True to form for the mainstream media, Matt Pearce and Kurtis Lee are completely uncritical regarding CAIR’s self-description. Would they repeat without caveat or opposing voice the self-description of the American Freedom Defense Initiative? What do you think?
Also, they don’t deem it fit to print the fact that CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case — so named by the Justice Department. CAIR operatives have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror. CAIR’s cofounder and longtime Board chairman (Omar Ahmad), as well as its chief spokesman (Ibrahim Hooper), have made Islamic supremacist statements. Its California chapter distributed a poster telling Muslims not to talk to the FBI, and its Tampa chapter distributed pamphlets counseling the same silence and non-cooperation with law enforcement. CAIR has opposed every anti-terror measure that has ever been proposed or implemented.
Then, displaying his typical brazen chutzpah, Awad says: “I’m really angry that despite all the work that we have been doing in our communities to serve the nation, we are treated with suspicion.” All the work Hamas-linked CAIR has done in Muslim communities has been designed to obstruct counter-terror efforts, not to aid them, and to stigmatize and demonize all those who oppose jihad terror as “bigots” and “Islamophobes.” No wonder there is suspicion.
It is also ridiculous for the Los Angeles Times to be aiding and abetting Hamas-linked CAIR’s claim to be a “civil rights” organization because opposing jihad terror is not a civil rights issue. No one with any sense wants to take away civil rights from Muslims or anyone else. The scrutiny of Muslim communities is about preventing another jihad terror attack, and that is all it is about. If Awad were really interested in preventing jihad terror attacks, he would be applauding counter-terror efforts, not trying to block them.
“The new civil rights leaders: Emerging voices in the 21st century,” by Matt Pearce and Kurtis Lee, Los Angeles Times, March 5, 2015:
Some of the concerns are old — voting rights, police misconduct, racial profiling. Others — such as trans rights and access to technology — are more recent. Much in the spirit of activists who pushed for civil rights a half century ago, a new generation is fighting battles old and new. A sampling of these emerging leaders across the country:…
“Despite all the work that we have been doing in our communities to serve the nation, we are treated with suspicion.”
Nihad AwadExecutive director and co-founder, Council on American-Islamic Relations
Age: 53
Washington, D.C.
CAIR is the nation’s most prominent Islamic advocacy organization, making Awad, its leader, one of America’s foremost Muslim voices in the years since the Sept. 11 attacks. The group monitors hate crimes and discrimination against Muslim Americans and pushes news releases and action alerts on issues affecting Muslims.
Awad has been an outspoken opponent of blanket surveillance of Muslims, and his own email account was allegedly tracked by the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation between 2006 and 2008, according to documents leaked by Edward Snowden.
“I’m outraged as an American citizen that my government, after decades of civil rights struggle, still spies on political activists and civil right activists and leaders,” Awad told the Intercept, the news organization that broke the story. “I’m really angry that despite all the work that we have been doing in our communities to serve the nation, we are treated with suspicion.”…