Racist abuse against Muslim group in San Francisco caught on camera

SAN FRANCISCO – A hate incident was caught on camera during a holy day for Muslims in San Francisco. A group from a San Francisco mosque was celebrating Eid al-Adha in John McLaren Park on Monday when a man walking two dogs passed by, shouting expletives and making threats. There is video of the incident.

Muslim Americans we spoke with who attended the event said they were shocked and saddened that this happened in San Francisco. Celebration organizers are sharing video of the incident to teach about the Islamic faith.

The joy of observing Eid, one of the two major holidays of the Muslim faith, is a tradition observed by Bay Area Muslims at a picnic in the Portola Valley neighborhood.

“We were celebrating together with our family and friends, eating good food and celebrating community and being Muslim in the city,” Shadia Walsh said.

But a few hours earlier, around 8:30 a.m., event organizers at the Islamic Center of San Francisco, a mosque, said they were preparing for a prayer service when the man with two small dogs began shouting offensive remarks against them and against the Muslim Faith.

The video shows the unidentified man telling the group, “Your religion is full of hate.” The mosque member responds to the man, “Have a good day,” and informs him that the group has a permit from the city to go there. There’s some back and forth before the unidentified man shouts an expletive.

“I never really thought I would encounter something like this, especially in the city of San Francisco. It’s really, really sad,” said mosque member Sal Shaikh, who filmed the video.

One of the organizers of the mosque event said the man made a threat, saying: “I’m going to put pork fat in here for you (expletive).”

“We are forbidden from touching or eating pigs in our religion and for him to say he was going to come back that way, or attack us that way, potentially, that made me uncomfortable. J “I was afraid, I was afraid, I was worried about the safety of others,” said Shabaz Shaikh, director of the Islamic Center of San Francisco.

He says the mosque regularly holds parties in public parks and nothing like this has happened before.

“Just seeing someone speak that way in that tone…with some aggression…that’s something I’ve never heard before. And it was just very threatening,” Shaikh said.

He said he had never faced this level of racist abuse in his life. He said around fifty Muslims were gathered at the time of the clash. He called 911 and gave a copy of the video to an SFPD officer who came to make a report.

Shaikh said he wanted the man to be identified.

“I would invite him to our mosque and if he wants to know more about our faith or our culture, I will be more than happy to sit down with him and explain to him, educate him,” Shaikh said .

“If you get to know people from other cultures and religions, you might realize we’re not so different after all,” Walsh said.

Police said this is an open and active investigation and it is too early to determine whether they will investigate this matter as a hate crime.