A civil rights group on Saturday denounced Donald Trump’s for repeating a century-old myth involving Muslims and pig’s blood during a South Carolina campaign rally Friday evening.
“Donald Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric has crossed the line from spreading hatred to inciting violence,” said Council on American-Islamic Relations national executive director Nihad Awad in a statement.
Trump told an audience in Charleston a conspiracy-ridden myth in which over a 100 years ago, U.S. Gen. John Pershing killed dozens of Muslim prisoners in the Philippines in a guerrilla war against U.S. forces occupying that country.
“He took 50 bullets, and he dipped them in pig’s blood and he had his men load his rifles and he lined up the 50 people and they shot 49 of those people. And the 50th person he said ‘You go back to your people and you tell them what happened’ and for 25 years there wasn’t a problem, okay?” Trump said.
Trump cited the myth as part of an argument for the U.S. to be more aggressive in combating Islamic extremism.
Awad countered that such suggestions are dangerous to Muslims.
“By directly stating that the only way to stop terrorism is to murder Muslims in graphic and religiously-offensive ways, he places the millions of innocent, law-abiding citizens in the American Muslim community at risk from rogue vigilantes,” Awad said.
“He further implies that our nation should adopt a strategy of systematized violence in its engagement with the global Muslim community, a chilling message from a potential leader. We pray that no one who hears this message follows his gospel of hate,” Awad said.
Late last year, Trump called for a “total and complete” ban on all Muslims entering the U.S. to protect amid heightened fear of terrorism.
