U.S. Muslims Launch Anti-Terror Campaign

[Lincoln]

LOS ANGELES, May 29 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Several U.S. Muslim organizations have embarked on an anti-terror campaign, vowing to cooperate with authorities in tracking down any suspicious activities.

"We want to debunk the myth that American Muslims are not concerned with securing our homeland," Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), told the Washington Post on Friday, May 28.

The campaign will be in coordination with F.B.I. Director Robert Mueller and jointly announced at a Los Angeles mosque in the form of a "grass-roots Muslim initiative against terrorism".

It includes newspaper advertisements, a petition drive and public commitments to work hand in hand with law enforcement agencies, the American daily said.

Al-Marayati said the MPAC will work with the FBI to denounce terrorism, control "belligerence" at mosques and improve communication between Muslims and U.S. authorities.

"We have zero tolerance to the notion that Muslims are not doing their job. We're not going to allow that," Reuters quoted as saying Maher Hathout, senior adviser for the MPAC.

Speaking at a press conference at the Islamic Center of Southern California in Los Angeles, he said the campaign was launched primarily in reaction to the recent announcement by Attorney General John Ashcroft that al-Qaeda may be 90 percent prepared for a terrorist attack in the United States later this year.

"The danger is quite imminent," he said. "But we'd like to end the false notion that Muslims are a specimen to be studied or a community to be investigated. We are full-fledged participants in the fight against terrorism in America."

The Muslim activist further regretted that the Muslims in the U.S. still feel discriminated against.

"Things are being said about Muslims that nobody could say about any other religion in America and get away with it," he said.

According to a Senate report released earlier in the month, the U.S. Muslim community has taken the brunt of the Patriot Act and other federal powers applied in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

In its ninth annual Muslim civil rights report , the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) documented an unprecedented increase of 70 percent of anti-Muslim violence over the previous year.

In Northern Virginia, Kamal Nawash, a lawyer and Palestinian immigrant, launched last week the Free Muslim Coalition Against Terrorism campaign.

Crucial

U.S. officials said the help of the Muslim community in the anti-terror drive is crucial, said the American daily.

"Within the Islamic community, they are going to know much better who is suspicious and who is not," said John Miller, who heads homeland security operations for the Los Angeles Police Department.

"The best information we can get about the fringe in the Muslim community will be from the Muslims."

As part of the U.S. Muslims wider campaign, CAIR posted on May 15 an online petition for Muslims to disassociate Islam from violent acts carried out its name by few.

The petition maintains that those who commit acts of violence in the name of Islam "are not only destroying innocent lives, but are also betraying the values of the faith they claim to represent".

"We repudiate and dissociate ourselves from any Muslim group or individual who commits such brutal and un-Islamic acts," it reads.

On Wednesday, May 26, CAIR also published a full-page advertisement in the Los Angeles Times titled "No to terrorism, No to bigotry."

Hussam Ayloush, head of CAIR's Southern California office, said five Los Angeles-area Muslim businessmen paid for the Ad.

Fundraising for similar advertisements is underway in other cities, including New York, Houston and St. Louis, he said.

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) had recently championed a similar campaign in Britain to "isolate and stop tolerating those spreading hatred against the country using the name of Islam."

The MCB made the unprecedented move of sending letters to mosques and community leaders, urging concerted effort to work for the peace and security of all in Britain.

"It particularly urges imams to observe the utmost vigilance against any mischievous or criminal elements from infiltrating the community and provoking any unlawful activity," the group said in the letter posted on its website.