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AMP Report – November 16, 2007
LA police cancels Muslim profiling program
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Amid an uproar by Muslim and civil right groups, the LA Police Department has shelved its program to ‘map’ (read profile) Muslims in the Greater Los Angeles where at least 500,000 Muslims reside. After a meeting with the Muslim leaders, LAPD Chief William Bratton declared the plan “dead on arrival.” “It is over and not just put on the side,” said Chief Bratton.
No doubt the major reason for the termination of the “mapping” or profiling plan was the Muslim community’s vociferous opposition and active civic engagement in making themselves heard beyond Los Angeles. Muslim civil right organizations demonstrated a strong unity of purpose and message on the issue of “mapping” that led to a position of strength for Muslims in the November 15 meeting with the LADP Chief.
The meeting was moderated by Deputy Mayor of Los Angeles Arif Alikhan and attended by LAPD Deputy Chief Mike Downing, one of the “mapping” plan's original architects. Chief Bratton acknowledged the hurt and offense caused to Muslims and agreed to send a letter to the Muslim community announcing the official termination of the “mapping” plan.
The diverse group of Muslim leaders who met with Bratton included leaders of African, Iranian, Egyptian, Iraqi and Pakistani descent, among other ethnicities. Organizations involved in the initial phases of this controversial plan were the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, Muslim Advocates and the American Civil Liberties Union.
Several representatives from other religious and civil rights organizations turned out to support the Muslims. They included representatives from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, progressive Jewish and Christian organizations and Japanese American civil rights groups. Japanese Americans in particular said they did not want to see anyone targeted the way their community was singled out before and during World War II.
The Muslim organizations, during the meeting, highlighted the pervasive culture of ignorance across the country in political and law enforcement circles contributing to misconceptions about Islam and Muslims that lead to short-sighted policy-making.
In response, Chief Bratton suggested the establishment of a Muslim forum for the LAPD to directly interface with him and his senior command staff in pursuit of mutual understanding between law enforcement and the Muslim community. The Muslim leadership has welcomed the idea and hopes the forum will help to dispel myths about Islam and Muslims and create a healthy dialogue with law enforcement.
American Muslim Voice President, Khalid Saeed, welcomed the LAPD Chief Bratton’s decision to scrap the “Mapping” program and expressed hope that the decision would help in building confident relations with the Muslim community.
"It's a great relief to know we'll be treated like all citizens," said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations Greater Los Angeles office in Anaheim. "There are no second-class citizens in Los Angeles today."
Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, called the police action a "great step for democracy." "We saw today democracy in action," he said. "The chief told us that nothing moves forward without the input, participation and support of the Muslim community."
Although the LAPD “Mapping” program has been shelved but it will take a long time to reverse its damage to the Muslims who have endured six years of suspicion and controversial prosecutions around the U.S. Understandably they remain sensitive to any new police initiative that might smack of racial or religious profiling. The “Mapping” plan only enflamed an already wounded community in an atmosphere of anti-Muslim hysteria prevailed in the post-9/11 America.
The LADP’s “Mapping” program smacked the “exclusion zones” created in 1942 under President Franklin Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066. In an atmosphere of World War II hysteria, President Roosevelt authorized the internment of American citizens of Japanese ancestry and resident aliens from Japan. The order authorized transporting these citizens to assembly centers hastily set up and governed by the military in California, Arizona, Washington state, and Oregon. Approximately 122,000 men, women, and children were moved to these assembly centers. They were then evacuated to and confined in isolated, fenced, and guarded relocation centers, known as internment camps. Not surprisingly, Japanese Americans turned out at the meeting to express their solidarity with the Muslims’ cause.
Alarmingly, as Los Angeles police shelved its plan to profile Muslims, law enforcement officials and terrorism experts, insist that the “mapping” was a useful tool. The Los Angeles Times published the story of Muslim leaders’ meeting with the LA Police Chief under the headline: Experts see value in data on Muslims. "Certainly they have clipped off an opportunity to get closer to their potential targets," Ken Piernick, a retired senior counter-terrorism official with the FBI told the paper. Brian Levin, a former New York Police Department officer who directs the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University San Bernardino, told the Los Angeles Times: "In the abstract the data could have had some value."
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