Two California Mosques Vandalized

TEHRAN (IQNA) - Police in Hawthorne, Calif., southwest of Los Angeles, said vandals defaced a pair of mosques overnight, shocking worshipers on Sunday who at one Islamic center found the words "Jesus is the way" scrawled on a wall.

The FBI was investigating both incidents as hate crimes, The (San Bernardino) Sun reported.

The attacks come a day after police in Palm Springs, Calif., arrested a 23-year-old man in the apparent firebombing of an Islamic center in nearby Coachella. No injuries were reported in the fire, but worshipers were inside at the time, police have said.

"As Muslims we don't really find (the crosses) very offensive, but the act of vandalizing is disturbing," said Zahid Mian, a member of the mosque.

Police later got a call reporting that someone had written "Jesus is the way" on the front wall of the Islamic Center of Hawthorne.

Police have said anti-Muslim attacks are on the rise since the Dec. 2 shootings in San Bernardino. In Philadelphia, police and the FBI were investigating an incident in which vandals last Sunday threw a severed pig's head from a moving pickup truck outside the Al-Aqsa Islamic Society mosque.

In Palm Beach, Fla., police on Friday arrested Joshua Killets, 27, in an incident in which windows were broken in a prayer room at the Islamic Center.

"We don't literally have time to issue a statement on every incident because they're coming in so fast and furious," said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council for American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

Nihad Awad, the group's executive director, said on Sunday that CAIR's offices in Washington, D.C., and in Santa Clara, Calif., had to be evacuated after death threats that included "suspicious powder."

"The Muslim community is extremely concerned about the violent backlash against its members, against its institutions," Awad told ABC's "This Week."

The attacks come as GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump calls for a ban of Muslims entering the USA. Trump last Monday called for "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States."

The Anti-Defamation League on Friday said it had collected about two dozen reports of anti-Muslim attacks since the Nov. 13 terror attacks in Paris. The incidents range from vandalism to a cabdriver shot in Pittsburgh.

"We're definitely seeing anti-Muslim bigotry escalating around the country," said Oren Segal, director of the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism.

Mian, of the Hawthornemosque, said he believed the building was vandalized either late Saturday or early Sunday.

"Many of us fled Pakistan and places like that to come to America so we can worship freely," he told The Sun. "It's kind of shocking because we all grew up thinking that America was the land of freedom and opportunity and everyone was respected for their beliefs."

Source: USA Today