Jan 19, 2005 3:57 pm US/Eastern
(1010 WINS) (JERSEY CITY) Muslim leaders called a news conference Wednesday to try to defuse religious tensions following the murders of an Egyptian Christian family, but Coptic Church officials, who were invited, did not attend.
Organizers said Coptic officials told them they could not make the gathering, billed as an interfaith unity event, due to a religious holiday and a local funeral. The holiday, the Feast of the Epiphany, celebrates Jesus' baptism.
Meanwhile, a Coptic church in New York issued a statement alleging the slayings were not being characterized as hate crimes because of "political correctness."
Tensions have been running high between Christians and Muslims here following the discovery Friday of the bodies of Hossam Armanious, 47, his 37-year-old wife, Amal Garas, and their daughters, Sylvia, 15, and Monica, 8. Their bodies were bound and gagged, and each was stabbed repeatedly in the neck and head.
Authorities are investigating the possibility they were slain by a Muslim angered over postings that Armanious, a Coptic Christian, wrote in an Internet chat room. But prosecutors also stressed that robbery remains a possible motive.
No arrests had been announced as of Wednesday afternoon, and authorities did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment.
At the news conference, Muslim groups pleaded with the media and the public at large not to rush to judgment, and if Muslims are found to have committed the murders, not to blame an entire religion for the acts of a few individuals.
"Whoever committed this crime should be made an example of," said Suzanne Loutfy of Woodbridge, a leader of the Egyptian-American Group. "I would like people to look at a criminal as a criminal. A religion cannot commit a crime; individuals do."
"We condemn this heinous crime, and we ask that all members of the Christian and Muslim communities refrain from inflaming the present situation and not place blame until the investigation is completed," added Ghazi Khankan, director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' New York office.
Emotions flared Monday during the funeral for the Armanious family, with some mourners scuffling among themselves inside and outside the church hall. Many in the crowd voiced anti-Islam sentiments, and some yelled them loudly. A visiting Muslim cleric from New York who had come to pay his respects was escorted from the service for his own safety after a heckler started yelling at him.
Loutfy said she invited Coptic Church officials to the event on short notice. At 1 a.m. Wednesday, she said, she asked Bishop David, who according to Coptic tradition uses only one name, to attend the news conference later in the day, but he said a religious holiday would make that impossible.
The phone rang unanswered at the church's St. Mark Archdiocese Wednesday afternoon. Likewise, the phones rang unanswered at St. George & St. Shenouda Coptic Orthodox Church, where the funeral was held. A fax sent to the church office seeking comment Wednesday afternoon was not immediately answered.
The St. Abraam's Coptic Orthodox Church in Woodbury, N.Y., issued a statement Wednesday cautioning against "jumping to conclusions." But the statement also said "some signs point to this incident being a religiously motivated hate crime against Coptic Christians."
"If this crime was in fact an attack against a Christian family for their faith and for expressing their beliefs, it can only be viewed as an act of terrorism committed on American soil," the statement read. "The apparent reluctance to consider this a hate crime despite Jersey City's long history of Muslim extremism is concerning. Even more disconcerting is the thought that this crime may be classified as a robbery for reasons of political correctness."
Imam Mohammad Qatanani, spiritual leader of the Islamic Center of Passaic County, said what was done to the Armanious family is forbidden by Islam.
"Islam is the religion of love and peace, the religion of not hurting, the religion of respecting life and humanity," he said. "What happened is against the religion of Islam, the religion of Christianity, and the religion of Judaism."
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