NYU interfaith prayer room vandalized; investigation underway
NEW YORK (PIX11) -- Students at NYU are horrified after an interfaith prayer room was vandalized.
Muslim students say the offense is particularly hurtful because the holy month of Ramadan just wrapped up. Eid was earlier this week.
The students want to know who is behind the vandalism, and they want the person responsible to be punished immediately.
The vandalism took place inside one of NYU’s multifaith prayer rooms.
Faiyaz Jaffer is the associate chaplain and senior research scholar at the Islamic Center at NYU.
“Someone had urinated in the space as well as drew a lewd image, essentially desecrating a sacred space, which unfortunately is microcosm of Islamophobia in this country that we’re used to experiencing,” Jaffer said.
Jaffer said a student reported the vandalism to him on Thursday, and the center then reported it to police.
“There’s a lot of shock, a lot of stress, anxiety with all of the challenges happening and targeting Muslim communities over the last however many weeks and months. Our international students here at NYU, they’re feeling a sense of anxiety around everything that’s happening in the sort of sociopolitical reality,” Jaffer said.
NYU Muslim student leader Safi Diagana agrees.
“The fact that this happened on campus, it’s just very eye-opening and frankly just fearful," Diagana said. "As Muslim students, we deserve to be here just like anybody else, and we have to show up for ourselves and NYU has to show up for us too.”
NYU said in a statement, “This desecration of a religious space is vile, reprehensible, and utterly unacceptable. It contravenes every principle of our community, and we condemn it.”
The school added that it has started an investigation, and anyone found responsible will be subject to disciplinary sanctions.
Some students want the school to do more.
“I want them to make us feel more safe, so that means that any safety protocols they think are right for us to do and for them to do that they’ve seen in the past. We want them to advocate for students and also to make sure that they spread this across and let people know that this is happening because we need to have more awareness and also how we can prevent it,” Diagana said.
The Islamic Center said more needs to be done overall.
“It’s not about like a sort of one-stop - a statement or letter - but it’s something that we need to work on doing as a community to eradicate violence and rhetoric in our community.”
Many of the students said they want this to be looked at as a hate crime.
The NYPD said it is investigating, and the Hate Crime Task Force has been notified.