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American
Muslim Police and Rescuers Honored
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| Rescue
efforts at ground zero, where the WTC once stood
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By
Jamshed Bokhari
WASHINGTON,
Jan. 27 (IslamOnline) - Muslim American New York City police
officers and a fire department officer from Virginia were honored in
Washington Saturday for doing their part in rescue efforts at Ground
Zero in New York following the September 11 attacks.
At
a luncheon ceremony at the Hotel Washington across the street from
the White House, New York City police officers Adil Almontaser,
Rafet Awad, Faisal Khan and Ahmad Nasser received recognition and
awards of excellence for what Ziad J. Asali, president of the
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), said was their
“heroism and common decency” in rescue efforts in the rubble of
the attacks.
Fairfax
County, Virginia, Fire Department member Ronald J. Kuley also
received honors, but was unable to attend the ceremony.
Ralph
Boyd, assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice’s
Civil Rights Division, said it was proper to “honor these American
heroes,” reminding audience members that “Muslims and
Arab-Americans were also killed in the attacks,” and that
“Muslims and Arab-Americans and Pakistanis were involved in rescue
efforts.”
Asali
told the award winners, “You can be proud of your own singular
contribution.”
But
while praising the officers, Asali pointed to hurdles that all
Muslims had to overcome, including acts of racial profiling,
mentioning the recent incident where a federal law enforcement
official, a Secret Service agent, was pulled from an American
Airlines flight for what the agent says was for no other reason than
that he is Muslim and Arab.
Khan
and Awad, however, told IslamOnline that for their part, since
September 11, neither one of them had received any sort of backlash
incidents from either fellow police officers or New York City
residents.
Asali
further added that the Secret Service agent’s case was important
because, “more than one Arab-American, Muslim American…protect
the President.”
And
Awad, speaking of the Muslim New York City police officers honored
Saturday, said there were many more Muslims on the City’s force
than just the four present at the ceremonies.
Speaking
on behalf of the New York officers, Almontaser started out by
saying, “My deepest condolences go out to the families of the
victims,” and later added, with emotion welling up, referring to
the events of September 11, “This is not Islam. This is a
grotesque attack.”
Almontaser
added that he and the three other Muslim officers had tried in vein
to find some sort of Muslim American police organization for support
in the midst of the crisis, but found none throughout the U.S. They
then started one on their own: the American Muslim Law Enforcement
Officers Association (AMLEOA).
The
officers stressed the proposed association would not only be
comprised of New York police officers, but would be a nationwide
organization for Muslim law enforcement personnel from local police
officers to federal government officials.
Awad
pointed out, however, that they were still in the initial planning
stages and that the full-fledged organization would be operational
in the near future. Once started, AMLEOA would, among other
functions, “encourage other Arabs and Muslims to get into law
enforcement,” in the U.S., added Awad.
Khalid
Saffouri, chairman of the Islamic Institute, echoed these feelings
by citing the example of Mohammed Atta’s, one of the alleged
hijackers, will. Saffouri commented that both he and Jamal Barzingi
translated Atta’s will, but the version ultimately released to the
public by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had numerous
problems, mainly those concerning properly translating certain
Islamic references within the text.
Saffouri
stated that for this exact reason, “We need Muslims there doing
this work.”
The
awards ceremony was jointly sponsored by the Islamic Institute and
ADC, with invited guests from other Muslim organizations, and rising
American Muslim political figures.
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