The Temple of Pittsburgh attack: Trump brings flags at half-mast, describes attack crime of hatred

The US authorities leveled 29 federal charges against the 46-year-old Robert Bowers, who opened fire on Saturday in a synagogue in Pittsburgh, where Jewish worshipers were performing a religious ceremony for the birth of a child. Eleven people were killed and six injured.

US President Donald Trump on Saturday ordered flags to be placed at half-mast on public, government and military buildings inside and outside the country from Saturday to Wednesday, mourning the victims of the attack.

“The shooter – Robert Powers – who was arrested by police after being wounded during the exchange of fire, shouted at the top of his voice: “All Jews must die”, said Jeff Sessions, US Attorney General.

The US media described the attack as the most bloody anti-Semitic attack in the history of the country, avoiding its description as a terrorist act, which has long been a matter of debate as some observers see the need for fixed standards to describe terrorist operations.

Possession of arms

The American community is debating the text of the Constitution on the right of ordinary people to possess a weapon. The country has seen about 158 random fire attacks since the beginning of this year, and these attacks killed about 11,000 Americans every year, according to the records of the US Department of the Interior.

“Terrorist acts by Muslims receive more attention from the media four times than terrorist attacks by others, and there is an imbalance in the use of the description of terrorist acts in the media,” journalist Charlotte Angeland said in an article in The Independent.

The American journalist, Ryan Knight, in an interview with MSNBC, said earlier: “The terrorist attacks carried out in the United States by the far right are the most dangerous and bloodiest. The country, however, is not as interested as the crimes committed by Muslims, and it is enough that the perpetrator’s name has an Islamic connotation, to find a “media fever” to cover the incident intensively.

In a survey conducted by a researcher at the George Washington University on the perpetrators of attacks in the United States between 2007 and 2016, 74% of the perpetrators of the attacks were found to belong to the extreme right, while Islamists carried out about 24% of the attacks.