CAIRO – A leading American Muslim advocacy group has called on police to probe alleged bullying of two Muslim students and vandalism of their home which resulted in expulsion hearing for the pair.
“We urge district officials to commission an outside investigation of the years of bullying that allegedly resulted in the attempt to expel these Muslim students,” Sadyia Khalique, Director of Operations of the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-NY), said in a statement sent to AboutIslam.net.
“We call on local law enforcement authorities to investigate a possible bias motive for the attack on the Muslim family’s home.”
According to family members, Adam and Jameel Siam, who were born in the US, have been facing harassment by fellow students at Williamsville East High School in western New York.
“I was bullied for Osama bin Laden, I’ve been called a terrorist,” said 16-year-old Jameel, a junior.
“We’ve been called terrorists, go back home and make bombs in your basement or you’re going to come back and shoot up the school ‒ and it’s just like, people kept pushing our buttons.”
Occurring for years, the students report that complaints about bullying have gone unanswered by school management.
“You don’t know if someone is going to come up behind you or come right up to you and say something,” said 15-year-old Adam, a sophomore. “You always have to watch where you are, what you’re doing, who’s around you. You always gotta have a watch out.”
This weekend, the family’s house was pelted with eggs and rocks, resulting in broken doors and windows.
“I can’t live a normal life now, especially how they came to my house,” said Jameel. “It’s not only at school that I need to be afraid, it’s that I have to be afraid everywhere I am now.”
The brothers have also been bullied on social media, with their tormentors posting an image on Instagram showing an American flag alongside an Islamic flag with the title “Siam Slayer” on it, among other things, the Buffalo News reported.
An image was posted on Instagram showing an American flag alongside an Islamic flag with the title “Siam Slayer” on it.
Expulsion Threat
Being forced to defend themselves from anti-Muslim bullies, a fight broke out in school between the boys and the person they say uploaded the image, which led to the suspension of all three.
The brothers now await an expulsion hearing by school administrators, seen as unfair by the boys’ mother Rehab Siam.
“This has been festering for years now,” said Siam, who acknowledges her sons’ bad behavior too.
“They’ve [the school] never looked into the whole serious issue.”
Finding no answers from school administrations, the brothers have reportedly filed at least two previous reports with local police over the racial comments made against them.
They made another complaint after their house was vandalized.
“First, the harassment was with Osama bin Laden, then with ISIS, and now it has been getting even worse with Trump,” Siam said.
“We’re not denying the fight, but the school didn’t do anything. The Instagram stayed up for two days after the fight.”
As police announced they were investigating the attack on the Siam house, the school hearing is expected next Friday.
A report by CAIR’s California chapter, titled “Mislabeled: The Impact of Bullying and Discrimination on California Muslim Students,” indicated that that more than half of Muslim students in that state have been subject to at least one form of religion-based bullying.
CAIR-NY recently called on two Muslim girls who were reportedly attacked in Buffalo, N.Y., to come forward and report the incident to police.
This week, CAIR’s Kansas chapter held a news conference on the campus of Wichita State University to call on state and federal law enforcement authorities to investigate an allegedly bias-motivated attack on a Muslim and a Hispanic man by an assailant reportedly shouting “Trump, Trump, Trump.”