{"id":1952,"date":"2013-04-17T08:17:40","date_gmt":"2013-04-17T12:17:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/?p=1952"},"modified":"2013-04-17T08:25:07","modified_gmt":"2013-04-17T12:25:07","slug":"saudi-national-cleared-of-suspicion-in-boston-marathon-bombing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2013\/04\/saudi-national-cleared-of-suspicion-in-boston-marathon-bombing.html","title":{"rendered":"Saudi national cleared of suspicion in #Boston marathon bombing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I posted some facts about a young Saudi national<\/a>, a student on scholarship, who was injured in the marathon bombings but was “tackled” by another bystander for appearing “suspicious”. Today comes word that he has been cleared of all suspicion<\/a>. <\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/BostonGlobe\/status\/324218614427308032<\/p>\n

That is good news for him, but unlike the other victims of the bombing, he was the only one who was unfairly singled out as “suspicious”, the only one who was detained at the ospital while receiving treatment, and the only one whose apartment was searched. <\/p>\n

There’s a great piece in the New Yorker today about this that really gets to the heart of it:<\/p>\n

A twenty-year-old man who had been watching the Boston Marathon had his body torn into by the force of a bomb. He wasn\u2019t alone; a hundred and seventy-six people were injured and three were killed. But he was the only one who, while in the hospital being treated for his wounds, had his apartment searched in \u201ca startling show of force,\u201d as his fellow-tenants described it to the Boston Herald<\/a>, with a \u201cphalanx\u201d of officers and agents and two K9 units. He was the one whose belongings were carried out in paper bags as his neighbors watched; whose roommate, also a student, was questioned for five hours (\u201cI was scared<\/a>\u201d) before coming out to say that he didn\u2019t think his friend was someone who\u2019d plant a bomb\u2014that he was a nice guy who liked sports. \u201cLet me go to school, dude,\u201d the roommate said later in the day, covering his face with his hands and almost crying, as a Fox News producer followed him and asked him, again and again, if he was sure he hadn\u2019t been living with a killer.<\/p>\n

Why the search, the interrogation, the dogs, the bomb squad, and the injured man\u2019s name tweeted out, attached to the word \u201csuspect\u201d? After the bombs went off, people were running in every direction\u2014so was the young man. Many, like him, were hurt badly; many of them were saved by the unflinching kindness of strangers, who carried them or stopped the bleeding with their own hands and improvised tourniquets. \u201cExhausted runners who kept running to the nearest hospital to give blood,\u201d President Obama said. \u201cThey helped one another, consoled one another,\u201d Carmen Ortiz, the U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts, said. In the midst of that, according to a CBS News report<\/a>, a bystander saw the young man running, badly hurt, rushed to him, and then \u201ctackled\u201d him, bringing him down. The bystander thought he looked suspicious.<\/p>\n

What made them suspect him? He was running\u2014so was everyone. The police reportedly thought he smelled like explosives; his wounds might have suggested why. He said something about thinking there would be a second bomb\u2014as there was, and often is, to target responders. If that was the reason he gave for running, it was a sensible one. He asked if anyone was dead\u2014a question people were screaming. And he was from Saudi Arabia, which is around where the logic stops. Was it just the way he looked, or did he, in the chaos, maybe call for God with a name that someone found strange?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In all of this, FOX News aggressively tried to read more into the facts than was warranted, and most of the slanderous commentary came from right wing Islamophobic pundits on FOX like Andrew Napolitano and Steve Emerson. Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer also virtually flogged the Saudi national as a “jihadi” on their respective hate websites. Lesser-witted bloggers like Jim Hoft and Dan Riehl, as well as the hordes at Free Republic, mined the Saudi’s facebook page for photos and published his name. In so doing, all of them served the interests of whoever planted these bombs, by helping sow fear, to profit off the resulting anger and hate. <\/p>\n

Thankfully, this sideshow is over and the attention of the police and FBI can be turned towards finding real suspects. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I posted some facts about a young Saudi national, a student on scholarship, who was injured in the marathon bombings but was “tackled” by another bystander for appearing “suspicious”. Today comes word that he has been cleared of all suspicion. https:\/\/twitter.com\/BostonGlobe\/status\/324218614427308032 That is good news for him, but unlike the other victims of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[445,158,100,71,35],"class_list":["post-1952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hirabah-watch","tag-boston","tag-hirabah","tag-islamophobia","tag-terrorism","tag-wombat"],"yoast_head":"\nSaudi national cleared of suspicion in #Boston marathon bombing - City of Brass<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Saudi national cleared of suspicion in #Boston marathon bombing - City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Yesterday I posted some facts about a young Saudi national, a student on scholarship, who was injured in the marathon bombings but was “tackled” by another bystander for appearing “suspicious”. Today comes word that he has been cleared of all suspicion. https:\/\/twitter.com\/BostonGlobe\/status\/324218614427308032 That is good news for him, but unlike the other victims of the…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2013\/04\/saudi-national-cleared-of-suspicion-in-boston-marathon-bombing.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-04-17T12:17:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-04-17T12:25:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Aziz Poonawalla\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Saudi national cleared of suspicion in #Boston marathon bombing - City of Brass","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"follow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Saudi national cleared of suspicion in #Boston marathon bombing - City of Brass","og_description":"Yesterday I posted some facts about a young Saudi national, a student on scholarship, who was injured in the marathon bombings but was “tackled” by another bystander for appearing “suspicious”. Today comes word that he has been cleared of all suspicion. https:\/\/twitter.com\/BostonGlobe\/status\/324218614427308032 That is good news for him, but unlike the other victims of the…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2013\/04\/saudi-national-cleared-of-suspicion-in-boston-marathon-bombing.html","og_site_name":"City of Brass","article_published_time":"2013-04-17T12:17:40+00:00","article_modified_time":"2013-04-17T12:25:07+00:00","author":"Aziz Poonawalla","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2013\/04\/saudi-national-cleared-of-suspicion-in-boston-marathon-bombing.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2013\/04\/saudi-national-cleared-of-suspicion-in-boston-marathon-bombing.html","name":"Saudi national cleared of suspicion in #Boston marathon bombing - City of Brass","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website"},"datePublished":"2013-04-17T12:17:40+00:00","dateModified":"2013-04-17T12:25:07+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2013\/04\/saudi-national-cleared-of-suspicion-in-boston-marathon-bombing.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2013\/04\/saudi-national-cleared-of-suspicion-in-boston-marathon-bombing.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2013\/04\/saudi-national-cleared-of-suspicion-in-boston-marathon-bombing.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Saudi national cleared of suspicion in #Boston marathon bombing"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/","name":"City of Brass","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Aziz Poonawalla","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb","name":"Aziz Poonawalla","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","caption":"Aziz Poonawalla"},"description":"Aziz Poonawalla is a member of the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim community, and currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children. City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1952"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1957,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1952\/revisions\/1957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}