Khera said she asked Obama "to use his bully pulpit" to speak out against "anti-Muslim hate and bigotry." She suggested that the White House hold a summit for Muslim-American youths similar to one it had for LGBT youths "that really raised a heightened level of public consciousness around the issue."
Khera also expressed concern about the new revised profiling guidelines issued by Attorney General Eric Holder in December. The guidelines restricted some racial and religious profiling but continued to allow it at borders, airports, and for national security efforts, which Muslim Americans say often targets them. "It fell short," Khera said.
Khera asked Obama to nominate a Muslim American as a federal judge, saying there has not been a federal judge in the U.S. who is Muslim.
"We spoke about the current environment, and what faith-based organizations like ours can do to assist the president". [in] different ways, both domestic and international," Azhar Azeez, the president of the Islamic Society of North America, told The Daily Caller. The society is the umbrella organization for several Islamic groups in the United States.
Bloomberg quoted Hoda Elshishtawy, the MPAC national policy analyst, as saying that she pressed Obama to put more Muslims in high government positions. Those appointments, she said, help ensure that American Muslims are engaged and "participating in the civic process."
"It was a great meeting, basically a
listening meeting for the president, listening to the concerns of the community,"
said Dean Obeidallah, told The Daily Caller. One problem is "anti-Muslim
bigotry, and we're seeing people demonize Muslims," said Obeidallah. Because of
Americans' criticism of Islam, "young Muslims are growing up stigmatized."
The meeting participants were: Arshia Wajid, founder, American Muslim Health Professionals; Azhar Azeez, President, Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) which held its annual convention in Detroit last year; Bilqis "Qisi" Abdul-Qaadir, Director of Women's Basketball Operations, Indiana State University, who played basketball while wearing the Islamic head scarf; Maya Berry, Executive Director, Arab American Institute (AAI); Dean Obeidallah, Palestinian-American comedian, who has a show on Sirius XM Radio and writes for the Daily Beast website; Diego Arancibia, Board Member and Associate Director, Ta'leef Collective and Farhan Latif, Chief Operating Officer and Director of Policy Impact, Institute of Policy and Understanding (ISPU), a think tank in Dearborn founded and led by Muslim Americans.
Other participants at the meeting included: Farhana Khera, President, Muslim Advocates; Haroon Mokhtarzada, CEO, Webs; Hoda Hawa, National Policy Advisor, Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC); Kameelah Rashad, Founder of Muslim Wellness Foundation and Muslim Chaplain of University of Pennsylvania; Imam Mohamed Magid, the Executive Director of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) and former president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA); Rahat Hussain, President, Universal Muslim Association of America (UMAA) and Sherman Jackson, Professor of Religion and American Studies and Ethnicity, University of Southern California.
Not unexpectedly, the
meeting sparked a discussion with some conservatives saying the meeting
promoted extremism. Fox News' Sean Hannity said he wished Obama had demanded that the leaders
publicly denounce radical Islam.
The Washington Times while reporting about the meeting implicitly criticized
inclusion of ISNA president in the meeting. The paper pointed out that the
Justice Department named ISNA in a court document as an unindicted co-conspirator
with other "entities who are and/or were members of the U.S. Muslim
Brotherhood" during prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation in 2007, once the
largest Muslim charity in the U.S. A federal judge later ruled that the
document should not have been revealed to the public. The ISNA has said that its inclusion in the charitable
foundation's list of unindicted co-conspirators amounted to guilt by
association.
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