US media is reporting that the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) is objecting to plans by a Republic Congressman to open a Congressional inquiry into what he calls the radicalization of the Muslim community. According to a New York Times report:
The Republican who will head the House committee that oversees domestic security is planning to open a Congressional inquiry into what he calls “the radicalization” of the Muslim community when his party takes over the House next year. Enlarge This Image Drew Angerer/The New York Times Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York, will become the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. Representative Peter T. King of New York, who will become the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he was responding to what he has described as frequent concerns raised by law enforcement officials that Muslim leaders have been uncooperative in terror investigations….Salam al-Marayati, the executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, also expressed deep concern and noted that his group would be holding a convention this weekend at which members would discuss the impact that the Republican takeover of Congress could have on Muslims. “He basically wants to treat the Muslim-American community as a suspect community,” Mr. Marayati said of Mr. King. He added that Mr. King was potentially undermining the relationship that Muslim leaders had sought to build with law enforcement officials around the country. Tensions have occasionally erupted in recent years over counterterrorism measures that civil rights groups and others said had gone too far. In 2007, for example, the Los Angeles Police Department was forced to abandon a plan to create a map detailing the city’s Muslim communities after civil rights advocates and Muslim leaders denounced the effort as a form of racial profiling.
[From Peter King, House Republican, Plans Muslim Inquiry – NYTimes.com]
MPAC appears to be playing a greater role in US count-terrorism efforts. Previous posts have reported that MPAC was scheduled to speak at a November Southern California counterterrorism and has recently completed a quarterly training for US Transportation Security Officers (TSO). Another post discussed an analysis of a study by MPAC that claims that 1 out of 3 Al-Qaida terror plots in the US since 911 were stopped with help from the Muslim community.
MPAC, headquartered in Southern California, was established initially in 1986 as the Political Action Committee of the Islamic Center of Southern California whose key leaders likely had their origins in the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Since that time, MPAC has functioned as the political lobbying arm of the U.S. Brotherhood. MPAC has opposed virtually every count-terror initiative undertaken or proposed by the U.S. government. At times this opposition was said to be on civil-rights grounds but, just as often, MPAC claimed that U.S. counter-terror efforts were aimed at the U.S. Muslim community itself. MPAC has consistently supported and facilitated terrorism by supporting terrorist organizations and, more broadly, constructing an elaborate ideology defending the use of violence by Islamists and Islamist organizations. More than any other U.S. Muslim Brotherhood organization, MPAC has developed extensive relationships with the U.S. government which have included numerous meetings with the Department of Justice and the FBI.