Atheists, humanists take up slain Muslim’s cause

c. 2015 Religion News Service

(RNS) Atheists and other nonbelievers have pitched in more than $20,000 to support the charity work of one of the three Muslim students slain in North Carolina last week, allegedly by a man who harbored anti-theist sentiments.

One of the slain students, Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, was a graduate dental student at the University of North Carolina and planned to travel with the Syrian American Medical Society Foundation to Syrian refugee camps. He was shot and killed February 10 along with his wife, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, 21, and sister-in-law, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19, in what police say may have started as a neighborhood parking dispute.