NBC Chicago: Boy and his mother stabbed in Plainfield Township were targeted because of their Islamic faith, police say

By Matt Stefanski and Courtney Sisk

The Council on American–Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights and advocacy group, identified the mother and son as Hanaan Shahin and Wadea Al-Fayoume, who are both Palestinian-American. They had resided on the ground floor of the home for two years and had no notable issues with Czuba, their landlord, according to a statement from the advocacy group.

CAIR cited text messages sent from the boy's mother in the hospital to his father, saying that the landlord "had been angry with what he was seeing in the news." Then, the landlord knocked on the mother's door, at which point he allegedly tried to choke her and attack her with a knife, according to CAIR, citing the text messages.

Six-year-old Wadea, who had just celebrated his birthday a few weeks ago, loved playing basketball and soccer, according to his father.

"He love his family and his friends. He loved life. He was looking forward to a long, healthy prosperous life...Like your child, like my child, like any of us when we were children," said Ahmed Rehab, executive director of CAIR Chicago. "He has no clue about these larger issues happening in the world, but he was made to pay for it."

Youself Hannon, Wadea's paternal uncle, spoke alongside Rehab at a news conference, delivering an emotional message.

"We are not animals," he stated. "We are humans. We want people to see us as humans, to feel us as humans, to deal with us as humans, because this is what we are."

In a news release issued earlier this week, CAIR-Chicago reported a spike in hate calls/emails as a result of recent violence in the Middle East. The dozens of messages the organization received in recent days rivaled the amounts received following the Sept. 11 terror attacks and former President Trump's travel ban targeting Muslim-majority countries, according to the group.