the globe.
From United States to Canada, New Zealand to United Kingdom, the media has mostly paid less attention towards such acts.
The hate speeches and trend of anti-immigrant rhetoric that has become more common due to politicians who use this sentiment to gather support of conservatives, is one of the major reasons for this dangerous radicalization.
On social media platforms, the hate against immigrants and ‘others’ has consistently gone up and this has made the situation even more worrying.
It’s high time that the authorities, the politicians and administrators take a serious view of such tendency and supremacists who harbor ill feelings against immigrants are kept under watch.