SURVIVOR STORIES: Rais Bhuiyan
Rais Bhuyian was shot at point-blank range in an Islamophobic attack. He is a campaigner against the death sentence, including for his own attacker.
Rais Bhuiyan immigrated to America, and opened a gas station with a friend. After 9/11, he felt himself being increasingly attacked by customers. One day, a white supremacist shot him in the face with a shotgun as part of a killing spree, driven by hate for Muslims. Bhuyian lost vision in one eye and has dozens of bullet fragments embedded in his face. His attacker, Mark Stroman, was sentenced to death. Bhuyian became fixated upon his attacker’s death sentence, and campaigned for the sentence to be commuted, appealing personally for clemency at the Supreme Court. While the campaign was not successful, Bhuyian became convinced of Stroman’s ability to change and to become an ambassador against hate, and the importance of ending the cycle of violence through creating policies to address hate, and building interpersonal connections across identity boundaries.