Photo by Mauro Grigollo via Stocksy
Rumors of a gruesome sexual assault in Twin Falls, Idaho, allegedly carried out by a group of Syrian refugees have been debunked by authorities, reports the Idaho Statesman. The allegations were widely proliferated across social media this week, leading to a packed city council meeting on Monday, where residents vented fear and frustration over Syrian migrants. While there was an alleged incident involving two young migrants, Idaho authorities say that the details have been distorted and fabricated to advance the agenda of anti-Muslim and anti-refugee groups in the Twin Falls area and around the country."Idaho: Muslim Migrants RAPE 5-year-old, hold KNIFE to her throat, strip her naked, rape, and urinate on her" blared the headline on PamelaGeller.com. Geller is most well-known for protesting plans to build a mosque near the 9/11 memorial site. She is also the president of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) and Stop Islamization of America (SIOA).Geller, for her part, says the authorities are deflecting. In an email to Broadly she writes:
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Steven Crowder, former Fox News contributor and host of Louder with Crowder, took to his website to declare, "Wherever Syrian refugees go, rape seems to follow," and linked to the story from Geller's page. It then spread through Facebook.Yesterday morning, Twin Falls County authorities debunked these claims."There were no Syrians involved, there was no knife involved, there was no gang-rape," Twin Falls County Prosecutor Grant Loebs told the Statesman. He also denied, as had been reported by anti-Muslim websites, that the perpetrators' families celebrated the attack.Read more: The Girl Who Ran Away to Fight ISIS
"There is a small group of people in Twin Falls County whose life goal is to eliminate refugees, and thus far they have not been constrained by the truth," Loebs said. "They have not been constrained by the truth in the past, and I don't expect them to be constrained by the truth in the future."Both the prosecutor and investigators spoke publicly to refute the stories circulating on anti-refugee resettlement and conspiracy websites designed to prey upon a fear of Muslim refugee resettlement in the US. Loebs went on to explain that while an incident was reported, the details of the case were sealed because it involved only juveniles. He did confirm that two boys, ages 10 and 14, were being held in custody over allegations of inappropriate sexual conduct with a five-year-old girl. The boys were from Sudan and Iraq, and their "refugee status was not immediately clear" to Police Chief Craig Kingsbury, the Statesman reports.Read more: 'I Thought I was Going to Die': Syrian Refugees on Giving Birth in the Desert
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According to the Statesman, a crowd packed a city council meeting held on Monday—where several attendees accused the council of a cover-up.Meanwhile, supporters of the five-year-old girl at the center of the story started a Facebook page called "Justice For Our Children" and an online petition that had 3,299 signatures at the time of writing. The petition denies claims of racism, stating, "This little girl and her family will live with this trauma for the rest of their lives while these boys are out in our community with high probability of something like this happening again; especially when taking into consideration they have parental support for what they did. They are obviously being influenced and encouraged by their parents. Many families are extremely concerned about the safety of their children."The Statesman confirmed that no Syrians have been resettled in Twin Falls, while 36 have been resettled in Boise, about a two-hour drive away.Authorities are focusing on erroneous minutiae to divert attention from the horrifying reality. They weren't Syrian and there was possibly no rape. But there are eyewitnesses that there was sexual assault and that Muslim migrants were the perpetrators. These loudly trumpeted claims of error never denied the fundamental aspects of the story. Clearly there is a cover-up going on, intended to keep Americans ignorant and complacent about the dangers of the migrant influx.