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Mixed Feelings at Feds' Attempts to Recruit Muslims and Arabs
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An FBI recruiter speaks to a Muslim career fair attendee in New Jersey earlier this week. |
by Ayesha Ahmad, IOL Washington
Correspondent
WASHINGTON, June 7 (IslamOnline) -
Federal law enforcement agencies are making a new effort to recruit
Muslims and Arabs in the U.S.’s domestic anti-terror investigation,
according to media reports. These efforts produce mixed feelings among
Muslims who would be both the tools and the central targets of this
investigation.
With hundreds of Muslims and Arabs
detained after the September 11 attacks, many Muslims feel
doubtful about the approach to their community. They have little
reason to trust the authorities in the post-9/11 climate of suspicion,
but some feel that Muslim participation in law enforcement would help
raise awareness of Islam and decrease prejudice about them.
"If we had a Muslim police
officer in every town… he would be there to see if there is a
question about Muslim practices," said Sohail Mohammed, an
attorney based in New Jersey representing several Muslims detained
after September 11.
"That's what happened with
African Americans… they sued the government for discriminatory
practices," he told IslamOnline. "If we didn't have [African
Americans] in the FBI, nobody would have ever heard about this
lawsuit."
Others worry, however, about the
Federal Bureau of Investigation's track record.
"The agency is not be trusted
when it comes to Muslims," said Ashraf Nubani, a lawyer based in
Washington. "The FBI is a tool like any other tool and right now
it's being wielded in a callous way."
Nubani suggested that law enforcement
agencies' increased authorities - including new measures announced
last week that give the FBI authority to monitor places of worship as
well as public internet sites.
"It's akin to discriminatory
profiling… there is an assumption that the Middle East community is
a source of criminal activity, mainly terrorism, and that's not even
true," he said.
"Ask Muslim Americans what they
feel and they will tell you that they feel they're being unfairly
singled out," he said, "and that's not going to help law
enforcement to compile important information in order to provide
security to Americans."
At one of New Jersey's largest
mosques, the Islamic Center of Passaic County, Mohammed helped sponsor
a career fair held Saturday, June 1 - where federal agents were some
of the many recruiters present - in an attempt to explain the careers
available in their agencies to the Muslim community.
Mohammed said the career fair had
been planned three months before, so it was not part of the FBI's new
attempt to recruit Muslims - a New York Times story published Monday,
June 3, said that the FBI is "eager to recruit" Arab and
Muslim informants as part of its overhaul.
But many of the same issues of
concern came up at the fair.
So Mohammed and others contacted
universities, fire departments, police departments, housing
departments, the FBI, the Secret Service, the Immigration and
Naturalization Service (INS), the U.S. Attorney's office, and local
and state police departments, to organize a career fair "where
our Muslim families can come in and learn more about what the jobs
are, what these agencies do."
Mohammed acknowledged the concerns of
Muslims who do not trust the FBI.
"I think they have legitimate
concerns in that the FBI does not have an impressive history of
working with the community," he said. "In fact they have a
bad record… that is their history, I think there is a basis for
being suspicious of law enforcement agencies."
In the Times article, one former FBI
counterterrorism official admitted that reports of the difficulties
faced by some Muslims who actually volunteered help after September 11
"make recruitment 100 times harder."
But Mohammed added that the career
fair was open for all state, federal and local agencies, and he said
that he had every indication of the agencies' good intentions.
"If we had any indication
otherwise, I would have been the first one to say that this is not the
place for these people to be," he said. "But… I've been
giving lectures to the police an the FBI and a lot of agencies
throughout New Jersey concerning Islamic cultural and religious
practices… we thought it would be a good idea for our community to
learn about what these agencies do on a daily basis."
"Allah knows best what motives
people have," he continued, "but you know we work under the
assumption that everything that was being done there was [with] a very
good legitimate and honest purpose… we're living in a society, they
have a job to do and we have a job to do."
However, Nubani warned that the only
appropriate way for law enforcement agencies to approach the
anti-terror investigation was "by respecting the
Constitution."
He drew attention to the new measures
that allow agents to "go into mosques, churches and places of
worship, without having evidence of a criminal activity… I think
this is wrong. Previously we've been protected from these kinds of
measures."
Although the career fair was open for
all kinds of positions within law enforcement agencies, there are the
kinds of positions that have Muslims extremely concerned: that of
informants or spies.
"There's no nobility in spying,
no matter how you look at it," he said. "They won't tell you
to spy, but that's what they'll be asking you to do… they just give
you a cell phone, tell you, you frequent the mosque, tell us who you
see."
Mohammed said Muslims should approach
such a position as they would approach any job - that "my
condition for this job is I'm a Muslim, I need to be allowed to
practice my faith… that's what we should rely on is Muslims to draw
the line on what they can and what they cannot do."
He said the spying question was best
left to individuals and Muslim scholars to decide on - "maybe
Allah will bring about a change" if Muslims participate in
federal law enforcement, he said, adding that people make decisions
based on their level of iman (faith).
During the career fair, Mohammed said
it was encouraging to have the state police admit that before
September 11, they did not know anything about Islam, but that they
had learned more afterwards and "certainly we don't view every
Muslim as a terrorist… our job is to protect Americans, and that
includes Muslims."
Now, Mohammed said, this situation is
serving as a "test" for Muslims, saying that if it turns out
to have been a mistake, he admits his own responsibility, but if it
turns out to be "something really good for the Muslims,"
then it is Allah who gave Muslims the guidance to take that step.
"We all have good
intentions," he said, "[and] we expect the same from the
other agencies."
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