With Rupert Murdoch declaring on Twitter that “until [Muslims] recognize and destroy their growing jihadist cancer they must be held responsible,” attacks on Muslims across France, including gun and grenade attacks on mosques and the stoning of an eight-year-old Muslim girl, one Muslim man’s heroic actions on January 9 remains largely unheard of. Lassana Bathily, a 24-year-old Muslim from Mali, has been hailed as the hero of the porte de Vincennes hostage crisis. The hostage crisis commenced after Amedy Coulibaly, who had a day earlier shot a policewoman point-blank, entered a kosher supermarket and shot dead four people before taking others hostage. According to BFMTV, a French television channel, Bathily helped save 15 people in the supermarket once he noticed a dramatic hostage-crisis was about to unfold. “When they came running down…I opened the door (to the freezer). Several people then came in with me. I switched off the light, then switched off the freezer…When I switched off the cold room, I put them all in it, and closed the door. I asked for them to stay put and to stay calm, and [told them] that I will go out,”…
