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ASSOCIATED PRESS / DEC. 7, 2015
In this file photo, Republican presidential candidate, businessman Donald Trump, speaks during a rally coinciding with Pearl Harbor Day at Patriots Point aboard the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown in Mt. Pleasant, S.C.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. » Rose Hamid attended one of Donald Trump’s rallies in silent protest over some of his campaign statements, but by the time the South Carolina event was over, the Muslim woman said she had been heckled by people in the crowd and escorted away by security guards. Now she’s awaiting a response from the Republican front-runner.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations has issued a call to the campaign of the GOP contender to apologize over Hamid’s treatment at the event Friday night. And Hamid said by Saturday afternoon she hadn’t received any response.
“I would like to hear what Trump has to say about it,” she told The Associated Press by phone. “I’d like to hear because if they say that it was because we were disrupting things, then I would like him to show evidence of where the disruption came, because the disruption didn’t come from me. It came from his followers because they saw me.”
Trump didn’t address the incident on Saturday during two campaign rallies in Iowa. At the first rally in Ottumwa, he defended his proposal to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the country. He said his call had changed the dialogue and drawn attention to radical Islamic terrorism, which he described as “a very deep-seated problem that we have in this country and throughout the world.’” He made similar comments later in Clear Lake, Iowa.
Besides seeking an apology, CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad called on Trump to meet with American Muslim leaders to help stem the anti-Muslim sentiment they said is being produced by his rhetoric and that of other Republican presidential hopefuls.
The Charlotte-based flight attendant said she joined thousands of others at Friday’s rally by the Republican presidential frontrunner at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina. She said there were no problems as she waited in line to enter and hear Trump speak. In fact, she said, one woman came up to her and said she was glad to see her at the rally.
“I didn’t get a bad vibe from anyone,” she said. “The people I made personal contact with were very pleasant.”
Hamid said the mood shifted once the rally began, adding the spotlight began to shift to her.
“My intention was to stand up when he said something that was offensive, not just for Muslims but for anyone,” she said.
It was when Hamid stood up that she said people around her began to chant “Trump, Trump, Trump.” She said organizers had told the audience that if they saw anyone attempting to disrupt his speech, they were to begin chanting to point where the protester was located.
People behind her began chanting, she said, and Trump soon acknowledged the chant. At that point, Hamid said she and a fellow protester were asked to leave.
Then, she said, came the verbal taunts from the audience.
“There was a guy who was saying ‘Do you have a bomb Do you have a bomb?’ This is an older man,” Hamid said. “And I said ‘No, do you have a bomb?’” She said another man yelled at her to get out. Hamid said security officials didn’t touch her as they led her out, adding “I was glad that nobody got physical and did anything scary.”
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Associated Press writer Steve Peoples in Ottumwa, Iowa, contributed to this report.
I’m waiting for muslims in the U.S. to speak out against the atrocities caused by muslims worldwide.
Instead they sit idly by and ignore the situation.
Yours is a bogus argument. There have been many, many condemnations of atrocities by Muslims. When will Christians or any of the Republican candidates condemn the armed thugs occupying the Federal building in Oregon? The “Y’all Qaeda” group in Oregon claim that scripture told them to do it. Rose Hamid was wearing a shirt that said “Salam, I come in peace” and Trump’s white nationalist followers found that offensive. Welcome to fascism.
Yah well: if you ignore something, it never happened, right?
I’m waiting for the same thing from Christians.
Once they start beheading people maybe you’ll get it..
No, actually, they don’t. But you just keep going on with that false talking point.
When you go looking for trouble there a good chance you will find it in some form. now she want to play the victim lol
If wearing a shirt that says “Salam, I come in peace” is “looking for trouble,” then the fascist nature of Trump’s popularity among his low-information, poorly-educated supporters is exposed. Today, in Iowa, a white nationalist group (the American National Super PAC) led by the racist who inspired Dylan Roof’s Charleston massacre, began a massive robocall campaign, saying that “We don’t need Muslims. We need smart, well-educated white people who will assimilate to our culture. Vote Trump.” Trump makes George Wallace look like the epitome of open-mindedness and tolerance.
Your t-shirt can say anything, doesn’t mean she believed it. You are either naïve or and idiot. Which one is it
He is an ID10T
Well, I can guess that you’re trying to insult someone’s intelligence… But,I guess that illiteracy thing is jamming you up.
As she herself stated, nothing untoward was said or done to her until she stood up and drew the spotlight on herself. If attention was what she sought, then attention is what she got. She surely knew where she was and understood what the anticipated response would be. I see no reason to complain about getting what you expected to receive in the first place. A display of courage? Maybe some, but not a lot.
Trump must have been a medieval King in his last life?
She’ll get invited to the White House just like clock bomb boy.
What bomb?
Why are you offended by a peaceful protest here in “the land of the free and the home of the brave”? It strikes me that it took a lot of ‘brave’ for that young Muslim woman to attend the rally. And she had the courage to be identified … whereas both your comments were made anonymously.
Good point! I’m also ashamed of hiding behind a pseudonym to voice my comments within this paper! I haven’t the courage like the Muslim woman of this story. Unlike you Mr. Loomis, you are just as brave as she!
no one is offended by this incident. she made her protest peacefully and was peacefully escorted out. so what.
what is offensive is clinton aide Jack Sullivan emailing her to say his staff was having problems getting her documents on a secure fax.
clinton responds with an email she hadn’t received the documents and that Sullivan and his staff should “turn (the messages) into nonpaper w no identifying heading and send nonsecure.”
in other words remove secret and classified headings from messages and send the information nonsecure to her email account.
that’s offensive.
“Sticks and stones may break my bones (but words will never hurt me).”
The anti-Muslim sentiment is not being produced by Trump’s rhetoric and that of other Republican presidential hopefuls. It is being produced by Islamic terrorists who are killing people in Europe and in the USA in the name of Allah. When they stop doing that, so will the anti-Muslim sentiment.
George W. Bush said:
“Ours is a war not against a religion, not against the Muslim faith. But ours is a war against individuals who absolutely hate what America stands for.”
“Our war is not against Islam, or against faith practiced by the Muslim people. Our war is a war against evil.”
“Our enemy doesn’t follow the great traditions of Islam. They’ve hijacked a great religion.”
“The terrorists are traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself.”
“There are thousands of Muslims who proudly call themselves Americans, and they know what I know — that the Muslim faith is based upon peace and love and compassion.”
The contrast with the current crop of GOP frontrunners is striking, isn’t it?
she went to protest, stood up in protest, and was escorted out as a result of her protest.
her apology might be forthcoming after leaders of islam apologize to officer jesse hartnet for being the target of an attempted assassination and religious hate crime by Edward Archer who acted “in the name of Islam” as a follower of Islamic State.
I’d like to see a woman assert herself like that in an truly muslim society; one that follow sharia law. I’d like to see how well she’d be treated then.
I’m not sure what the joke is but the punch-line is “Donald Trump.”
Our next president
But in order to be a joke Cellodad, it should at least be funny. What IS somewhat funny is that his supporters believe what this reality show huckster is pitching.