A Muslim civil liberties group is calling on the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office to drop hate crime accusations against a group of people who allegedly graffitied “F*** Israel” on the wall of a church in Euless.
Raunaq Alam, Julia Venzor and Afsheen Khan vandalized Uncommon Church in March 2024, according to their indictments. They're charged with criminal mischief damaging a place of worship, paired with hate crime enhancements that make the crimes more severe.
Alam’s trial is scheduled to begin Monday, online court records show. He vandalized the church “primarily because of the defendant’s bias or prejudice against a group identified by national origin and/or ancestry and/or religion, namely, the state of Israel or Jewish faith,” prosecutors argue in the indictment.
When asked why prosecutors sought the hate crime enhancements, a spokesperson for the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office said in an email "Our indictment is based on the evidence."
The Texas branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations wants the DA's Office to drop the hate crime enhancements.
"We actually detest vandalism, graffiti, especially on places of worship, et cetera,” CAIR-Texas' Mustafaa Carroll told KERA News. “But we feel like to call criticism of a country a hate crime is a stretch.”
KERA News also reached out to the local branch of the Anti-Defamation League, an organization that tracks antisemitic incidents. This story will be updated with any response.
The ADL’s definition of antisemitism, which connects antisemitism to arguments over the existence of Israel, has been criticized by others like Jewish Voice for Peace.
Tarrant County is politically retaliating against an activist in violation of the First Amendment, Alam’s attorney Adwoa Asante argued in a May 5 court filing.
“If citizens and persons within the United States are allowed to say and express ‘F*** America,’ why would the condemnation of a foreign country garner more enhanced prosecution from the State of Texas?” she wrote.
Asante also noted Uncommon Church is not a synagogue — it is a Christian church that was flying an Israeli flag. KERA News has reached out to Asante for comment.
A victim does not have to be a member of a protected group for it to count as a hate crime, according to the Texas District & County Attorneys Association — the crime just has to be motivated by bias or prejudice against a protected class.
The Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas-led attacks against Israel killed approximately 1,200 people and set off the war in Gaza that continues today. As of July, more than 60,000 Palestinians had been killed in the war, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
The war has generated fierce debates over whether criticism of Israel is inherently antisemitic. In August, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton opened an antisemitism investigation into Plano ISD after school officials allegedly allowed “pro-Palestinian walkouts—effectively making it a school sponsored anti-Israel activity,” his office wrote in a press release.
President Donald Trump has targeted pro-Palestine activists for deportation, including Columbia University student protestor Mahmoud Khalil, who spent 104 days in an immigration detention center following the federal government's crackdown, NPR reported.
A GoFundMe apparently opened by Alam says he was arrested for his activism.
“I have so much love and compassion for people, and that’s the main reason why I’m so outspoken,” Alam told The Guardian. “That’s why I’m an activist: because I care so much about people, and I care so much about injustice. So the people around me, they support me. And I guess they just want to see me get through this.”
In August, the World Health Organization confirmed Gaza is suffering from famine. And this week, a group of leading genocide scholars declared Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, a charge the Israeli government denied.
Got a tip? Email Miranda Suarez atmsuarez@kera.org.
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