Charleston church shootings to be investigated as 'act of domestic terrorism' by DOJ
Updated: The Department of Justice announced on Friday it is investigating the fatal shootings of nine African-Americans at a historic church in Charleston on Wednesday as an act of domestic terrorism, Reuters reported.
“The department is looking at this crime from all angles, including as a hate crime and as an act of domestic terrorism,” DOJ spokeswoman Emily Pierce said in a statement.
Some civil-rights advocates had been questioning why fatal shootings weren’t being classified as terrorism.
Critics say attacks on blacks and Muslims are rarely called terrorism, while attacks by Muslim extremists are often given that label, the New York Times reports.
The newspaper supplies a definition of terrorism from Webster’s New World College Dictionary. It is “the use of force or threats to demoralize, intimidate and subjugate, especially such use as a political weapon or policy.”
Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, explained his objection in an interview with the Times. “We have been conditioned to accept that if the violence is committed by a Muslim, then it is terrorism,” he said. “If the same violence is committed by a white supremacist or apartheid sympathizer and is not a Muslim, we start to look for excuses—he might be insane, maybe he was pushed too hard.”
Anthea Butler, a religion and Africana studies professor at the University of Pennsylvania, makes a similar point in a Washington Post op-ed.
Updated at 4:27 p.m. with statement from the DOJ.
