Baltimore Councilmembers Abstain from Voting on Biased Resolution Ignoring Islamophobia
The Maryland office of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) on Tuesday applauded Baltimore City Councilmembers Kristerfer Burnett, Ryan Dorsey, Phylicia Porter, and Odette Ramos for abstaining from voting on the resolution.
In a statement, CAIR’s Maryland director Zainab Chaudry said:
“Over the last eight weeks, hundreds of grief-stricken Marylanders, including in Baltimore, have loved ones who’ve been killed or injured in Gaza in Israel’s brutal onslaught of violence indiscriminately targeting hospitals, U.N. schools, churches, mosques, markets, public facilities, and refugee camps. The majority of the more than 16,000 Palestinians killed have been women and children.
“Muslim, Palestinian and Arab communities have also been grappling with an unprecedented surge of Islamophobia. Our office alone has recorded 223 complaints and reports of hate bias incidents between October 9 through December 2, a nearly five-fold monthly increase as compared with the number of requests for assistance and complaints received in September.
“Elected officials have a responsibility to impartially acknowledge the humanity of all their constituents, instead of favoring only select segments. While it rightfully addresses the disturbing rise in antisemitism, this resolution in its current form unfortunately contributes to the persistent erasure and dehumanization of our communities and needs a lot of work. My office applauds the moral courage and empathy of Councilmembers Porter, Burnett, Ramos and Dorsey in understanding this nuance and context.”
CAIR has offered to work with councilmembers on language for a resolution that more objectively acknowledges the pain, trauma and experiences of Baltimore’s diverse constituency.
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On Saturday, the civil rights group called for an investigation into a bomb threat targeting a Maryland mosque.
The civil rights group has called for swift, comprehensive action to combat Islamophobia and anti-Arab bigotry, and issued a community advisory encouraging vigilance and basic safety precautions and asking community members to document and report complaints and incidents to police and to CAIR.
The nature of complaints and incidents have included: 1) smears, hateful comments and slurs on social media, 2) school-based bullying and harassment, 3) doxxing threats against students expressing support for Palestinian human rights, 4) chilling of free speech and alleged retaliation at schools, universities/colleges and places of employment for pro-Palestine advocacy, 5) complaints about biased, one-sided statements about Israel/Palestine, 6) alleged discrimination at restaurants/businesses, 7) hostile incidents at mosques and 8) visits or questioning by law enforcement officers.
Source: Cair.com
