Civil Rights Group Denounces Discrimination As Texas Lawmakers Hold “Islamic Terrorism” Event
January 27, 2017
“I’m so tired of having to come to the Capitol to protect my neighbors from politicians who use minority populations as scapegoats” … “the faces change but the rhetoric never.”
After receiving a letter from Republican state Rep. Kyle Biedermann surveying their beliefs, mosque leaders and representatives of the Texas Muslim community made one request: Get to know us.
“We feel betrayed and singled out and absolutely discriminated against — that’s not what we expect from our elected officials,” Imam Yasir Fazaga of the Islamic Center of Brushy Creek said on Thursday while surrounded by a group of local interfaith leaders at the Texas Capitol. “The best way to overcome all of this is to get to know one another. We will not be intimidated by this tactic.”
A few days out from Texas Muslim Capitol Day, an advocacy day for members of Muslim communities around the state, interfaith leaders forcefully denounced a letter sent by the freshman Republican to mosque leaders and Muslim student associations across the state asking them to fill out a poll about their beliefs.
The poll — which Biedermann said was sent out to gather responses ahead of a “homeland security summit” that also took place on Thursday — asked Texas Muslims to indicate whether they support efforts to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization. The poll also asked respondents whether they supported the “Declaration of Muslim Reform Movement” and a pledge regarding the safety of former Muslims.
But the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which puts on the advocacy day, contended that Biedermann’s intentions were to derail the upcoming event. On Thursday, Sarwat Hussain, president of the San Antonio chapter of CAIR, reiterated that organizers would move forward with the biennial tradition of bringing hundreds of Muslim Texans to the Capitol to learn about the political process and meet state lawmakers despite Biedermann’s poll, which she described as “reminiscent of McCarthyism.”
