Federal criminal charges have been filed against a man who allegedly threatened to blow up an Islamic center in Minneapolis last year.
U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger announced Wednesday that Daniel George Fisher, 57, had been charged with obstruction of persons in the free exercise of religious beliefs. A criminal complaint and documents filed in U.S. District Court alleged that Fisher sent an anonymous handwritten letter to the Tawfiq Islamic Center, threatening to “blow up your building with all you immigrants in it.”
The letter also included profanities, racial and ethnic slurs and other derogatory comments about religious and cultural practices of the members of the center, according to a news release from the U.S. attorney’s office. The center, on 2400 Minnehaha Ave., was established by Oromo Muslims from Ethiopia who had moved to Minnesota, according to its website.
The criminal complaint and court documents said that when FBI special agents interviewed Fisher on June 14, Fisher confessed to writing the letter and mailing it to the Tawfiq Islamic Center with the intent to threaten and scare members of the center. Fisher said he had become “increasingly angry with Muslims since 9/11,” according to prosecutors. He told the agents that he was angry that the center selected Minnehaha Avenue for its new location and he wanted the center to build somewhere else, according to prosecutors.
Fisher made an initial appearance Wednesday in U.S. District Court in St. Paul.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations is urging American Muslims and Islamic institutions to take extra security precautions these days and welcomed the prosecutor’s actions. We “hope that the prosecution of this individual will send the message that threats targeting religious minorities will not be tolerated,” Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said in a statement.