A Muslim cleric in Oklahoma was shocked and saddened when police called to tell him somebody had dumped a pig carcass outside his mosque.
Islamic Center of Lawton director and imam Hassan Ahmed, was alerted of the hog dumping while driving to the mosque after attending a lecture on religious tolerance on Wednesday. Police are investigating the incident as a possible hate crime.
Ahmed said the hoggish event clearly signals that somebody intended to offend Lawton’s Muslim minority, as Islamic faith prohibits the consumption of all pork products.
“It’s shocking. It is religious intolerance,” Ahmed told the Daily News. “All they did was show how stupid people can be.”
Footage captured by the mosque’s security cameras, and obtained byKSWO-TV, shows two men unloading the carcass from the back of a pickup truck before speeding off. Lawton animal control representatives quickly removed the dead hog, but a large blood stain remained in the parking lot late Thursday, according to Ahmed.
Police have yet to name or arrest any suspects.
The lecture Ahmed had just attended when he found out about the pig attack featured a panel with representatives from several major religions, including Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism. They had been discussing how religious leaders could inspire their communities to practice inclusiveness and tolerance.
“I see this as we have a lot more work to do,” Ahmed said. “I don’t understand why anyone would do this.”
The Oklahoma chapter of the Council of American-Islamic Relations called on the FBI to launch a hate crime investigation into the Lawton attack, and urged politicians of all colors to condemn violence against Muslims.
“All those state and national public figures who promote and exploit the growing Islamophobia in our state and nation should speak out against the post-election wave of such incidents targeting American Muslims,” the chapter’s executive director, Adam Soltani, said in a statement issued to The News.
The carcass incident comes as cities across the country have seen a sharp increase in hate crimes against Muslims. Many of those attacks have occurred since the election of Donald Trump, who was often and harshly rebuked for employing anti-Muslim rhetoric on the campaign trail.
Ahmed refrained from speculating whether the carcass dumping was politically motivated, but said the incident should alarm all Americans.
“Whoever did this doesn’t represent Lawton, doesn’t represent Oklahoma, doesn’t represent the United States,” he added.
