Alaa Basatneh

This image was removed due to legal reasons. Ghada Bayati lost nearly everything in Iraq. Now she has 24 families in Houston, Texas. Bayati and her three children came to the U.S. eight years ago as refugees. She witnessed her husband get murdered in front of her during the Iraq War in 2003. She was pregnant with her third child when a mob struck their car and killed her husband. She went into a coma for three days after the incident. “They even tried to kill me in the hospital.

Why is everyone changing their profile pictures on Facebook to a solid red photo? It doesn't represent anything romantic. The solid red represents bloodshed caused by TNT barrel bombs targeting civilians in Aleppo, Syria. The last thing you probably heard on the news regarding Syria was the ceasefire.

Washington Post/Getty ImagesLet this serve as an open letter from a Muslim human rights activist to the Chicago Police officer that racially profiled me at Starbucks, to the lady that stuck out her middle finger at me on the road, and to the man that yelled “Hey fucking Muslim go back to your country” in front of Walgreens.