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Complaint to be filed with U.S. Justice Department
The Los Angeles branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations says it will complain to the U.S. Justice Department over a California mayor's claim to be "growing a Christian community."
According to a report in the Antelope Valley Press, Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris told a group of 160 people, including many local pastors, last week, "We're growing a Christian community, and don't let anybody shy away from that … I need (Lancaster community) standing up and saying we're a Christian community, and we're proud of that."
The Greater Los Angeles Area office of CAIR then announced it would file a complaint with the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. The group urged California's "religious and political leaders, particularly Republicans," to speak out in support of "religious diversity."
The controversy follows word that the Council on American-Islamic Relations' Oklahoma chapter wants Sen. James Inhofe, R.-Okla., to meet with Muslim leaders to discuss his call during a congressional hearing to use religion and ethnicity as factors in profiling airline passengers.
"It is disturbing to hear a member of the United States Senate suggest that entire religious and ethnic groups should automatically be considered terror suspects," said CAIR-OK Executive Director Razi Hashmi. "Our nation's leaders have a duty not to exacerbate the growing anti-Muslim sentiment in American society."
Inhofe's spokesman didn't reply to a WND request for comment. But advocates of the senator's position argue correct profiling would not automatically regard a Muslim as a terror suspect. Rather, it would take a passenger's religion and ethnicity into account among a variety of factors that, together, comprise a terrorist "profile."
CAIR's national organization itself has been designated by the Justice Department as an unindicted terrorist conspirator, and the FBI has cut off its once-close ties with the group. CAIR's terrorist connections also have been exposed in an undercover probe that obtained internal documents confirming it acts as a front in the U.S. for international Muslim groups working to bring Saudi-style Islamic law to the nation.
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CAIR two months ago wrote a letter to President Obama urging him to address what it called an "alarming level of anti-Islam hate in our nation." As WND reported, an announcement of the letter cited the impact of the WND Books expose "Muslim Mafia" as an example of "hate." The group said its annual national report on the status of American Muslim civil rights, released in December, showed an increase in bias-related incidents in 2008.
CAIR has claimed since the 9/11 terrorist attacks that Muslims in the U.S. have suffered a sharp rise in anti-Islamic abuse. The group's 2005 abuse report blamed a purported increase in anti-Muslim harassment, violence and discriminatory treatment on the Internet and talk radio.
But FBI data actually has shown the number of incidents is dramatically shrinking.
The 2006 total of 156, for example, was a 68 percent drop from 2001.
Moreover, incidents against Muslims were just a fraction of overall hate crimes. In 2006, 66 percent of religiously motivated attacks targeted Jews, while just 11 percent were against Muslims, even though the Jewish and Muslim populations are similar in size.
CAIR describes itself as America's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization, aiming to "enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding."
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