On Tuesday, June 26th, at an invitation-only meeting conducted at U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) headquarters in Washington, D.C., KARAMAH Vice President Engy Abdelkader raised serious concerns regarding religious profiling of American Muslims and Islamophobic trainings to law enforcement and military personnel.
During the meeting, which was attended by representatives of civil society organizations as well as federal government agencies, Ms. Abdelkader highlighted the community’s alarm at continuing reports of Islamophobic and otherwise inaccurate trainings to U.S. military personnel and law enforcement concerning the American Muslim community, specifically and Muslims and Islam more generally. Such biased trainings have occurred within varying government agencies including the DOJ, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and more recently, the U.S. Department of Defense (e.g. U.S. Joint Staff Forces College). Ms. Abdelkader pressed for the immediate implementation of thorough reforms while reiterating KARAMAH’s prior calls for accountability and re-training of those who have been exposed to such prejudicial misinformation.
As Islamophobic law enforcement trainings are a natural precursor to biased policing tactics, Ms. Abdelkader also requested that the DOJ amend its 2003 Policy Guidance, ordering federal agencies not to use race or ethnicity as an indicator of suspicion in routine law enforcement activities, to include a similar prohibition on religious profiling as well. The request comes in response to continuing revelations of law enforcement surveillance of broad swaths of the American Muslim community without any prior indication of purported criminal activity. The DOJ represented that it continues to work on this issue.
(For more information, contact: Aisha Rahman at (202) 234-7302)
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