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D.C. police arrested two men in connection with an alleged assault against a gay man in Georgetown late last week.
A source told the Washington Blade that the victim, a 23-year-old Georgetown University medical student, was walking along the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal path on 34th Street NW with a friend around 3 a.m. on October 3. Two other men, whom the source described as "Muslim and being of 'Middle Eastern descent,'" approached them and asked if they were gay. After receiving a yes, one of the inquiring men attacked the victim with a glass bottle.
The victim was treated for a contusion and cuts to his left cheek.
The two suspects, identified by Metro Weekly as Ruddad Adugader and Saad Elorch, are being held without bond. They were arrested about an hour after the attack, which is being handled as a hate crime.
Photo by Pianoman75
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What the fuck, man. This violence against gays has got to stop. It seems incredibly bad here in DC.
Part of why it seems to bad is that here we actually report these incidents when they happen. Visibility helps, and we're not about to back down and let it go unnoticed.
Muslims bashing gays.
Minority against minority.
There's a joke in here somewhere.
hopefully they'll learn a thing or two about tolerance towards homosexuals while in prison.
that is, if they are in fact guilty.
Kind of weird to hear that two men, who come from a background who's custom is for me to sleep with other men for pleasure before they are married, would actually be so anti-gay.
And don't tell me that Arab men don't sleep with other Arab men before they are married as I've been in Saudi Arabia twice and seen/heard it straight from the camel's mouth.
nogard13 is a twatwaffle. you went to saudi twice and now you're an expert cause your self-hating "friend" that happened to be lucky enough to get a job serving you in your compound played you and your weird fantasies about arab men. even if your token friend wasn't serving you, real smart to take a wealthy freak and apply his life across the arab world. nice.
Really, walking down the tow path at 3am and you get attacked? What a shocker. Next thing you know it will be dangerous to wander around Trinidad!
I realize that we should all be able to feel safe wherever we are, but the C&O path at 3 A.M.? There are some questions from strangers that just don't deserve an answer on that path at 3 A.M. Don't go onto the path at 3 A.M. unprepared to defend yourself. Organic pepper spray consisting of either red or black pepper is a legal instrument of personal safety in the District.
"an alleged assault against a gay man"
I know the GU publication framed it the same way, but doesn't sound like an "alleged assault" to me. Sounds like a very real assault. It's alleged that the "two other men" perpetrated the assault, but the assault seems beyond dispute.
Maybe I'm misusing the term now, but I think it's a distinction worth noting.
Muslims.
Kind of weird to hear that two men, who come from a background who's custom is for me to sleep with other men for pleasure before they are married, would actually be so anti-gay.
The Christian faith doesn't have a monopoly on intolerance. A fagbasher is "the hornmad Iago ceaselessly willing that the moor in him shall suffer." They hate that which they see in themselves. Why do you think the most rabid anti-gays are the ones who get busted trolling for young men? Why do you think archconservative Roy Cohn bashed gays until the day he died of AIDS? After compounded interest, the greatest force in the universe is that of self-delusion. If only we could get Tony Stark to harness this power, we'd have an end to our dependency on foreign oil.
With sexy results.
Is the towpath a cruising spot? Why on Earth would you answer a question like that, in that place, at that time if it weren't a cruising spot?
The correct answer to that question is "F*ck off" unless of course you thought the question was an advance.
I'm not blaming the victim here. If it is a cruising spot, then so be it. I'm just curious (a) why these two dudes thought to ask the question (b) why the victim was even there at that hour and (c) why the hell did he answer in that manner? There just seems to be more to this story than what's described above.
"Kind of weird to hear that two men, who come from a background who's custom is for me to sleep with other men for pleasure before they are married, would actually be so anti-gay."
what's even weirder is that their custom is for you to sleep with other men for pleasure before they're married
If only we could get Tony Stark to harness this power, we'd have an end to our dependency on foreign oil.
Monkey, you are why I read this site.
"Really, walking down the tow path at 3am and you get attacked? What a shocker. Next thing you know it will be dangerous to wander around Trinidad!"
Even at 3 AM though, you would expect the risk of getting attacked in Georgetown to be slightly less than Trinidad.
I guess the ironic thing is that a racist skinhead would be bashing all four of these guys with glass bottles and whatever else they could find. So I guess depending on who's hanging out on the towpath that night, the outcome could have been a hate crime against Muslims. So i guess there's enough hate to go around!
