Protesters calling for a ceasefire in Gaza interrupted Joe Biden at the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, drawing rebuke from the president’s supporters who accused them of disrespecting the house of worship.
In 2015, a white supremacist gunman killed nine Black worshippers at the historic church.
“Mother Emanuel AME is hallowed ground in the AME church community and in Charleston especially,” commentator Symone Sanders Townsend, a former aide to Vice President Kamala Harris, wrote in a social media post.
“The shock of people in the crowd at protesters yelling out while President Joe Biden was speaking from the pulpit cannot be overstated.”
But others pushed back, saying the church is an appropriate place to stage a protest to stop mass killings and noting that Israel – with Biden’s support – has bombed dozens of churches and mosques in Gaza.
“What better place to speak against the killing of people,” one social media user wrote in response to Sanders Townsend.
Source: AlJazeera
