Coptic Family Murdered in NJ

[Falkenhayn]

Muslim-Christian tensions boil over in N.J.Slain family's funeral turns into melee

JERSEY CITY, N.J. - A funeral for an Egyptian Christian couple and their two daughters slain last week devolved into a melee after the services Monday, with mourners shoving and punching each other as many blamed Muslims for the killings.

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Investigators are looking into the possibility that Hossam Armanious, 47, his 37-year-old wife, Amal Garas, and their daughters, Sylvia, 15, and Monica, 8, were slain by a Muslim angered over postings that the father wrote in an Internet chat room.

The family is part of the Coptic Orthodox Church, whose members make up about 10 percent of Egypt’s population. Copts generally live in peace with Muslims, but violence has flared in Egypt recently, including protests last month that flared into stone-throwing and arrests.

The New Jersey family’s bodies were found bound and gagged Friday, their throats and heads stabbed repeatedly. No arrests have been made.

Authorities stressed that robbery remained a possible motive because no cash or jewelry were found in the home. Prosecutor Guy Gregory said the father’s wallet was found empty.

‘Welcome Bin Laden’
Despite the possibility of robbery, the slayings have created enormous tensions between Muslims and Christians here. The acrimony became apparent as soon as four copper caskets holding the bodies were carried through the streets of New Jersey’s second-largest city to a church.

Protesters carrying anti-Muslim signs and shouting anti-Islam slogans prompted several scuffles with mourners, who rebuked the protesters for having no respect for the dead or the grieving relatives. One sign, above a photograph of the smiling family, read, “American Family Beheaded on American Soil. Welcome Bin Laden.” Another read “Terrorists Reached Our Home.”

“Muslims as a group kill people,” said Ashaf Baul, a marchers at the head of the procession. “Nobody else slaughters people. If it was a robbery, why tie their hands and cut their heads?”

But others in the procession took offense at such talk.

“Get out! We don’t need any talk about Sept. 11 or Muslims!” yelled Amil Sarofiem, a church official, to a man who was shouting anti-Muslim slogans.

Punch-up in the street
Once the bodies were loaded into four black hearses to be taken to a cemetery, more clashes broke out in the street outside the church, including one in which about 35 people shoved each other and traded punches. Police officers pushed several against cars to separate them from the fray as the fight spilled into a parking garage.

Inside the church, Ferial Karas, Garas’ sister-in-law, screamed as the caskets came into view. She jumped out of her seat in the first row of portable chairs and raced toward one of the coffins, flinging herself on it and sobbing. With that, scores of screams and wails rose from other mourners in the crowd of 2,000 that packed so tightly into the building that police had to turn away an additional 300 who sought to push their way inside.

One man inside the church began screaming “Muslim is the killer! Muslim is the killer!” He was dragged from the church by five police officers who hustled him into an unmarked police car and quickly drove off.

Ahmed Sheded, president of the Islamic Center of Jersey City who attended the ceremony, denounced the slayings.

“We feel this is something that was very far away from our community,” he said. “A real Muslim can’t do that. Any religious person who believes in God cannot do this, even to an animal.”

The regional head of the Coptic church also cautioned against a rush to judgment, but Monir Dowoud, president of the American Coptic Association, said Sunday that “Muslim terrorists” were responsible.

The Coptic Orthodox Church is one of the oldest communities in Christendom. According to tradition it was founded in the first century A.D. by Saint Mark, one of the 12 apostles of Jesus.

Seems a knee jerk reaction to a real atrocity, but suppose the facts pan out that way?

[frigidmagi]

From what I'm reading here is that the they were beat first, tied up, a Coptic Cross tatto stabbed repeatedly, the women's chest being slashed and finally the beheading... It sounds alot like a regilious killing to me. In fact it reminds very much of certain things I heard of in Iraq.

Another angle, which sounds kinda weak to me but still something to chew on. The father had recieved a death threat over the net for "insulting Islam."

This certainly isn't concrete proof, but it is evidence that this was more than just a robbery gone bad and someone should most defintily look into that, just in case.

[Chmee]

Protesters carrying anti-Muslim signs and shouting anti-Islam slogans prompted several scuffles with mourners, who rebuked the protesters for having no respect for the dead or the grieving relatives.

For cryin' out loud, have a little respect! Have your damned protest the next day.

[MKSheppard]

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/004740.php

A close friend of the Coptic Christian brutally murdered in New Jersey along with his family, Hossam Armanious, is the source of this information, which comes to you exclusively from Jihad Watch:

The Armanious family had inspired several Muslims to convert to Christianity — or thought they had. These converts were actually practicing taqiyya, or religious deception, pretending to be friends of these Christians in order to strengthen themselves against them, as in Qur'an 3:28: "Let believers not make friends with infidels in preference to the faithful -- he that does this has nothing to hope for from Allah -- except in self-defense."

It was these "converts" who knocked on the door of the Armanious home. Of course, the family, not suspecting the deception, was happy to see the "converted" men and willingly let them in to their home. That's why there was no sign of forced entry. Then the "converted" Muslims did their grisly work.

Many Copts are regarding the murders as a warning to the Coptic community as a whole, related to the increasing strife between Copts and Muslims in Egypt and the Copts' energetic efforts in America to get the truth out about the differences between Middle Eastern Christians and Muslims -- differences that the Islamic lobby, with its disingenuous talk of "Arab Americans," routinely glosses over and hopes you don't notice. The Copts, to their immense credit, have been particularly outspoken among Middle Eastern Christians about Muslim oppression. And yes, many are active on Pal Talk debating Muslims.

The nature of the warning? The murders send a signal from the Muslims to the Copts: we are going to behave here the same way we behaved in Egypt, and the First Amendment and American law enforcement will not protect you. Don't expect America to keep you safe from us. The oppression and harassment you thought you had left behind in Egypt has now come to you.

This means, if Armanious's friend is correct, that this is indeed America's Theo van Gogh murder: indication that all Muslims in the nation do not, as we are supposed to believe, unanimously accept the parameters of American pluralism. That at least some are willing to enforce Sharia penalties right here, right now.

But there are so many nominees for the Walter Duranty prize this time that most Americans have no clue of what's going on. Duranty, of course, was the New York Times reporter who knowingly covered up information about the genocidal famine Stalin caused and fueled in Ukraine, and won a Pulitzer Prize for his efforts. The Pinch Sulzberger Times of these dark days should dedicate the whole paper to Duranty's honor, and put his picture on the front page right next to "All the News That's Fit to Print."