The Rev. Dr. Keith Roderick is the Washington Representative of Christian Solidarity International and the Secretary General of the Coalition for the Defense of Human Rights. Here is his statement at this afternoon's press conference:
I am here to support the relatives who grieve the loss of the Armanious family and also are burdened by intense public pressure to provide some insight into this terrible tragedy. The fact that this press conference is taking place in Washington, D.C. rather than in Jersey City points to the broader impact of this case.The investigation is not complete; no suspects have been identified; and, the District Attorney’s office of Hudson County is pursuing a number of theories related to the motive and nature of the crime. Public statements by that office indicate that theories related to robbery have been given precedence over a possible hate crime as a motive. By stressing that there are no facts substantiating a religious motivation to this crime, the confidence of the family has been eroded that the local investigation will lead to a resolution.
A great deal in the media has been made of the potential conflict within the Christian and Muslim communities if the investigation leads to a religious motive. The central issue here should not be about communal disputes, but the fact that the perpetrators of this vicious crime are still at large. To avoid pursuit of what may be the most obvious motive of the murder for fear of maligning one part of the Jersey City community or creating a backlash against that community is irresponsible. We hope that the investigation will confront the case honestly without the fear of sectarian concerns. Those are issues best addressed by the leaders of the communities and social workers, not law enforcement. Justice is having done the right thing for the right reason; injustice for having done nothing for the wrong reason. The delay in pursuing leads indicating a hate crime risks a terrible miscarriage of justice.
We join with our colleagues in urging the Justice Department to take a greater lead in the investigation and to give special attention to the civil rights dimension of the case. From the perspective of ethnic and religious minorities who have fled religious persecution and violence by Jihadists in their native countries, this case is unnerving. Many non-Muslim immigrants have told me that they believed that when they fled to the United States from these pressures, they would be safe. This case has made them feel vulnerable. More than any other group, the Coptic community hopes that their fears are proven wrong, and that this was not religiously motivated or an act of micro-terrorism by extremists. However, they are also looking for assurance that their civil liberties will be protected and that they will enjoy equal protection of the law.
I hope to be bringing you more details of those leads that have not yet been pursued -- and news that they are now being pursued -- soon.
Wake-up people,until the children of Politicians and Judges are the victims of these
overt bold killings there will be little interest
in protecting the average working-class peons like you and I.
If Muslims were the victims then the PC mode would have kicked in and a nation-wide hunt would have been ordered,but alas,the game goes on and CAIR gets stronger in censoring Americans that don't agree with them.
Rather than leave America,CAIR is hell bent on educating everyone else so they think and act just like "Good" Muslims,even if you're not one.
One really insulting remark in a media article was the reference to "Inciting Muslims through the boasting of "I love Jesus" by the Coptic Father that visited paltalk chatrooms".
When did giving an opinion become grounds for murdering children by sliting their throats
and killing their parents.
NO CAIR - NO CENSORSHIP
NO ISLAM - NO WAR
Hugh -
"National Council of Churches"?? You have to be kidding me. Do you know who they are?
You ask: "9) Have any of the often vocal associations, such as the National Council of Churches, seen fit to urge that the case be given full attention, and to make sure that its members keep up the pressure on the Hudson County Prosecutors Office not to bury or archive this matter, and to hope that it goes away?"
Hugh - do you realize that the National Council of Churches is a far-left organization, which would be more likely to have pressure alright but to bury this case, in defense of "Islamic civil rights"?
Do not confuse the far-left organization, the National Council of Churches, with a CHRISTIAN organization. It is a far-left political action group designed to support far-left political causes. You might as well expect the ACLU to help protect Christians (laugh).
Now it one of the victims was Lynne Stewart or an Islamist extremist terrorist - that would get their attention - but protecting Christians? Thats a laugh.
The Rev. Dr. Keith Roderick is the Washington Representative of Christian Solidarity International and the Secretary General of the Coalition for the Defense of Human Rights.
**************************************************
Thank You for your participation on this event, now we will start to see some action on this,alwats remember:
"as many arrows,loosed from several ways,come to one mark....so may a thousand actions,once set afoot,end in one purpose". William Shakespeare
Wake-up people,until the children of Politicians and Judges are the victims of these
overt bold killings there will be little interest
in protecting the average working-class peons like you and I.
