Meg Jones
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Their faces were shown on a large screen with their names and ages, smiling, so full of life.
They were identified by their profession: engineer, cardiologist, Ph.D. candidate, teacher, restaurant owner. And what mattered to them: traveled to New Zealand to see his son, loving grandparent.
The most recent killings of people in their place of worship happened very far from Milwaukee, but the senseless deaths at the hands of someone filled with blind hatred struck a chord here.
“We are here collectively to say we are united against hate,” Munjed Ahmad told a group of more than 500 people of different faiths and races attending a vigil at the Islamic Center of Milwaukee Thursday night.
People listen to the names of the victims of the New Zealand mosque attacks being read aloud at a vigil Thursday night at the Islamic Society of Milwaukee's Community Center. (Photo: Michael Sears/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
Janan Najeeb, president of the Milwaukee Muslim Women’s Coalition, noted the photos of the 51 people killed last week at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, looked like the United Nations with people from many countries.
“While we know this happened halfway around the world, the same hate has impacted us in our own backyard,” said Najeeb.
She also pointed out that New Zealand’s government passed a ban on “military-style” semi-automatic firearms and high-capacity magazines like those used in the attack.
“It took them six days, six days to enforce tough gun laws,” Najeeb said.
Imam Noman Hussein from the Islamic Society of Milwaukee asked clergy to step forward — so many stood up, the stage rapidly filled to capacity.
“It was not too long ago that many of us were standing for the victims of Pittsburgh,” Hussein said of the Jews killed in a synagogue in that city last year.
Hussein said the killer in New Zealand was emboldened by hate speech and rhetoric.
University of Wisconsin-Madison students Ufaira Shaik and Yaseen Najeeb read the names and ages of the victims to the crowd gathered for the vigil. The recitation of the dead was followed by 51 seconds of silence
One second for each person cut down by hate.
