A Hamtramck City Council candidate on Thursday defended his disturbing social media comments about the Holocaust, child marriage, and homosexuality.
Nasr Hussain, who is among six people running for Hamtramck City Council, suggested on Facebook on Monday that the Holocaust was “advance punishment” for Israel’s “savagery” against Palestinians in the Israel-Hamas war.
“A heinous act proving that they're as savage and cruel as the Nazis themselves who tormented them, or maybe even worse,” Hussain posted on Hamtramck Square, a Facebook group that has increasingly become a cesspool of bigotry.
In another Facebook post, Hussain defended an adult man marrying a child, as long as the girl has reached puberty.
“She was betrothed at six, marriage consummated at nine after reaching puberty and giving her consent,” Hussain wrote in response to a news story about a child getting married to an adult man. “Women reach puberty between 8 and 12. If she was ok with it and her parents were ok with it why does it bother you.”
Hussain also compared homosexuality to treason.
“If the majority of society becomes infected with homosexual then this society is gone,” he wrote.
In response to a WXYZ-TV story about a mother and son who were charged with kidnapping for taking a teenager to get an abortion, Hussain wrote, “15 years old [SIC] can’t get married but she can get sexually assaulted, kidnapped, and forced to have an abortion. Liberal logic!!!”
Hussain declined a phone interview with Metro Times, but answered our questions in writing. He defended the Holocaust post, saying it was “a hypothetical and thought-generating question to make the Zionists think about what they’re doing to the innocent Palestinians hopefully making them think and ponder about the level of depravity they have reached.”
Hussain says he’s frustrated with the lack of empathy for Palestinians.
“It’s definitely not being taken seriously,” he says. “Imagine if what’s happening was happening to the Israeli civilians daily and thousands of them were killed collaterally, how much of an outcry would that generate!!”
Asked about his views on homosexuality and whether it should be banned, Hussain responded that he believes it’s destroying societies.
“Homosexuality leads to the destruction of societies therefore it should not be encouraged and should be prevented from spreading,” Hussain says.
Hussain doubled down on his support of child marriage, saying wedlock would help prevent abortions.
“If someone, whether a boy or a girl, under 18 is mature psychologically and physically, sexually active and expresses a desire to marry then they should be allowed to with the permission of their parents and court approval,” Hussain says. “Thousands of teenagers under the age of 16 get pregnant all over the country becoming single mothers raising their children alone or resorting to the horrendous experience of abortion because society removed the option of getting married and raising the child in a loving, caring family.”
Asked if he had any regrets about his posts, he responded, “I stand by anything I say.”
Hussain is endorsed by the Yemerican Political Action Committee, which describes itself as a group “interested in educating society about political rights.”
The PAC printed signs endorsing Hussain and two other council candidates — Councilmen Mohammed Hassan and Mohammed Al-Somiri — and posted them throughout Hamtramck.
On its Facebook page, the PAC boasted about the three candidates.
“In view of the public interest of the Yemeni-American community to preserve noble principles, values, and morals, and in order to ensure that immoral curricula are not introduced into our children’s schools, and after hearing the opinion of the members of the Advisory Council, active members of civil society organizations, and independents, we in the Yemeni-American political Action committee, Yemerican Pac, recognize that these candidates … are the best to preserve those principles and values, and we call on the Yemeni American community to support them and vote for them in the upcoming elections,” the post reads.
Metro Times couldn’t reach the PAC for comment.
The council election is Tuesday. Six candidates are vying for three seats. Three of the candidates — Al-Somiri, Hassan, and Nayeem Choudhury — are incumbents. The other candidates are Lynn Blasey and Muhtasin Sadman.
Homophobia has become rampant in Hamtramck, where the all-Muslim council banned the LGBTQ+ Pride flag from public property in June. Since then, dozens of Pride flags on private property have been stolen or vandalized, leading to tension in a city that has long celebrated its diversity. The city's nickname is “The World in Two Square Miles.”
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