Is the Media Downplaying Possible Muslim Connection to New Jersey Murders?

By Chad Groening and Jody Brown
February 2, 2005
AgapePress

An Israeli author and lecturer says he is aggravated that the American news media has once again chosen to ignore a major story because it paints the religion of Islam in a bad light.

The bodies of a Coptic Christian family were found in their New Jersey home on January 14. Hossam Armanious, an immigrant from Egypt, his wife and their two daughters had been bound and gagged, and their throats slashed. While authorities have not determined if the murders are tied to Islamic radicals, they do report that Armanious had received a death threat from a Muslim through the Internet chat room known as barsomyat.com. The family had reportedly received threats not to speak out against Islam on the Internet chat room.

Before being shut down by the company hosting it, the website reportedly featured photographs of the Coptic Christian couple, referring to the husband as a "filthy dog" and Amal Garas as "his filthy wife," says the New York Sun. That newspaper quotes one website member writing that "they got what they deserved for their actions in America."

According to various news reports, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is now investigating the website. And WorldNetDaily reports that, according to eyewitnesses who saw the bodies at the funeral home, the injuries to the victims' throats are consistent with the executions by radical Islamists shown on the Arab satellite channel al-Jazeera.

Victor Mordecai is an Israeli Middle East expert whose wife is Egyptian. He says the New Jersey family paid the price for telling the truth.

"When you say [something critical] to a Moslem, he's going to slit your throat -- and that's what the Moslems said to [the Armanious family] on the Internet," Mordecai says. "He said if you keep talking like this in the [Internet] chat rooms, we're going to slaughter you like how chickens are slaughtered -- meaning with their throats slit. And that's exactly what happened to this poor family in New Jersey."

Mordecai says even though many Coptic Christians have fled the persecution of the Islamic majority in Egypt and have immigrated to America, the persecution does not stop.

"[T]he persecution doesn't end because they are in contact [with Muslims], usually at workplaces every day, and the Moslems are relentless," he says. "They will not allow a Coptic Christian even to be a Christian in America, even though this is the United States of America. In other words, the bottom line of the Moslems is to convert everyone to Islam."

And there is another aspect of the brutal murder that deeply bothers the Middle East expert.

"What really, really aggravates me is that the media will focus on O.J. Simpson and his case for two years [and] it will focus on Laci Peterson," he notes, "but when you have Moslems doing the slitting of the throats and killing, then nobody wants to talk about it because it's not politically correct."

According to WorldNetDaily, earlier reports of the family's jewelry being taken by their assailants were false, thereby discounting the possibility that robbery was a motive in the killings. Associated Press says one of the motives being considered is "religious animosity."

News from Agape Press