@Stavros: I think you are correct about the use of the word "alleged." The writer wouldn't be able to say that the attackers actually did it, since they haven't been convicted, so they would have to call them the "alleged" attackers. But the attack took place, so therefore not "alleged" but actual.
DCistLurker,
I spend 8 months in Riyadh and couldn't even count the amount of "teens" that I saw holding hands and being affectionate towards each other in public. Most young Arab men aren't allowed within 50 feet of a woman without an escort unless they're immediate family. Their hormonal impulses are satisfied with other men, as it's what they can find. It's a cultural thing and you're not considered a homosexual unless you continue to engage in same sex relations AFTER you are married (or if you're a lesbian at any point in your life).
That is the way it is. It's not something I saw once or a server told me anecdotally. But it's nice to see that you'd dismiss my life experiences based on your view that it happened on a compound somewhere.
Arab men holding hands is no indication at all of homosexuality in the culture. Gay activities certainly exist, and are on the DL -- I lived all over the Arab world for three years and it comprises half of my cultural identity, so I'm pretty in tune with the differences between cultures of the Middle East and America. In many Middle Eastern cultures, men holding hands and being physically affectionate toward each other is culturally acceptable with zero homosexual undertones, unless you're a Westerner.
What's really happening here is a variation of "personal space," where even people standing in line push right up against each other. One thing to keep in mind is that Americans have probably the largest personal space requirements of any world culture, in terms of the discomfort from another person standing or sitting too close (and might therefore be considered sexual in nature), whereas in much of the Arab world physical space is not much of an issue at all. Men and women both hold hands with friends. Not sexual.
Sort of off topic of the point that gay bashing is evil no matter who it comes from and that it's not because the men may have been Muslim, but that they as individuals are hateful and ignorant... but I had to point out that living in Riyadh for a few months clearly does not make you any expert or even moderately in-tune with the cultural nuances there. And, please, Saudi is a wacky place that is nowhere near being a good example to generalize the Arab world with.
And, please, Saudi is a wacky place that is nowhere near being a good example to generalize the Arab world with.
As opposed to say, Jordan, which is the Arabian Peninsula equivalent of Hazard County. Boss Hogg really has it in for them el Rashid boys this time. They'll be lucky if they can jump the General Ali over those bales of exploding hay. And Cousin Daisy just aint the same when she started rockin the burqa.
SF2DC, if men can hold hands with eachother, etc. and it's not considered sexual, why then is it so immoral for a woman to be with a male friend? If two men holding hands isn't sexual then why is two people sitting on the same park bench assumed to be?
Tone is a little hard to convey in text so I just want to clarify that I am asking out of a sincere desire to understand.
OB: I ain't saying I'm a social scientist or anything, but I've had my entire lifetime's worth to experience these cultural nuances and be able, if nothing else, to describe them. Men holding hands in Middle Eastern countries could be analogous to sports-loving dudes hugging and grabbing each other's butts in sports contexts here in the US. If holding hands were recognized as a homosexual act (which I've never even heard anyone speculate upon as seriously as our poster friend above), then wouldn't it not be acceptable in those strict Arab countries to display openly? If it had any homosexual implications, trust me, it would NOT be cool in public. But it tripped me out, too, when I first went to live there.
As for the other question, why it's immoral for a woman to be with a male friend, this "rule" is really nowadays only confined to the most restrictive, traditional cities and regions. It's fine in much of the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria... probably so-so in Egypt, definitely restricted in Saudi. The answer I'd guess people who think this would give you, which I even experienced from my own traditional immigrant mother while I was growing up in San Francisco, is if a man and a woman are left alone, something's BOUND to happen. It's natural, they say. "The devil will always come between you," is a saying in Arabic. (None of this has anything to do with what I think as a latte-sipping coastal liberal who grew up completely American, of course.)
Whereas, if you follow the logic that fundamentalists of many religious beliefs employ against homosexuality -- that it's unnatural and against God's will -- then there's no reason to worry about two dudes feeling up on each other or holding hands, right?
Let me know if that makes sense or is helpful.
Nogard13, are you seriously suggesting that George W. Bush's hand-holding proclivities is a sign that he had a gay hookup in 2005? 'Cause that's Crazy Talk.
(Although, it would put a whole new spin on why he no longer chokes when he tries to swallow a pretzel...)