Posted on 07/03/2016 8:16:55 AM PDT by Ketill Frostbeard
Washington DC - A group of American Muslims, joined by interfaith leaders, have launched an initiative to get thousands of Americans to take part in a march in Washington DC on July 23, in what they call a stand against bigotry, "extremism", and gun violence.
The American Muslim March will take place at the National Mall - home to various large-scale historical gatherings - to also condemn "terrorism" and vocally eschew the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), organisers said.
Rally sponsors include more than 20 organisations representing the three monotheistic regions, as well as the Buddhist, Sikh, Hindu, and Bahai communities.
The initiative comes at a time when anti-Muslim sentiment is high, in part driven by the rhetoric of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has called for the banning of foreign Muslims from the United States.
Trump has made his Muslim ban a centrepiece of his candidacy: he recently reiterated his proposal following an attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando, which left 49 people dead. He also suggested profiling Muslims, citing Israel as an example, and implied that US President Barack Obama was complicit or sympathetic to radicalised Muslims.
Some Muslim groups have been more vocal about terrorism, gun violence and Islamophobia, since a married couple, inspired by ISIL ideology, killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California.
"We were motivated to take action after San Bernardino," said Khaled al-Mufti, a member of the rally organising committee. "We wanted to denounce ISIS as an ideology that claims to be representative of Islam, but it's not. That's not the religion we practise. We want to make it loud and clear to all the world: This is not Islam."
The rally is being organised by the Islamic Society of Central Florida, and the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) in Washington DC, which recently hosted Secretary of State John Kerry and Hollywood actress and activist Angelina Jolie with Syrian refugees in recognition of World Refugee Day.
For the event, organisers are reaching out to renowned Muslims such as Yousef Islam, previously known as Cat Stevens, retired basketball legend Kareem Abdul Jabbar, and influential Islamic scholar Hamza Yusuf. They are hoping to attract about 100,000 people from the Muslim and immigrant communities and anybody "affected by the recent surge in hostility towards minorities", Mufti told Al Jazeera.
"The rhetoric going on in the presidential campaigns is creating an atmosphere of bigotry," he said. "This is not only towards Muslim, but also towards immigrant communities. We therefore wanted to provide a platform for everyone to speak about those issues."
The Southern Poverty Law Centre, which tracks hate groups, said anti-Muslim attacks rose sharply in 2015, "egged on by a steady drumbeat of propaganda from Islamophobes and given a megaphone by the press and a presidential frontrunner given to racist and Muslim-hating oratory". Last year, three young Muslim Americans were shot dead by a man known for his hatred of Islam in the university town of Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Also in 2015, there were approximately four times as many attacks on mosques than the previous year, according to a recent report released by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and the Centre for Race and Gender at UC Berkeley.
The 78 instances where Muslim houses of worship were targeted - via arson, vandalism or other methods - partly show the pervasiveness of Islamophobia in all aspects of society, according to Hatem Bazian, the centre's director of the Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project, who contributed to the report.
"The report gives the widest view of the situation facing Muslims today in America and we are still speaking about 2015 and not yet accounting for the full impact of Trump's campaign and the shift that he made in making Islamophobia acceptable and patriotic," Bazian told Al Jazeera.
The report highlights the various methods in which Islamophobia is manifested, including the rise in anti-Islam groups, armed demonstrations outside of mosques, hate crimes against Muslim Americans, and private businesses declaring themselves 'Muslim-free zones'.
In 2014, there were 74 Islamophobic groups, the report found - 33 whose primary purpose is to promote prejudice against Islam and Muslims, and the rest whose "work regularly demonstrates or supports Islamophobic themes", such as Fox News Channel and the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Islamophobia is also driven by a political elite, Bazian said, who, "facing trickle down economic failure and dead-end domestic policies they championed over 40 years since the Reagan administration ... offer the Muslim subject as the springboard to avoid all issues and thus win seats".
“Thousands of Americans?” Then it goes on to say thousands of Muslims. Another WTF headline.
More left wing muddying the waters.
They are devoutly following their prophet. They are not “radicalized”.
