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Trump said the 1st amendment -which stands for freedom of belief and speech- makes clear “that our rights do not come from our government; they come from God”. He regretted “80% of the world’s population live in countries where religious liberty is threatened, restricted or even banned”.

The percentage he cites comes from a report from the Pew Research Center in 2016, where this independent think tank also mentions Muslims being targeted in the United States and directly links this to the current present president of the country:

“In the United States, Muslims were the targets of derogatory rhetoric and proposed discrimination. In July, Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump criticized the parents of a Muslim soldier who was killed in Iraq (…). Later in the year, President-elect Trump appeared to stand by plans for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration to the United States and a proposed requirement that U.S. Muslims register in a database”, the report summary reads.

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But Donald Trump’s speech on religious freedom this Monday at the UN ignored his rethoric and measures against Muslims: “As we speak, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Yazidis and many other people of faith are being jailed, sanctioned, tortured and even murdered, often at the hands of their own government, simply for expressing their deeply held religious beliefs. So hard to believe”.

He called upon all the countries of the world “to end religious persecution”, “repeal laws restricting freedom of religion and belief, protect the vulnerable, the defenceless and the oppressed”. The US president assured: “Protecting religious freedom is one of my highest priorities and always has been”.

“Repeal laws restricting freedom of religion and belief, protect the vulnerable, the defenceless and the oppressed”

What he did not mention was the “temporary ban” on Muslims he promised to implement if he became president and which finally has gotten a version of it for some Muslim majority countries plus Venezuela and North Korea after the judges declared his first travel ban illegal.

He recalled recent “evil attacks” against worshippers in sinagogues in the US, in mosques in New Zealand and churches in Sri Lanka and urged every nation “to increase the prosecution and punishment of crimes against religious communities”. “There cannot be greater crime than that”, he said.

>>> You may also read: Attacks against mosques are more usual than you might think: they are committed by anti-Muslim terrorists and also by groups like ISIS <<<

Trump announced a coalition of US businesses for the protection of “all faiths” in the workplace, although he did not go into detail. “True tolerance means respecting the right of all people to express their deeply held religious beliefs”, he pointed out before saying to the victims of religious persecution that the US “will always stay at your side”.

Last July Donald Trump held a short meeting with people who survived religious persecution worldwide. Sitting on his chair at the Oval Office and surrounded by them, he talked with them in front of the cameras (watch White House video).

The victims were grateful for the opportunity to be listened, like Farid Ahmed, a victim of the Christchurch attacks against Muslims who became known after publicly forgiving the terrorist. But there were also awkward moments during the meeting with Trump, such as when a Rohingya refugee asked him for solutions to go back home after being forced to flee to Bangladesh together with another 740,000 Muslims since 2017. “Where is that exactly?”, Trump asked. “Burma”, an official had to clarify (meaning the state nowadays known as Myanmar). Or like when he asked Nobel Peace Prize Nadia Murad why she obtained the award. She is a Yazidi woman survivor of ISIS genocide against this religious community who brought up attention worldwide about these mass killings, mainly in Iraq.

The law known as “Muslim ban” or “Travel ban” finally included countries which are not Muslim majority nations: North Korea and Venezuela. But it kept Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Iran among those with restrictions, including no travel at all for Syrians and North Korea people. Iraq and Sudan, which where among the countries in the first executive order, where finally dropped.

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Husna Ahmed was a teacher in one of the mosques. She ran to help keep safe the children and other women who had come to pray last Friday. They managed to escape the shooting, but when she came back to help her husband, she did not survive. Farid did. He has said he forgives the terrorist, and he is sure that his wife would too. Now he will be a father and a mother for his 15-year-old daughter.

“I was asked ‘how do you feel about the person who killed your wife?’ and I said ‘I love that person because he is a human, a brother of mine“, Farid Ahmed told the New Zealand Herald newspaper. “I do not support what he did (…). I have forgiven him and I am sure, if my wife was alive, she would have done the same thing. I hold no grudge.” He avoids using the word “terrorist”.

“I forgive him and I am sure, if my wife was alive, she would have done the same thing. I hold no grudge. I wish I could give him a hug”

He says that at night, when he was thinking about his loss and everything that happened, the terrorist also came to his mind. And his reaction was to embrace him and his whole family.

“I was trying to grieve and it came to me then that I wish I could give him a hug. I wish I could meet his mother and give her a hug and say ‘you are my aunty’. I wish if he had a sister I could hug her and say ‘you are no different than my sisters'”, he explains. He recognizes that some people will call him crazy, but he assures that he speaks from his heart. And he insists: “I f I got an opportunity, I would hug him.”

Last Friday, when the terrorist entered Al Noor mosque to which they had come to pray, his wife, Husna, ran to a side door of the temple with other women and children to save them, the newspaper explains. Having achieved this, Husna came back to help her husband, in a wheelchair for 6 years now due to an accident. But she got shot before being able to get to him.

>>> You may also read: Attacks against mosques are more usual than you might think<<<

Farid was in a room next to the main one and did not see what was happening. At one point, he decided to try to get out alone. He made it and took refuge next to his car, parked just outside the mosque. He recalls that when he thought the attack had finished, he went back inside with another man in search of his wife and the other women, in case they had not managed to flee. Farid is a senior member of the mosque and had given sermons in the temple for almost three years, so he knew most people, explains the New Zealand Herald.

Later, the policemen told him that it was “stupid” to have gone back inside the temple. Farid acknowledges that “it was probably stupid to do it, but I could not think otherwise at that time.”

The worst thing for him was having to tell the news to his 15-year-old daughter, Shifa. He breaks into tears when he remembers that she asked him: “Are you telling me I don’t have any mother?” He replied that from now on he would be his father and mother and that they would face it.

“Husna gave her life to save other people, and it was her last job”

Farid is very proud of his wife: “She gave her life to save other people and that was her last work- (…). She took so many of them to safety and then she was coming for me … I would describe her as somebody who was prepared to give her life for others.”

The terrorist – presumably Brenton Tarrant, the only one accused of the attack – killed 50 people and wounded 50 more. There are also several children among the victims, as small as a survivor of two years or Mucad Ibrahim, who is believed to be the youngest deceased and who was only three years old.

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