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WEST AFRICA: PENNSYLVANIA HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS INTERVENE ON IMMIGRANTS December 20, 2005
Kizza Hajarah
(SomaliNet) Following a series of attacks on West African immigrants in Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvanian Human Rights Commission has decided to intervene. It held a special meeting at the Pennsylvania Convention Centre to discuss the violence.
Among the cases presented were: a13-YEAR-OLD Liberian boy walking home who was beaten nearly to death, a 16-year-old from Guinea who was stabbed and a West African church that was attacked.
"Force must be met with force," Rev. Elisha Morris said during the meeting.
Joseph Gray, father to the 13 Year old victim thought he had found freedom in Philadelphia after spending 15 years as a refugee in Ghana. “Unfortunately my gift in Philadelphia was the flogging and the brutal beating of my son," Gray said.
J. Whyatt Mondesire, Commission member and Philadelphia NAACP President asked the Justice Department to prosecute the crimes. "They've got the power to put people in jail," Mondesire said."
However, state prosecutors don’t consider Jacob Gray's beating as a hate crime. And the mother of 16-year-old Lucien Accar