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| A Policy of Double Standards Mushrooms Among Muslim Media
Written by Shireen Qudosi
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Monday, 22 June 2009 07:58
Since 9/11, the FBI has emphasized identifying domestic national security threats while at the same time fostering an open door policy with local Muslim communities.
In March of 2009, the bureau discovered the door had been slammed shut. The Southern California Islamic community was in an uproar over findings that the FBI had placed ex-con Craig Monteilh as an informant at the Islamic Center of Irvine. Monteilh, assigned in August of 2006 to infiltrate the community under the guise of a Muslim convert, worked to undercover individuals who might be threats to U.S. security by developing personal relationships among his new circle of friends. The developments became public soon after Monteilh handed over a taped conversation with 34 year old Ahmadullah Niazi. Niazi, a naturalized U.S. citizen of Afghan descent, was recorded praising bin Laden in repeat conversations. This prompted local agents to arrest and question Niazi on multiple grounds, including naturalization fraud and failure to disclose that Niazi’s brother-in-law is a high-ranking al-Qaida member. Niazi appealed to CAIR (the Council on American Islamic Relations), protesting that the FBI threatened him for not becoming an informant in light of the evidence held against him. As a reaction to the bureau’s use of informants to infiltrate mosques and at the alleged intimidation of Niazi, local Muslims groups (including CAIR) advocated ending outreach efforts with law enforcement agencies. The incident here is not an isolated one. “Across the nation, such grass-roots relationships between Muslims and the federal government are in jeopardy.” This per a coalition of Muslim groups, represented by the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections, is in response to “increasing government surveillance in mosques, new Justice Department guidelines that the groups say encourage profiling, and the FBI’s recent suspension of ties with the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights group, the Council on American Islamic Relations.” The call to cut community relations with the FBI ignores the real threats that continue to thrive in these niches. Considering that mosques are an ideological gathering place, the probability that they are breeding grounds for Islamist recruiting is a harsh reality that Muslim communities do not recognize. The FBI has a critical role to play which they cannot carry out without conducting low-key surveillance. The failure of Muslim coalitions to recognize this handicaps the FBI’s ability to work toward the best interest of all American citizens, including the safety of the Muslim coalitions who banded together against the FBI. This raises the question of the bureau’s effectiveness if it’s unable to gain the support of the greater Muslim community itself. The high-profile Niazi trial draws attention to alarming levels of bias in Muslim media against governmental efforts to fight terrorism. In Focus, the most widely distributed Muslim newspaper in Southern California, featured an article attacking the credibility of the prosecutor. Withholding the facts of the case, In Focus questioned U.S. Attorney Deirdre Eliot’s ability as a prosecutor due to her affiliation with the Lincoln Club of Orange County. Accusing the Orange County Chapter of featuring newsletters containing content on fundamentalist Islam and radical Islamists, In Focus asserted that Eliot “runs the risk of being guilty by association herself for supporting a right-wing group that has promoted anti-Islamic rhetoric on its Websites.” Stanford Knight Fellow and journalist Eugene Kane recognizes the problem here, noting “criticism of the prosecutor instead of dealing with the details of the case doesn't really give readers the whole story. That's where bias is dangerous. If you're skewing the facts of the story to make a point, then it's not journalism, it’s commentary.” Rather than work with local authorities to identify and isolate common threats to national security local Muslim groups have instead chosen to fall back on the rhetoric of victim hood that isolates them from the mutual interests of a collective American society. The Monteilh and the Niazi trials highlight a greater issue the Muslim community faces. By maintaining a policy of double standards used to victimize themselves and criminalize third parties to sabotage investigations, silence criticism of Islamist activity within the community, Muslim leaders enable security risks that one day might harm their own communities. Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Los Angeles Chapter of CAIR, stated “It is a serious flag when a government prosecutor of Ms. Eliot’s position and role is associated with a group that is clearly promoting anti-Muslim bigotry in its most hateful forms,” adding further that “her generous contribution to a group that is spreading Islamophobia and her refusal to repudiate or disassociate herself form its views sends an unspoken yet strong message on how she views Muslims and about her possible personal biases in driving this case against members of the Muslim community.” However, these groups and these leaders do not recognize their own self-contradiction when the community failed to distance itself from Niazi after evidence revealed that he had praised Taliban leaders and likened bin Laden to an angel. Reversing the In Focus argument against Eliot, Muslim groups also 'run the risk of being guilty by association' by refusing to 'repudiate and disassociate' themselves from Niazi. Not only do they fail to distance themselves from such people, they also endanger a larger community by protecting those individuals who authorities have legally asserted as a national security risk. Furthermore, recent expert recommendations for the U.S. Government to step away from terminology linking Islam with violence become ineffective measures if community groups themselves cannot directly disassociate from terrorist sympathizers. Please help make it possible for the Qudosi Chronicles to continue providing insightful analysis of the issues that affect you. Show your support today.
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