King's Hearing Promotes Hate, Undermines Homeland Security

“We need to conduct a thorough, fair analysis and do no harm. The approach of today’s hearing, unfortunately, does not meet these standards.

Today’s hearing is entitled, “The extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community’s response.”

It is true that specific individuals, including some who are Muslims, are violent extremists. However, these are individuals – but not entire communities. Individuals like Anwar Al-Aulaqi, Faisel Shazad, and Nidal Hasan do not represent the Muslim American community. When their violent actions are associated with an entire community, then blame is assigned to a whole group. This is the very heart of stereotyping and scapegoating, which is counter-productive.

This point is at the heart of my testimony today. Ascribing the evil acts of a few individuals to an entire community is wrong; it is ineffective; and it risks making our country less secure.”

Minnesota representative Keith Ellison articulated the problem with the approach the House of Representatives is taking in addressing perceived areas of homeland security in his testimony at the House’s Homeland Security Committee’s March 10th hearing, “The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community’s Response.”

The committee is chaired by representative Peter King and the hearing focused exclusively on Islamic extremism and the threat Islam poses to the United States. Rather than look at new solutions to improving homeland security, King’s hearing paraded witness after witness and drummed up the same type of destructive, divisive rhetoric seen in Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations.” Although King’s stated intentions of this first hearing in the series were to examine Al Qaeda’s targeted recruitment of American Muslims, none of the testimony actually addressed this.

Ellison is exactly correct in his assessment of these hearings. Placing blame on an entire community for the actions of very few individuals does not help solve any problems. And this blame is not applied to all communities uniformly when one individual characterized in a certain manner happens to act violently. Stereotyping serves to only further alienate an important part of the American population, and an approach such as King’s might in fact serve Al Qaeda and other extremist groups’ interests in the United States.

And this is a serious problem. Of all the testimony of the course of the several hours that the hearing lasted, only Ellison, Laura Richardson, and Sheila Jackson Lee actually spoke out about the counterproductive and discriminatory nature of this hearing. Why are they standing alone while 3 million Americans are reduced to nothing more than one aspect of their identity and held accountable for actions perpetrated by a miniscule minority?

As Richardson writes in a letter imploring King to cease such discriminatory hearings, “Our concern is that holding a hearing targeting this community, will have the unintended consequences of breeding alienation and fostering feelings of resentment. As a result, we risk hindering law enforcement’s efforts to detect, deter, or prevent potential threats that hide themselves within these communities.”

LOOK! A Zionist!

Yesterday, big news happened in Iran. Yahoo.com’s homepage clearly chose the correct story from Iran: that Iran threatened to boycott the 2012 London Olympics because, as Head of Iran’s Olympic Committee Bahram Afsharzadeh so clearly explained, “Zionists have exercised influence in Britain, and according to our information, the summer games logo has been designed by a Zionist organization linked to freemasons.”

However, more important and relevant news was blatantly overlooked by most major news outlets. On February 28, 2011, the official websites of Green Movement and opposition leaders Mir Hussein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi stated that they and their wives were taken from house arrest to the maximum security Heshmatiyeh prison in Tehran. Semi-official Iranian news network Fars denied these claims. Green Movement supporters have called for protests every Tuesday until the leaders and their wives are released.

The placing of the Mousavis and Karoubis in prison is one of the most aggressive, targeted moves that the Iranian regime has made, especially considering that Mousavi was prime minister of Iran under Ayatollah Khomeini as Supreme Leader and Ali Khamenei as President. This comes in the wake of brutal crackdowns, the execution of one prisoner every eight hours since January 2011, secret executions of Iranians and foreign nationals, and the arbitrary arrest and detention of over 1,500 demonstrators from the February 14^th and 20^th demonstrations alone.

However, why is it that this story was completely overlooked, and instead Iran made headlines today because of outrageous statements of cooperation between Zionists and Freemasons over an ugly Olympic logo? As brutal and psychopathic as the Iranian regime is, it does understand how to use international media to deflect attention from their serious human rights abuses and systematic repression of the Iranian people. While the rest of the world was preoccupied with ludicrous statements from Afsharzadeh, the regime’s security forces placed the two strongest opposition leaders in prison only weeks after members of the Majles called for their trial and execution.

Hopefully, the rest of the world can focus on the important actions taken by the regime and respond appropriately by demanding that the United Nations establish an independent human rights monitor on Iran in its session this March. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton addressed the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs on February 28^th, stating:

Here at the Human Rights Council, we are proud to be working with Sweden and other partners to establish a special rapporteur on Iran. Its mandate would be to investigate and report on abuses in Iran, and to speak out when the government there does not meet its human rights obligations. Iranian human rights advocates have demanded this step to raise international pressure on their government.

This will be a seminal moment for this Council, and a test of our ability to work together to advance the goals that it represents. Indeed, every member of this Council should ask him or herself a simple question: Why do people have the right to live free from fear in Tripoli but not Tehran? The denial of human dignity in Iran is an outrage that deserves the condemnation of all who speak out for freedom and justice.