[Vision2020] Vandalism Deplored as Hate Crime

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of today's (December 5, 2009) Spokesman Review.

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Vandalism Deplored as Hate Crime
Graffiti on truck includes racial slur, swastikas

By Allison Boggs

A Coeur d’Alene man of Middle Eastern descent left his pickup parked
downtown Thursday night and returned to find it spray-painted with
swastikas and a racial slur and a front tire slashed.

The Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations counts the incident as
the seventh hate crime perpetrated in the Inland Northwest since May,
co-founder Tony Stewart said Friday.

Haitham Joudeh, 33, who is a Muslim of Jordanian descent, was celebrating
a friend’s birthday Thursday and left his black Ford F350 truck parked at
the corner of Third Street and Coeur d’Alene Avenue. Friends drove Joudeh
and his wife home around midnight, he said.

In the morning, he was notified by police that his truck had been
vandalized. Two swastikas were painted on it along with a slur urging him
to “go home.”

“I was born in this state. This is my home. What are they talking about?”
said Joudeh, a University of Idaho graduate. “It makes me feel like I
don’t belong in this place. It makes me fear for my life and my family’s
life. I mean, what’s next? They’re going to come to my house? Seriously,
what’s going to be next?”

Someone already has been to his house, where Joudeh lives with his wife
and baby son. On Friday morning, Joudeh found a racist flier from the
Aryan Nations in a plastic baggie on his lawn. The flier was similar to
those distributed in several other Inland Northwest neighborhoods in
recent months.

Stewart said the vandalism of Joudeh’s vehicle qualifies as a hate crime.
It is the most recent in a spate of hate crimes, he said. In other
incidents, a noose was left on a Spokane doorstep; a swastika sticker was
affixed to the door of a Coeur d’Alene human rights center; and Hispanic,
African-American and Native American people were targeted in several
harassment and assault cases.

“There is an escalation,” Stewart said. “We don’t know who’s doing it. My
suspicion is, from some of the profiles 
 it seems to be more than one
group involved.”

Stewart said the task force will do everything within its power to help
Joudeh’s family. “In all these cases,” Stewart said, “if you can find the
people, you prosecute them for a felony and you send them to prison. This
community won’t turn a blind eye.”

Coeur d’Alene police said they are investigating the incident as a hate
crime.

Idaho’s malicious harassment law makes it a felony to deface personal
property with “any word or symbol commonly associated with racial,
religious or ethnic terrorism.”

Joudeh, a developer, said he has faced harassment since he filed a
multimillion-dollar lawsuit against Kootenai County, alleging improper
denial of a project he had proposed at Mica Bay. Joudeh’s company, Jordan
International, proposed a condominium storage unit facility on 10 acres
just off U.S. Highway 95. The case is pending in 1st District Court.

Joudeh said his ethnicity was raised, in a negative light, by people
opposed to the project during the first hearing.

“Nothing was done or said about it,” Joudeh said.

Since he filed his lawsuit, he said, he has been the subject of racist
e-mails and Internet blog posts regarding his proposed project.

A tort claim filed against the county as a precursor to the lawsuit
alleged that the project was denied partly because of racism.

Kootenai County commissioners deny that race was any factor.

Board Chairman Rick Currie said that accusation is an “embarrassment to
the residents of our county.” Commissioner Todd Tondee said decisions are
not made based on race; they’re made based on the project.

Currie also expressed anger toward whomever targeted Joudeh in the
vandalism incident.

“That is absolutely unacceptable,” he said. “There is no place in this
country for that type of action. It is something we cannot tolerate.”

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Coeur d’Alene resident Haitham Joudeh woke to a call from the Coeur
d’Alene Police Department on Friday morning telling him of racist graffiti
painted on his truck sometime after midnight at the corner of Third Street
and Coeur d’Alene Avenue.

http://media.spokesman.com/photos/2009/12/04/PX248_27F0_9_t620.jpeg

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These racist incidents by neo-Nazi scum are becoming more and more
frequent, Moscow.

It's time to take a stand,

Speak up!

Speak out!

Seeya round the 'hood, Moscow.

Tom Hansen, Intolerista
Moscow, Idaho

"The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change
and the Realist adjusts his sails."

- Unknown