The coalition -- Iranian Alliances Across Borders, Iranian American Bar Association, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), PARS Equality Center, and the Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans -- released a letter seeking Congressional support of Representatives Dana Rohrabacher (CA-48), Loretta Sanchez (CA-46) and other members of Congress.
According to news reports, 22-year-old Shayan Mazroei was stabbed to death by 37-year-old Craig Matthew Tanber outside a bar in Laguna Niguel on September 7th. Tanber, who is reportedly a member of the prominent Orange County white supremacist gang Public Enemy Number 1 (PEN1), is now in police custody and has been charged with the murder of Mazroei.
The letter notes that eyewitness accounts suggest the sequence of events which led to the fatal stabbing of Mazroei began after Tanber’s girlfriend, Elizabeth Thornburg, initiated the altercation with racial slurs. Allegedly, Thornburg noticed Mazroei’s Persian tattoo which reads ‘Love’ and called the Iranian-American engineering student a terrorist, NIAC Action said in a press release.
“Despite this overwhelming evidence, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office characterized the incident as a “fight over a girl” and has refused both to investigate the involvement of Ms. Thornburg in the altercation and to acknowledge the racial motive in this case,” the authors write in the letter. “If this act of violence was directed at Mr. Mazroei because of his Iranian heritage, U.S. federal authorities should seek to prosecute or aid state or local authorities in the prosecution of this hate crime to the full extent of the law.”
The letter condemned the violence that was committed as a direct result of Mazroei’s Iranian heritage. It urged the members of Congress to call on federal authorities to investigate the role of bias into Mazroei’s murder and send a clear message that as Americans we will not tolerate hate crimes.
“As leading Iranian-American advocacy and anti-discrimination organizations, we will continue to act to eliminate such hatred and radicalism in our communities,” the letter asserted.
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