Muslim AmericansIslamic group’s plan for a 9/11 "Million Muslim March" on Washington denounced

The American Muslim Political Action Committee (AMPAC) is organizing what it hopes would be a mass demonstration by American Muslims on 11 September in Washington, D.C. Many critics called the demonstration ill-timed, if not downright offensive.

The demonstration was initially called the “Million Muslim March,” but AMPAC later changed the name of the event to “Million American March against Fear.”

The organizers say the purpose of the March is to complain about religious profiling and abut President Obama’s handling of an investigation into the 9/11 terror attacks.

Fox News reports that AMPAC claims American Muslims have been the victims of anti-Islamic bigotry in the years following 9/11 al Qaeda terrorist attacks.

“On 9.11.01 our country was forever changed by the horrific events in New York. The entire country was victimized by the acts done on that day,” the group said in a statement. “Muslim and Non-Muslim alike were traumatized but we as Muslims continue 12 years later to be victimized by being made the villains. To this day every media outlet and anti-Islamic organization has committed slanderous and libel statements against us as Muslims and our religion of Islam.”

“Yet our Government either sits idly by and does nothing to protect our freedoms or it exacerbates the problem with its constant war on terrorism in Islamic countries, congressional hearings on Islam in America, and its changes to the NDAA law,” the statement says.

M. D. Rabbi Alam, one of the march’s organizers, told Fox News’ Sean Hannity last Thursday that the demonstrators will stand on that day to “show America that we Muslims denounce terrorism.”

“We Muslims have become villainized and victimized” following the attacks, Alam said. He added that twelve years after 9/11, he feels that he “is looked at” as one of the nineteen al Qaeda hijackers who committed the attacks. 

Critics of the demonstration, and the rationale behind it, pointedly disagree.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim group in the country, said it will “definitely” not being joining AMPAC.

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD), told Fox News on Friday that the United States that the United States has gone to great lengths to differentiate between Islam and Islamic extremists since the 2001 attacks — and that claims Muslims have been victimized by the government are unfounded.

He also said that the date chosen for the march on the nation’s capital — Sept. 11 — is insensitive to the victims and their family members. 

“They’re basically a bunch of ‘truthers’ who think that America’s to blame for everything,” Jasser said.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Jasser said, has identified some of the leaders of the march as “being virulent, anti-Semites who think 9/11 was a conspiracy theory.”

“These guys are problematic and they’re trying to exploit 9/11,” Jasser told Fox News. “If they were truly patriotic Americans and moderates, they’d be marching on the courthouse steps of the Fort Hood trial that’s happening this week to tell Americans that we want the death penalty for Nidal Hissan rather than this circus that they’re doing in exploiting the murders and horrific acts of 9/11.”

“America has gone on to liberate Muslims,” he continued. “They gave our families freedom that we could not have in any so-called Muslim countries.”

The Daily Mail notes that there is little chance a million people would show up for the march: AMPAC, based in Kansas City, Missouri, has just 57 supporters signed up for the 11 September event on Facebook.