Muslims pained over Cruz, Trump surveillance remarks
dearborn (Michigan) — Some American Muslims feel they are once again on the defensive following presidential candidate Ted Cruz’s hardline remarks that Muslim-dominated neighbourhoods should be subject to increased surveillance in the wake of the deadly attacks in Brussels claimed by the terrorist group Daesh.
“We’re targeted even if it’s not our fault,” said Omar Ghanim, 23, eating Lebanese pizza on Tuesday at a suburban strip mall in Orange County’s Little Arabia neighbourhood, just miles from Disneyland in California.
Ghanim said Daesh doesn’t represent his faith.
“They don’t follow the Islamic rules or anything Islam,” he said. “We’re a peaceful people — we’re not violent.”
Cruz said on Tuesday that law enforcement should be empowered to “patrol and secure Muslim neighbourhoods before they become radicalised.” Echoing earlier statements from rival Donald Trump, Cruz also said the US should stop the flow of refugees from countries where Daesh has a significant presence. Daesh claimed responsibility for the attacks at the Brussels airport and a subway station that killed dozens on Tuesday and wounded many more. Muslims across the country and groups including the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Anti-Defamation League condemned Cruz’s statements, but many said his reaction was nothing new. Advocacy groups have said for months that the militant attacks in Paris and San Bernardino and the intensifying rhetoric in the presidential campaign have ratcheted up animosity against American Muslims.
“We believe we are part of the society. We have the same ideology as mainstream Americans,” said Osman Ahmed, a resident of a Somali neighbourhood in Minneapolis. “I don’t think the ideology of surveillance of a Muslim community neighbourhood is the right thing to do. That will send a message that Muslim Americans are not a part of American society ... and that’s the message that terrorism groups are willing to hear.”
Trump, who has proposed a temporary ban on foreign Muslims entering the US, praised Cruz’s plan as a “good idea” that he supports “100 per cent” in an interview with CNN. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organisation, condemned the call for surveillance, saying it sends “an alarming message to AmericanMuslims who increasingly fear for their future in this nation.”
The Anti-Defamation League, a US group that battles anti-Semitism worldwide, said Cruz’s plan harkens back to the relocation of JapaneseAmericans to internment camps during World War II. —