If Muslims were the victims then the PC mode would have kicked in and a nation-wide hunt would have been ordered,but alas,the game goes on and CAIR gets stronger in censoring Americans that don't agree with them.
Rather than leave America,CAIR is hell bent on educating everyone else so they think and act just like "Good" Muslims,even if you're not one.
One really insulting remark in a media article was the reference to "Inciting Muslims through the boasting of "I love Jesus" by the Coptic Father that visited paltalk chatrooms".
When did giving an opinion become grounds for murdering children by sliting their throats
and killing their parents.
NO CAIR - NO CENSORSHIP
NO ISLAM - NO WAR
Ala-sux,
Agree with what you're saying, much as it annoys me to say so. The PC brigade would certainly have made it the medias priority to highlight , had the victims been muslim; which raise another issue entirely : Since when did equality mean more added privaledges for minorities and more rights. Thats not equality, it's a reversal of the days of white superiority.
In this case however, the media really needs to start realising that although america is multi-cultural , it is was founded by christians and the underlying culture (beneath all the modern day secularist ways) is christian, even atheists celebrate christian holidays and have perhaps more christian influence in their everyday language and choices than they would care to imagine. The reason I'm delving into this, is because when we take into account the actual muslim population of the US and in relative terms think of the way the are made out to be respectable, devoutly religious people rather than the obsessive clones they actually are ; it's really quite unbelievable in what is really a christian nation. This is the exact reason this case needs to be made into a bigger deal than it actual is, because although by no means any sadder or more horrifying than any murder, it represents something. Christian members of a christian country,who are part of american society and although not white and with different racial backgrounds to most americans, are still proud to be american and love their country, it's culture and it's people. Then we take into consideration that they were murdered by members of an extremist minority, that have no respect for the culture and law of america, or it's people, yet are only part US society because they were lucky enough to be granted asylum there ,their quality of life is a billion times better than it would have been in the sewer they belong in and came from (yet one of their main aims is to make the country that is their saving grace, into the same kind of sewer previously mentioned),they are pretty much guests there, yet still view the non-muslims of that country with hatred, and as their enemies (which highlights completely the disturbing irrationality of the muslim mind).
Of course not everybody is going to draw that conclusion was it given the kind of coverage it needs, but perhaps a few more people would wake up, and w few more critics of islam would be born.
The tactic is to bring in hitmen from the outside, and I'll bet they are Pakistani's at that.
There is the case of Rashid Khalifa, the hadith rejecting founder of submission.org, stabbed to death in the kitchen of a mosque in Arizona. The Killers were hitmen from outside the area.
Also interesting info on El Hage at the site.Rikki sez:
Yes this is true, but the notion has to stop at the wall seperating Church and State. If it doesn't, then Christians will rue the day, because your children might be pledging allegiance to an Islamic Republic under Allah.
And I've studied considerable Dominion Theology, aka Christian Reconstructionism and have, as others who have studied it, found it to be a mirror of the Iranian mullahcracy (and please no sophistry about beheadings either).
Anyway I was raised Christian, and became (as a consequence of a curious mind and an insatiable appetite for knowledge and rational thought) an atheist.
But I find that self description inadequate. I've known all of my life there are secular Jews, I've run into self described secular or atheist Hindus, and lately on the internet secular Muslims.
Well since I'm the product of a christian culture, but not a Christ believer I must be a secular Christian, as oxymoronic as that sounds.
I am a product of the basics of the Christian culture and the teachings of Christ (not Paul or other gospels), and certainly not a biblical basis for our secular laws (after all there are 613 Commandments in the Old Testament, not just ten, all found in Deuteronomy, but enumerated in the Book of Laws, Leviticus).
The basics of Christianity, peace, love, forgiveness are antithetical to Islam, and sadly to Judaism as well. Do unto others as you would have done unto you is in Deuteronomy, An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, which is also distinctly Arab and Muslim.
Thus no peace, no quarter until the last drop of the blood debt is repaid or exacted.
Giaour:
Please do provide us with more than a lone cite from Deuteronomy, taken out of context at that, to establish that Judaism is systemically bellicose and belligerent as you would have us believe.
They're not "radical" Muslims, they are orthodox or fundamental Muslims.
To a non-Muslim, Islamism=Nazism
Now, how would you have stopped Nazism in its infancy?
I fear it's too late.