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National Group Calls for Investigation Into Threats Against Muslims in Westbrook

PORTLAND, Maine - A national Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization is calling on state and federal authorities to investigate threats against Muslims in Westbrook.

Westbrook Police are investigating notes discovered at an apartment complex urging violence against Muslims as a hate crime.

The type-written notes said, "All Muslims are terrorists, should be killed." Police and building residents found several of them around the building.

Ibrahim Hooper, communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, says threats against refugees are especially cruel. "It really is disturbing that people who have fled, in many cases, from violence and threats of violence, would be subjected to similar threats here in America."

Authorities say they don't know if the threats are related to recent reports that 38-year-old Adnan Fazeli, an Iranian who came to Maine as a refugee in 2009, was fighting for the Islamic State group when he was killed in Lebanon last year. Fazeli had lived in that same complex at one time.

Westbrook police weren't immediately available to comment, but the department has set up a meeting tonight with Iraqi community members to address their concerns.

Nora is originally from the Boston area but has lived in Chicago, Michigan, New York City and at the northern tip of New York state. Nora began working in public radio at Michigan Radio in Ann Arbor and has been an on-air host, a reporter, a digital editor, a producer, and, when they let her, played records.