The Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI), a chapter of the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today called for an independent and transparent investigation of reported undercover surveillance and harassment of anti-genocide groups at the University of Michigan.
According to the Guardian: “The University of Michigan is using private, undercover investigators to surveil pro-Palestinian campus groups, including trailing them on and off campus, furtively recording them and eavesdropping on their conversations, the Guardian has learned.
“The surveillance appears to largely be an intimidation tactic, five students who have been followed, recorded or eavesdropped on said. The undercover investigators have cursed at students, threatened them and in one case drove a car at a student who had to jump out of the way, according to student accounts and video footage shared with the Guardian.”
“This reported attempt by the University of Michigan to chill the free speech of anti-genocide groups through secret surveillance and alleged harassment must be investigated in an independent and transparent manner,” said CAIR-MI Executive Director Dawud Walid. “Academic officials would never allow this type of outrageous behavior if those targeted were members of any other groups speaking out against genocide and for human rights.”
CAIR’s national office previously designated University of Michigan as a “university of particular concern” as part of its unhostile campus campaign due to its reported creation of a hostile campus environment for Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, Jewish and other students, staff, and faculty opposing the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza.
Earlier this year, CAIR-MI concern of what appeared to be the University of Michigan’s continued targeting of pro-Palestinian voices on campus with the suspension of the student group Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE).
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CONTACT: CAIR-MI Executive Director, Dawud Walid (248) 842-1418, dwalid@cair.com; CAIR-MI Staff Attorney, Amy V. Doukoure, (586) 943-8823, adoukoure@cair.com