This Muslim Man Saved Several Hostages During The Paris Kosher Market Siege

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Muslim employee Lassana Bathily saved lives by hiding customers in walk in freezer

Four people were killed Friday when the terrorist Amedy Coulibaly took several hostages inside a Kosher market in Paris, but that number may well have been higher were it not for a quick-thinking employee of the market named Lassana Bathily.

Bathily, a 24-year-old Muslim from Mali, was working in the store in the Porte de Vincennes neighborhood when the Islamist gunman burst in.

As panic ensued, up to 15 customers in the store hurried down to the store basement, when Bathily had an idea.

“When they ran down, I opened the door [to the freezer],” he told France’s BFMTV.

He quickly shut off the freezer and switched off its light. As he closed the door to shelter the customers inside, he told them, “Stay calm here. I’m going out.”

Eventually police raided the market, killing Coulibaly. As the hostages were freed from the freezer, they had a few words of thanks for Bathily. “They congratulated me,” he told BFMTV.

Originally Posted in Buzzfeed: http://www.buzzfeed.com/davidmack/paris-market-hero#.pl197nV6R

Forum

Joie de Vivre — Sat, 10 Jan 2015 - 20:44

[quote=You]With the amount of demonisation that the hostage taking and CHarlie Hebdo killings will create it is unfortunately necessary to post stories of positive action by Muslims which may have saved lives.[/quote]

Bravo! (But why "unfortunately necessary"? I know that there is unreasonable pressure on Muslims to speak out - and for my part that pressure is really only on those, say here, who do make political comment, if you're minding your business do just carry on - but surely you would rather post this out of pride in a Muslim hero when he saves Jews, or any innocents, the opposite of what the murderers believed.)

You — Sat, 10 Jan 2015 - 20:55

"Unfortunately necessary" because people have died.

I find the need to shout "but there are good Muslims too" especially at a time when people have been killed slightly tasteless but it has become necessary to report such things, otherwise only the extremists killing people angle gets covered.