Islam in the United StatesSenate holds Muslim civil rights hearings

Several weeks after Representative Peter King (R-New York), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, held his controversial hearings on Muslim radicalization, Senator Dick Durbin (D – Illinois) presided over a Senate hearing exploring Muslim civil rights.

Senator Durbin said that the goal of the hearings was to show that most Muslim Americans “are patriotic, law abiding people who simply want to live their life as we do.”

In announcing the hearings earlier this month, Durbin said, “During the course of our history, many religions have faced intolerance, it is important for our generation to renew our founding charter’s commitment to religious diversity and to protect the liberties guaranteed by our Bill of Rights.”

Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights on 29 March, Farhana Khera, the executive director of Muslim Advocates, said that “in the last several months, anti-Muslim rhetoric has reached a disturbing new level.”

She continued, “Prominent religious, military and even political leaders have joined the fray, feeding fear and hysteria, with some going so far as to say Islam is a cult, not a religion.”

According to Khera work place discrimination against Muslims is at an all-time high. From 2008 to 2009 25 percent of all complaints tothe Equal Employment Opportunity Commission were Muslim bias-based.

In addition, community opposition to the construction of mosques has increased and is “getting uglier.”

Other witnesses, including Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and Thomas Perez, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, echoed these thoughts, stating that anti-Muslim sentiment was on the rise.

Cardinal McCarrick said, “We have had our loyalty as Americans questioned. We have suffered bias and discrimination for our religious beliefs, especially in the educational context. Catholics have been explicit targets of the Ku Klux Klan and the Know Nothing Party.”

“Because of this history, we cannot help but be sensitive to the experiences of other religious groups who suffer prejudice, bias and discrimination,” he continued.

Many view the Senate hearing as a response to King’s House hearing, which critics say unfairly singled out Muslims as the source of domestic terrorism by not including other domestic groups that are also at risk of radicalization.

A recent report by the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security found that last year more non-Muslim Americans were involved in terrorist plots against the United States than Muslim Americans.

While another report by the Muslim Public Affairs Council report found that “Muslim communities helped U.S. security officials to prevent over four out of every ten Al-Qaeda plots threatening the United States since 9/11.”

Senator Jon Kyl (R – Arizona) said he was perplexed by the need to hold specific hearings on Muslim civil rights citing the fact that most religious hate crimes in the United States are committed against Jewish people.

“The point is, all bigotry is to be condemned. Selective indignation is not helpful,” he said.

Kyl also defended the House Muslim radicalization hearings, stating, “Political correctness cannot stand in the way of identifying those who would do us harm.”

Khera, the central witness for the hearing, was asked whether her organization was committed to helping law enforcement agencies combat Islamic extremism, given the fact that her group’s website advised Muslims to consult a lawyer before speaking with the authorities.

“I would think Muslim Americans would feel a special obligation to help in such investigations,” Kyl asked.

According to Khera, “every American has a civic duty to report criminal activity,” but also “every American has the right to seek legal advice.”