TERRORISM IN PHOENIX
AGAINST MUSLIMS?
ISLAM NEWSROOM DATELINE: June 1, 2015
Muslim American Society Issued the following Public Announcement -- Please comment (below):
Phoenix: When Liberty Fails Justice
By Khalilah Sabra
Section 802 of the USA PATRIOT Act expanded the definition of terrorism to cover "domestic"violence. A person engages in domestic terrorism if they do an act "dangerous to human life" or if the act appears to be intended to: (i) intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping.
Since 9/11, Muslims feel stalked and harassed by federal government and mistreated by ordinary citizens whose religious opinions object to Islam. How has this become acceptable in a society where democracy was founded on freedom of thought and freedom of religion? Our United States Constitution recognizes the rights of all people to be secure in our persons. Within the supreme laws of this land, we are all guaranteed protections of individual liberty and justice, and to be protected against aggression. No agency of government should enable a group of people to take this away, yet many Muslims no longer feel secure worshiping in our religious places.
On Friday, the day of religious observance in Islam, armed anti-Islam protesters gathered outside the Islamic Community Center of Phoenix, Arizona. They came with bullets and a variety of semiautomatics, which provide all of the necessary steps to discharge their weapons again and again after firing. These "all-American citizens" claim to be exercising "the right to bear arms" regardless of the manifest risks they pose on everyone else. This unsightly display of religious racism by a chaotic multitude of anti-Muslim vigilante groups was for the sole purpose of intimidation.
Shouldn't this conduct fall within the definition of domestic terrorism? These gun-toting protesters' actions were for the purpose of influencing government policy by creating an environment of fear and coercion.
The attempt to disrupt religious rights arguably created a danger to the human lives of those inside the mosque. Supreme Court Justice Scalia made it clear that the right to keep and bear arms was not categorical, but could be circumscribed in order to protect the public interest in health and safety. As such, the proper role for law and enforcement is to weed out those individuals who pose an extra risk of damage to other citizens, not allow Muslims to be held hostage in the places they worship.
Indeed, this country is being challenged to balance two constitutional entitlements: the right to bear arms and the right to safely practice religion. We can deny it or act to change its course, by denying it we are entering another era of crisis, apathy, and retrogression. In the absence of courage, how will we survive as free people? Many of the signs may seem small, but they are ominous. Considered separately, some may not appear unbearable. But, if taken as a trend, there is a pattern possibly leading to worse acts of repression with a reaction with no conceivable end.
Should not the health and safety of all Americans be secured? Can our society survive the religious harassment of bigots who arm themselves against law-abiding people who do not believe as they do? Religious suppression is an anathema to democracy and should not be motivated by a group of right-wing extremists using the Second Amendment to threaten violence. They aim to reverse the interlocking changes that swept over America during the Civil Rights Era. If American law cannot protect American Muslims, then it has failed them and that is a failure that Muslims are not willing to concede.
Americans have seemingly forgotten that this society began as an experiment in freedom. The foundation of that freedom is equality before the law. Everyone, whoever they are and whatever they may believe, must be equally protected. The phrase from the Declaration of Independence-the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness-is known throughout the world. This is not the time to forget it, here at home. Without fairly applying the law there can be no justice, and without justice no man will have respect for the laws that are suppose guarantees it.