Melrose Human Rights Commission & Mayor's Office Release Response to December 3 Incident

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“Goodness has a First Amendment right, too. We urge you to denounce hate groups and hate crimes and to spread the truth about hate’s threat to a pluralistic society. An informed and unified community is the best defense against hate”

~ Southern Poverty Law Center. (2017, August 14). Ten Ways to Fight Hate: A Community Response Guide

In Melrose, on December 3rd, Melrose City Councilor Maya Jamaleddine and her family pulled into a local gas station to fill their car tires with air. While her husband filled the tires and Councilor Jamaleddine waited in the passenger seat with two of their children in the back of the car, two women pulled up alongside their vehicle. The driver rolled down her window and told Councilor Jamaleddine and her family to “Go back to your EXPLICIT country”. The two women continued to direct additional hateful and vulgar words at Councilor Jamaleddine and her family and one of the women pushed Councilor Jamaleddine’s husband during the confrontation.

Simply put, these racist, Islamophobic attacks have no place in our city or anywhere. We must call out these acts and stand with our residents who are the subject of these attacks. The Melrose Human Rights Commission and the Mayor’s Office want residents of Melrose to know that there is zero tolerance for hate speech, hate incidents, and hate crimes. The UN Strategy and Plan of Action defines hate speech as “any kind of communication in speech, writing or behavior, that attacks or uses pejorative or discriminatory language with reference to a person or a group on the basis of who they are, in others words, based on their religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, colour, descent, gender or other identity factor”. By defining and making our community aware of these hateful incidents, we hope to create an informed and unified Melrose that will remain intolerant of discriminatory practices of any kind; particularly these incidents of hate speech and acts of violence.

We encourage Melrose residents to reach out to the Melrose Human Rights Commission, the Mayor’s Office, and Melrose Police if they experience or see any overt expressions of hate-motivated incidents or speech in Melrose. We have included contact information for all three of these city resources below:

Melrose Human Rights CommissionPaul Brodeur, Mayor of MelroseMelrose Police Department
Hotline: (781) 979-4140Phone: 781-979-4440Phone: (781) 665-1212
 melrosehrc@gmail.compbrodeur@cityofmelrose.org www.melrosepolice.net/contact