Muslims have a religious duty to kill, convert or subjugate all non-muslims.
Everywhere.
Forever.
They’ve been doing it for 1400 years.
For a muslim to freely practice their religion, others must die.
Mad Mo made it so.
I say we encourage the most flamboyant gays who like to have the most public exhibitions of any form of nudity and debauchery posible to attend this event
So no protests against radical Islam?
Got it. Enemies they are.
Interfaith leaders are about to become Extinct
PS, what's "American" about these scum? They arrived here no a jet plane a few minutes ago?
Will they tell everybody about their white prophet moehammed who owned black slaves?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZxH4QYLRQY
Funny they never march against terror against non-muslims, only the imaginary “backlash” against terrorists.
The liberals in America. The more muslims kill the more they are accepted, excused, and defended.
It’s bigotry to observe that Muslims are behind virtually all terrorism these days and that the Koran actually says things supporting the militants views but not those of Muslims who claim to be peaceable though many admit they want to be under Sharia (well, besides taqiyya).
It’s also probably bigotry to observe that the OIC, acting as a widely recognized legal authority over Islam, defines thing like “terrorism”, “injustice” of “oppression” only by Sharia, meaning that these only really apply if Muslims are afflicted without right.
Actually, knowing anything about Islam besides the cotton clouds and gumdrops vision painted by the Islamic Brotherhood and a federal government eager to expunge any mention of Islam from Islamic terror attacks must be bigotry....
They, the untold masses of which pitifully few are represented in person rally in defense of the bigotry of condemnation of their brethrens’ actions.
Pray tell where were the throngs, the thousands, the tens of thousands, nay, even the millions that marched in the aftermath of the founding incident, 9/11, or the multitude of rabid Islamic atrocities committed in the name of their god afterwards?
They were in fact, not a f@cking place to be seen save some bleeding heart WaPo article about how Moderate Muslims try and try but just can’t make the grade. Bull shit. Unadulterated bullshit. They either march in protest against their rabid compatriots, or they endorsement.
I don’t frigging want to hear about any ‘concerned Muslim’ about retribution and condemnation they face. I want to see them protesting and condemning their rabid cousins by the MILLIONS in the street.
In truth, they, Moderate Muslims are the tall grass in which Jihadi Terrorists hide undisturbed.
There is no other answer for it but that.
“We wanted to denounce ISIS as an ideology that claims to be representative of Islam, but it’s not. That’s not the religion we practise. We want to make it loud and clear to all the world: This is not Islam.”
**************************
ISIS is the closest to pure Islam practiced and preached by Mad Mo as exists in the world today.
Are they rejecting the example of their prophet and his instructions in their book?
Didn’t think so.
That carries a death penalty in Islam.
Like almost everything.
Slaughtering Jews, terror attacks, stoning, killing homosexuals, honor killings...all are widely supported by moslems worldwide. A significant fraction of moslems immigrants to western countries also hold these views. As soon as the moslem population grows in a country, these attitudes grow as well.
This march is nothing but taqiyya and they've successfully roped in liberal American "interfaith" groups (no surprise there).
There are no moderate muslims as there is nothing moderate about Islam.
Submit or die.
Doesn’t sound very moderate to me.....
No, there are Muslims who do so, protesting terrorism.
Problem is, because the OIC has legally defined things like terrorism in ways peculiar and advantageous only to Muslims it is hard to know WHICH definition of terrorism is being protested. An American Muslim or other cultural Muslim on their own may be using the proper definition, not the OIC, but you can bet anyone affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood is using the OIC/Sharia sense of such terms. And they will be frequently mixed in the same crowd.
Bigots against bigotry. They demand a monopoly.
We were treated to thousands celebrating after 9/11. To this day there is a real concerted effort to say no Americans celebrated.
Of course what gets less play are the Ivy League snowflakes who were interviewed on 9/12, IIRC, and couldn’t bring themselves to say what the terrorist haspd done was evil....
Stopped reading right there. I have noticed the mohammedans have no problem with playing the victim. It is like one will punch you in the face and another will call the cops on you for hurting someone's hand.
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