Mustapha Kharbouch endured a week of death threats and racist attacks after online influencers falsely linked the Palestinian student to the Brown University mass shooting that killed two students and injured several others on December 13.
The Brown University student became the target of a vicious smear campaign when far-right social media users baselessly accused him of being the gunman who opened fire during finals week.
Kharbouch said he woke up Tuesday morning to “unfounded, vile, Islamophobic, and anti-Palestinian accusations” flooding his social media accounts.
“Instead of grieving with my community in the aftermath of the horrible shooting, I received non-stop death threats and hate speech,” Kharbouch said in a statement released through his legal team at Muslim Advocates.
The false accusations spread rapidly across social media platforms before law enforcement identified the actual shooter. Police later confirmed that Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, a 48-year-old Portuguese national and former Brown physics student, carried out the deadly attack.
Valente died by suicide from a self-inflicted gunshot wound days before authorities discovered his body in a storage unit in Salem, New Hampshire. An autopsy confirmed he died on Tuesday, the same day the online harassment campaign against Kharbouch intensified.
Kharbouch’s legal team responded to law enforcement inquiries about his whereabouts during the shooting before the real perpetrator was identified. The attorneys said the baseless attacks likely distracted police from pursuing legitimate leads in their investigation.
“Racism against Palestinians is at the core of these baseless attacks,” the legal team stated. “Bad faith actors moved to pin the shooting on Mustapha, on the mere basis of his being Palestinian.”
Brown University removed several webpages that referenced Kharbouch as a precautionary safety measure after he was doxxed online. The university calls this a standard protocol when individuals face targeted harassment.
The incident highlights the dangerous consequences of anti-Palestinian racism that has escalated across college campuses.
Kharbouch’s lawyers referenced previous hate crimes, including the murder of a 6-year-old Palestinian boy, Wadea al-Fayoume, in Chicago and the shooting of three Palestinian-American students in Vermont in 2023.
“I refuse to be silenced by anyone who comes after me for my identity and advocacy for Palestinians,” Kharbouch said. “Even in this nightmare, I have been flooded with incredible messages of support from friends, faculty, staff, and strangers alike.”
The Brown shooting marked one of the deadliest campus attacks in recent years. Valente fired 44 bullets from a 9mm handgun during the December 13 rampage that terrorized students during exam period.
Authorities believe Valente also killed an MIT professor in a separate incident. The motive for both attacks remains under investigation as the Brown community continues processing the tragedy.
Kharbouch described the ordeal as “an unimaginable nightmare” but vowed to continue his Palestinian advocacy work despite the threats. His case demonstrates how quickly misinformation can spread and endanger innocent people during crisis situations.