Muslim civil rights and advocacy group calls for individual who struck Muslim with “We Love Joe” sign to be condemned, identified and charged
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, and its Chicago chapter (CAIR-Chicago) today condemned DNC members for assaulting a Muslim woman and other delegates who were silently holding a banner that said “stop arming Israel.”
Video from the Democratic convention last night appears to show a DNC attendee hitting a Muslim woman over the head with a sign for holding up a sign that said “stop arming Israel.” Other individuals attempt to rip the banner out of their hands.
In a statement, CAIR Deputy Executive Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said:
“We strongly condemn the DNC audience members who violently assaulted a Muslim woman and other delegates who silently held up a banner calling for an arms embargo on the Israeli government. Using a ‘We Love Joe’ sign to repeatedly hit a Muslim woman wearing a hijab on her head was not only an insulting act of hate and censorship, but a crime.
“The DNC should condemn this behavior and law enforcement should identify and charge the person responsible, just as they surely would have done if someone had assaulted a DNC delegate waving a pro-Israel banner.”
CAIR-Chicago Executive Director Ahmed Rehab said:
“The American people have every right to make this reasonable, humanitarian and patriotic demand. If not in the people’s arena of politics, then where? The violent censorship that seems to always meet this message to silence it only underscores its veracity and urgency, as well as the oligarchic stranglehold plaguing our politics.”
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CONTACT: Ahmed Rehab, Executive Director of CAIR Chicago, 202-870-0166, arehab@cair.com; Maggie Slavin, Operations Manager of CAIR-Chicago, 815-590-3991, mslavin@cair.com; Hafsa Haider, Communications Coordinator of CAIR-Chicago, 561-317-7509, hhaider@cair.com; CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell, 404-285-9530, e-Mitchell@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, ihooper@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Manager Ismail Allison, 202-770-6280, iallison@cair.com