By Omar Sacirbey
Religion News
Service
(RNS) Muslim-American groups are mounting a growing campaign to quash the potential nomination of New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly as the next secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
Muslims say that
as head of the nation’s biggest police force, the commissioner oversaw a spying
program that targeted Muslims based solely on their religion, showed poor
judgment by participating in a virulently anti-Islamic film, and approved a
report on terrorism that equated innocuous behavior such as quitting smoking
with signs of radicalization.
Homeland Security
chief Janet Napolitano announced she is resigning in September to become
president of the University of California system.
“Mr. Kelly might
be very happy where he is, but if he’s not, I’d want to know about it, because
obviously he’d be very well qualified for the job,” President Obama said in a
July 16 interview with Univision.
Muslims are
particularly indignant because Obama said on numerous occasions that he would
work to end profiling.
“Ray Kelly has a
proven record of violating Americans’ basic civil rights,” said Glenn Katon,
legal director of Muslim Advocates, a civil rights group based in San
Francisco. “His willingness to use discriminatory policing methods against
innocent citizens should concern Americans of every faith, ethnic and racial
background.”
The very mention
of Kelly’s name as possible head of the DHS has sparked concern among many
Muslim groups, who in a sign of their growing organizational maturity have
swiftly marshaled their energies to oppose Kelly before he is even nominated.
The Muslim
American Civil Liberties Coalition sent a four-page letter to Obama on July 18
detailing why they would oppose a potential Kelly nomination.
“Commissioner
Kelly’s legacy in New York is synonymous with divisive, harmful, and
ineffective policing that promotes stereotypes and profiling,” the letter said.
The coalition includes the Association of Muslim American Lawyers, the Muslim
Bar Association of New York and the Muslim Consultative Network.
In addition, the
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Washington sent out an “action
alert” to members urging them to email a form letter telling Obama to not
nominate Kelly.
Perhaps of
greatest concern to Muslims is a NYPD surveillance program, uncovered in 2011,
in which police officers and paid informants watched and collected evidence on
at least 250 mosques, 12 Islamic schools, 31 Muslim student and 256 “ethnic
hotspots” such as cafes. The commanding officer of the NYPD’s Intelligence
Division said in a 2012 report that the program did not yield any leads.
Muslims are also
upset Kelly agreed to be interviewed for “The Third Jihad,” a 2009 film that
casts all Muslims as potential terrorists. “The Third Jihad” was shown to some
1,500 officers as a “training film.” Kelly and one of his deputies denied
knowledge of the interview, but later confessed.
Muslims were also
troubled by a 2007 NYPD report, “Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown
Threat,” which critics said equated praying, fasting, growing a beard, and
quitting smoking with radicalization.
“He has based his
policing methods with ethnic communities, especially the American Muslim
community, on faulty and bad reports,” said Hoda Elshishtawy of the
Washington-based Muslim Public Affairs Council. “These programs and reports
actually make citizens less safe because they are not based on fact.”
Kelly did not
respond to a request for comment. He defended his record in a recent editorial
in The Wall Street Journal. He dismissed the allegation that the NYPD spied on
Muslim New Yorkers, calling it a “sensational charge belied by the facts.”
“Anyone who
implies that it is unlawful for the police department to search online, visit
public places or map neighborhoods has either not read, misunderstood or
intentionally obfuscated the meaning of the (police guidelines),” Kelly wrote.
The commissioner
has also come under fire for a controversial “stop-and-frisk program” that
allows police officers to stop, question and frisk a person who appears
suspicious. Critics say most people stopped have been African-American or
Hispanic.
Other groups that
have been critical of Kelly’s record include the New York Civil Liberties
Union, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the National Latino Officers
Association, and 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement.
During his 2008
campaign, Obama said he would ban profiling, while in 2011, the White House
released a local communities plan that recommended building trust between law
enforcement and communities.
“A Kelly
appointment to any position in the administration would demonstrate President
Obama’s tacit endorsement of Kelly’s embrace of racial and religious profiling
and indicate a severe reversal of the administration’s earlier positions,” said
Corey Saylor, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
