When the media is forced to teach a geography lesson

In light of the terrible recent events in Boston, things have spurred into a frenzy. Mainly a geographical frenzy. The two brothers that were apprehended were of Chechen origin. However, a lot people seem to have decided that meant they were from the Czech Republic.

Those are two entirely separate countries. The Czech Republic is in Central Europe and Chechnya is located in south Russia. There are 1700 miles between those two countries. These are two entirely different nations with very different background and history. Chechnya is unfortunately known for being a violent country. The Czech republic is however a very peaceful nation.

The ambassador of the Czech republic shouldn't have to release a statement warning people that these are two different countries. It is terrible that people are shouting bad things and threatening violence to a nation that was not involved in the attack. It is a stupid and cowardly action. One should never answer violence with violence

I am not making light of what has been happening recently. I never will. Put I urge people to be calm and think rationally and not jump to conclusions. Threatening others is not the way to deal with things. The suspects have been apprehended, their family (who I feel very sorry for) has condemned their actions. Now is the time to grief, come together and think how events like this can be stopped from happening again. Not to rise to stupid action and make a bad thing incredibly worse. Because it serves no one. Least of all those that were most impacted by the attack.

Independent article on the subject but please ignore the comment section

And if people want to see an explanation of where the Chechen republic is and the political situation there - Episode 4x13 of NCIS:Los Angeles provides a good explanation early in the episode. It makes me sad to watch it now, knowing that what they dealt with in the episode really did happen :/

(And for the record, everyone I know can locate the Czech republic on a map comfortably but I don't think many of us could locate the state of Maine f.ex. so the geography stupidity goes both ways in some respects)