Philadelphia police has stepped up patrols around mosques and the city’s mayor has offered a $2,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of “anyone engaged in a hate crime” after early-morning prayers at the Al-Aqsa Islamic Society were disrupted by the discovery Monday of a severed pig’s head on the mosque’s doorsteps.
“Someone tried to desecrate the mosque and its peaceful people,” Mayor Michael Nutter (D) said Tuesday, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. “That, of course, will not be tolerated.”
The Mayor condemned the “ignorant act” at a City Hall news conference, where, the newspaper reported, “shoulder to shoulder they stood: imams in kufis, ministers in robes, rabbis in skullcaps, elected officials and community leaders in business suits.”
