A trucker who beat the president of New Jersey’s state senate in the November election met with Muslim and Islamic leaders this week to apologize for past Islamphobic social media posts.
ABC News reports the tweets surfaced shortly after Edward Durr upset Steve Sweeney in the State Senate race. In 2019, he called the prophet Mohammed a “pedophile” and Islam a “cult of hate.”
He also compared vaccine mandates to the holocaust.
According to an emailed statement from the Council of American Islamic Relations to AsAmNews, Durr met with CAIR and said: “I stand against Islamophobia and all forms of hate, and I commit to that going forward. I look forward to working with the Muslim community. I sincerely apologize.”
CAIR says it is happy with the outcome of its 2-hour meeting with Durr.
“It was a productive meeting. Mr. Durr was sincere in his apology, and we welcome his condemnation of Islamophobia and his commitment to renouncing hate speech.”
Durr said he came away from the meeting learning something.
“I think it was a very open discussion. We got … a sense of each other. I think that’s the real key to everything. As long as you know somebody, it’s hard to hate somebody, don’t you think?”
AsAmNews has Asian America in its heart. We’re an all-volunteer effort of dedicated staff and interns. Check out our new Instagram account. Go to our Twitter feed and Facebook page for more content. Please consider interning, joining our staff, or submitting a story, or making a contribution.