CAIR: Pentagon-Vatican meeting latest flash point in Trump’s clash with religious leaders – Religion News Service
Trump has also seen religious pushback for a separate Truth Social post on Easter Sunday, which featured threats to infrastructure in Iran — a Muslim-majority country — before concluding “Praise be to Allah.” The Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned the remarks, accusing the president of mocking Islam.
CAIR-LA: Iran war rhetoric puts Shiite Muslims in the US at risk, advocates say – Religion News Service
In Los Angeles, several Iranian or Shiite Muslims have been visited by the FBI in the last month, said Dina Chehata, the civil rights managing attorney for the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Los Angeles chapter. She said the spike in visits aligns with the start of the Iran war and is consistent with what she described as a pattern of reactive crackdowns on diaspora Muslim communities whenever there is a geopolitical flashpoint.
Chehata said none of the visits led to charges or arrests, which she argued suggests the FBI is not investigating people based on credible evidence of criminal conduct.
“They are investigating certain people because of their protected identity, because they are Muslim or Arab or Palestinian, or now Iranian or Lebanese or Shia, which is so dangerous — and that’s always been the problem that American Muslims have had with our federal government,” Chehata said.
CAIR-NJ: Advocacy groups urge state lawmakers to further develop recently signed immigrant protection laws – ACLU of New Jersey
CAIR-LA: 2 men charged with not dispersing during pro-Palestinian protest at UC Irvine are acquitted – Orange County Register
CAIR-LA: Jury Acquits Two Men in UC Irvine Protest Case, Deadlocks on Third – Davis Vanguard
CAIR-FL: Ron DeSantis Clamps Down on Free Speech in the Name of Fighting Terror – Reason
CAIR: American Muslims Don’t Need to Defend Our Existence – OtherWords
CAIR: In Texas, a state hearing on social studies becomes a clash of religions – The Washington Post
Shaimaa Zayan, in beige headscarf and floor-length skirt, walked swiftly toward the microphone at the front of the packed meeting room, passing people wearing buttons with a red slash through the word “sharia.”
Zayan, 42, a former Texas teacher who works for the local chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights group, had come on Tuesday to the state’s board of education hearing to talk about proposed changes to the state’s social studies curriculum that she thought unfairly portrayed Muslims…
For Zayan, the antagonism toward her faith expressed by officials at the highest levels of U.S. politics has presented challenges as a representative of the more than 300,000 Muslims who live in Texas. At previous education board hearings, she received death threats and had to be escorted to her car by a state trooper. She accused Pickren of posting a video on social media in February that misrepresented her testimony, and Hall of calling for CAIR members to be deported on Stephen K. Bannon’s “War Room” podcast. (Last month, Hall posted on Facebook: “It’s time for mass deportations and a ban on Muslim immigration.”) Zayan alerted the board to both incidents but said nothing happened.
“They just want to erase Muslims from history,” she said, and “push biblical things” in a curriculum that influences education in many other conservative-run states.
CAIR-Texas: Who Accounts for Freedom? – Texas Observer
CAIR: Trump’s Iran threats create uncertainty – Beverly Press
CAIR-SFBA: Our Taxes, Their Wars – SF Tax Day Action – CODE PINK