By Jordan Bickham
Staff Writer

The Emerging Media and Communications Academy along with the Public Services Academy will hear a life changing story of forgiveness this today, April 30th in the lecture hall from speaker Rais Bhuiyan.

Bhuiyan was born in Bangladesh and came to United States to pursue a better education, but on Fri., Sept. 21, 2001 at 12:30 pm, a man holding a gun entered his work place.  The man asked where Bhuiyan came from making it known that this was not simply a robbery, but a hate crime linked to the 9/11 tragedy that threw the world in chaos.  The gunman, Mark Stroman, was on a shooting rampage against those of Middle Eastern descent due to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.  During his rampage, Stroman shot and killed Waqar Hasan on Sept. 15, shot Bhuiyan on Sept. 21 and also shot and killed Vasudez Patel on Oct. 4.  All the men shot were from Middle Eastern descent.

April 4th, 2002, Stroman was found guilty in the death of Patel and was supposed to be executed July 20th, 2011, but Bhuiyan decided to change his punishment to a life in prison with no parole and chose to forgive him.  Due to this event, Bhuiyan decided to create the organization World Without Hate to teach of forgiveness to young people.  You can learn more about the organization at it’s website.