Civil rights advocates speak against Muslim hate after Plainfield Township murder verdict

Advocates of the family of a Muslim child who was killed in 2023 in Plainfield Township said the convicted killer was radicalized by unfounded and dehumanizing claims about Palestinians in media coverage of the Gaza war.

Muslim civil rights advocates held a news conference Friday after a Will County jury found Joseph Czuba, 73, guilty of committing a hate crime against and murder of Wadee Alfayoumi, 6, and the attempted murder of his mother, Hanan Shaheen, 33.

“The real culprit in this crime is hate,” said Ahmed Rehab, executive director of the Council on American–Islamic Relations in Chicago.

Rehab said the verdict against Czuba was no surprise because it was a “very clear-cut case,” which he said shook Muslim and Palestinian communities in Illinois, the U.S. and possibly the world.

“This is one of the worst hate crimes that have been committed in recent memory,” Rehab said.

Odai Alfayoumi also spoke at the news conference. Rehab translated Alfayoumi’s words.

“I don’t know if I should be pleased or upset, if I should be crying or laughing. People are telling me to smile. Maybe if I were one of you I would be smiling, but I’m the father of the child, and I’ve lost a child, and I feel like this decision came too little too late,” Alfayoumi said.

Alfayoumi said he prays that this “senseless loss” is the “last that we will see” and that no child will suffer what “my beloved Wadee had to go through.”

Prosecutors said part of the reason that Czuba attacked Shaheen and killed Wadee was because he watched the news about the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel.

Rehab said Wadee was brutalized in the “safety and sanctity of his own home simply and only because he was Muslim and Palestinian.”

Rehab asked the public to think about the context of Czuba’s crimes and the environment that allowed those crimes to happen.

“I think I’m not speaking out of line – I think the family feels the same way – that all the way up to the president of the United States at the time, President [Joe Biden], there is culpability,” Rehab said.

Rehab said Biden reiterated unfounded claims that babies were beheaded by Palestinians, and this was “part of the radicalization process of Joseph Czuba.”

“That’s what [Czuba] was reacting to: these unfounded claims – watching CNN around the clock, the way that the media covered the conflict, showing only one side of what was happening,” Rehab said.

During trial testimony, Shaheen said Czuba told her that her people were killing Jewish babies in Israel and she was “not doing anything about it.”

In response, Shaheen said she told Czuba, “Pray for peace.”

Rehab said the media coverage of the Gaza war did not show the “humanity and suffering and the reality” of the Gazans on the ground.

“We have to ask the question: Why does hate occur?” Rehab said.

Biden’s U.S. Department of Justice announced a federal hate crimes investigation into the Czuba incident.

But federal officials have said little about its progress since announcing the investigation.

Czuba’s trial revealed that Shaheen had met with FBI agents twice in 2023 and 2024, and that her last meeting with the FBI involved a trial attorney with the Department of Justice.

Rehab said Shaheen couldn’t attend the court hearing Friday because it was too difficult for her.

“She says that she only prays for peace and love,” Rehab said.