Religious leaders from the Corvallis area held a rally against violence Sunday in Portland, OR.
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They were joined by some Portland-area religious leaders and many others; nearly 300 people gathered in Pioneer Courthouse Square – the place where, 23 days earlier, 19-year-old Mohamed Mohamud allegedly tried to explode a van full of explosives amid the crowds packing the square for Portland’s annual tree-lighting ceremony. One day later, an arsonist damaged a Muslim mosque in Corvallis. A nearby resident, Cody Crawford, was named as a person of interest in that fire-bombing. Crawford claims he’s innocent.
After that Corvallis incident, members of several diverse religious groups from the Corvallis area rallied in solidarity with the mosque and against violence.
Sunday’s rally in Portland was a higher-profile expression of that solidarity against religious and/or ethnic bias and violence. Rabbi Benjamin Barnett told the Corvallis Gazette-Times that Emir Mohammed Siala of the Corvallis Islamic center was touched by the spirit of a local rally that followed the fire and wanted to bring that to the people of Portland. That Islamic center released a statement condemning the alleged Pioneer Square bombing plot and “all other terror attacks”.
Tags: Mohamed Mohamud, portland religious groups, religious freedom, religious groups against violence
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