Killing of Muslim stirs questions about hate crimes

The horrific weekend slaying of Virginia high school student Nabra Hassanen has prompted calls from civil liberties advocates to investigate her killing as a possible hate crime.

Virginia police officials initially said there is no indication the 17-year-old was targeted because of her religion and that her killing was a “road rage incident” as she and a group of other teens walked and biked along a street headed back to a mosque early Sunday.

But Nabra’s family feels certain she was abducted and killed because she was wearing Islamic clothing as she returned to the All Dulles Area Muslim Society mosque in Sterling after the group had gone out for a late night bite to eat amid their Ramadan observance.

A Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization criticized police on Tuesday for settling too soon on road rage as motivator and said the killing should be seen in the context of a rise in hate crimes targeting Muslims across the country.

“We think it’s premature,” said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic relations known as CAIR. “We believe these incidents are at the core motivated by the perception that these subjects are Muslim.”

Nabra’s family has said she was wearing a long women’s garment known as an abaya and a hijab head covering.

Her funeral service is set for 1:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Sterling mosque, Hooper said.

Her beating, abduction and murder were clearly hateful acts, but bringing formal hate crime charges is more complicated. Proving a hate crime in court requires showing overt bias, that a person was motivated, for instance, by the victim’s religion, ethnicity, national origin or gender.