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 The anti-Muslim event outside the Islamic Community Center of
Phoenix was organized by an Iraq war veteran who posted photos of
himself online wearing a T-shirt with a crude slogan denigrating
Islam and waving the U.S. flag.
As the event got under way, demonstrators on both sides screamed
obscenities at each other as police in riot gear swiftly separated
the two groups, each with about 250 people, using police tape and
barricades.
"This is in response to the recent attack in Texas," organizer Jon
Ritzheimer wrote on his Facebook page announcing the event at a
mosque targeted in part because the two Texas gunmen had worshipped
there.
More than 900 people responded on the event's Facebook page that
they would attend, and police expanded their presence in the evening
in anticipation of growing crowds. Officers with riot helmets and
gas masks formed a cordon for several blocks.
Among the anti-Islam protesters, some of whom called Islam a
"religion of murderers," more than a dozen men in military clothing
carried semi-automatic weapons. Others waved copies of caricatures
of the Prophet Mohammad drawn at the Texas event.
By late Friday night, virtually all the protesters and police had
left the area with no reports of violent flare-ups or arrests.
Depictions of Mohammad, which many Muslims view as blasphemous, have
been a flashpoint for violence in Europe and the United States in
recent months where those displaying or creating such images have
been targeted by militants.
Anti-Muslim groups have been active in the United States, buying ads
and staging demonstrations characterizing Islam as violent, often
citing the murderous brutality of Islamic State militants in Iraq
and Syria.
'LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR'
The Phoenix mosque targeted on Friday has condemned such violence
and held a series of sermons at Friday prayers last year by an imam
who criticized militant Islamist groups such as Islamic State, al
Qaeda and Nigeria's Boko Haram.
The president of the center had urged worshippers not to engage with
the demonstrators.
"We should remind ourselves that we do not match wrongness with
wrongness, but with grace and mercy and goodness," Usama Shami told
worshippers during Friday prayers.
While some counter-protesters outside the mosque responded to the
anti-Islam protest with obscenities, others followed his advice and
chanted "Love your neighbor."
Todd Green, a religion professor at Luther College in Iowa who
studies Islamophobia, said that the brutal acts committed by Islamic
State and other militant groups have colored many Americans'
impressions of Muslims.
"Almost two-thirds of Americans don't know a Muslim," Green said.
"What they know is ISIS, al Qaeda, and Charlie Hebdo," referencing
the January attack on the Paris office of the satirical magazine
Charlie Hebdo that left 12 people dead over anger at the magazine's
cartoons featuring the Prophet.
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In a similar incident, a pair of gunmen on May 3 opened fire near
Dallas outside an exhibit of cartoons featuring the Prophet Mohammad
and were shot dead by police.
Leaders of the Phoenix Muslim community confirmed both gunmen had
attended the mosque targeted in Friday's demonstration.
U.S. officials are investigating claims that the Texas gunmen had
ties to the Islamic State, but said they had not established a firm
connection.
'EPIDEMIC OF ANTI-ISLAMIC SENTIMENT'
The Department of Homeland Security spoke with state and local law
enforcement and monitored the situation in Phoenix, White House
spokesman Josh Earnest said.
Ritzheimer, the main organizer of the demonstration, said the point
was "to expose the true colors of Islam."
"True Islam is terrorism. Yes, the ones that are out committing
these atrocities and stuff, they are following the book as it's
written," Ritzheimer told CNN.
Ritzheimer was a staff sergeant in the Marine Reserve and was
deployed to Iraq twice, in 2005 and 2008, the Marine Corps said.
Anti-Islam activist Pamela Geller, who organized the Texas event,
said she was not involved in the Phoenix demonstration.
The mosque is a former church near the city's international airport
that can hold some 600 worshippers. The Phoenix area is home to tens
of thousands of Muslims.
Friday's event is part of "an epidemic of anti-Islamic sentiment"
that goes beyond protesting against extremism, said Imraan Siddiqi
of the Arizona chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
"Don't mistake that, they're not saying they want to rid America of
radical Islam, they are saying they want to rid America of Islam,"
Siddiqi said.
(Writing and additional reporting by Alistair Bell, Sharon Bernstein
and Curtis Skinner; Additional reporting by Scott Malone in Boston,
and Alex Dobuzinskis and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by
Cynthia Johnston, Lisa Shumaker and Nick Macfie)
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