The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) has announced that it has joined an interfaith coalition that staged an event in front of the White House to demand that the “Obama administration to do more to address the ongoing humanitarian disaster in Syria.” According to the MPAC announcement:
Dear Friend,
This morning, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) joined interfaith, human rights, advocacy, and relief/aid organizations and supporters in front of the White House to call on the Obama administration to do more to address the ongoing humanitarian disaster in Syria. Together, we advocated for the implementation of a two-pronged American approach that confronts the root causes of the conflict and, at the same time, does more to relieve the threats to the civilian population in Syria as a result of the conflict.
Coverage of the press conference can be found here: CNN, Huffington Post and AP. Also, watch opening remarks by MPAC President Salam Al-Marayati. He said, ‘America accepted Vietnamese refugees in the order of 350,000, almost one million Cubans … so to suggest that we’re only going to take 10,000 Syrians is really an injustice to these refugees. It is like telling them, ‘go back to your death chambers.”
We called on President Obama to do the following: Increase protection for civilians in Syria Prioritize the resolution of the conflict in Syria as part of his foreign policy agenda Resettle at least 65,000 Syrian refugees in the United States by the end of 2016 Specifically, we called on the United States to establish safe zones in Southern and Northern Syria to protect civilians from aerial and chemical attacks; to apply greater diplomatic pressure on influential countries that can help stop the conflict; and to resettle between 65,000 and 100,000 refugees in the United States within the next year.
As always seems to be the case with such coalitions, the appearance is created of a broad-based support when, in fact, the participants are all tied in some way to the US Muslim Brotherhood. All seven Muslim members present at the above event were indeed found to have such ties:
- Salam Al-Marayati, President of the Muslim Public Affairs Council
- Dr. Sayyid Syed, National Director of Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) Office for Interfaith and Community Alliances
- Nihad Awad, Executive Director for the Council on American Islamic Relations
- Mirna Barq, President of the Syrian American Council
- Jomana Qaddour, Syria Relief and Development, likely married to Jihad Qaddour
- Dr. Zaher Sahloul, Syrian American Medical Society, American Relief Coalition for Syria (former President of the Mosque Foundation)
- Suzanne Akhras, Syrian Community Network (married to Zaher Sahloul)
For a profile on MPAC, go here.