South Bay mosque receives hate-filled letter

SAN JOSE, Calif. (KTVU) - "Vile, filthy people". Those are the hate-filled names scrawled out in a letter to a South Bay Mosque.

The members of this mosque say they are trying not to be alarmist about the letter, but at the same time they are staying vigilant and beefing up security.

Faisal Yazadi is the Board Director of the Evergreen Islamic Center in San Jose. 

He was shocked when he went to the mailbox the day before Thanksgiving and found a letter addressed to the members of his mosque.

Yazadi says, "It was pretty graphic."

The handwritten letter called Muslims "children of satan" and referred to the Mosque's members as "vile and filthy people" and warned that President-Elect Donald Trump would do them what "Hitler did to the Jews".

Yazadi also said, "After the original shock, we realize that these things do happen. This is one bad apple."

But since then, two other Mosques in Southern California, one in Long Beach and another in Claremont, received the same hate-filled letter, signed "Americans for a better way".

Zahara Billoo is the Director of the Bay Area chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. She says, "What we're concerned about this is that this is a part of a larger tred of normalized anti-Muslim hate".

Since the election, her group says it has verified at least 100 anti-Muslim acts nationwide.

Billoo says at least four of those incidents have happened in the Bay Area.

Billoo adds, "In the Bay Area, we've received and verified complaint sof a woman having her head scarf ripped off her head in broad daylight in a parking lot, another woman being yelled at, and a third woman who was mistaken for Muslim had her car vandalized and a hateful note left behind".

The President-Elect has condemned such attacks after earlier in his campaing calling for a "complete shutdown" of Muslims entering the U.S. Trump later said he supported banning immigrants from so-called "terror states".

On his website, a statement on preventing "Muslim immigration" remains. 

Billoo says the President-Elect should clarify what exactly he plans to do.

"Whether it's a Muslim ban, or extreme vetting, or a special registry, it's about words and actions right now", she says. 

San Jose Police say they are investigating the letter as a hate motivated incident. So far, there is no word on who sent it.