Muqarrab Ahmed Abdullah Image by University of Maryland Police Dept.

(JTA) — A University of Maryland student was arrested for sending anti-Semitic text messages to a female student “because of her religious beliefs,” university police told local media.

The female student began receiving messages on her cellphone in December from a person she did not know while she studied in the library on the College Park campus, the local ABC affiliate WMAR Channel 2 News reported. She reported it on Dec. 12, 2019.

Muqarrab Ahmed Abdullah, 24, is charged with electronic communication harassment, telephone misuse and a race/religion crime. It is also classified as a hate crime, The Diamondback student newspaper reported. He was arrested on Thursday.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

In an email sent to the campus community on Saturday, the university’s diversity and inclusion vice president, Georgina Dodge, and student affairs vice president, Patricia Perillo, called the incident “unacceptable,” according to the student newspaper.

“Hate has no place on our campus, and we thank UMPD for holding our community accountable,” they wrote. “[W]hen we have the ability to charge perpetrators, we will do so.”

The post University of Maryland student arrested for sending anti-Semitic text messages to fellow student appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount