(COLUMBUS, OHIO, 2/2/2022) On Tuesday, Feb. 1, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and 82 other American Muslim organizations sent a joint letter to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) urging it to investigate the actions of The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), an anti-Muslim hate group founded by Steven Emerson, who has been described as an “anti-Muslim activist” by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Specifically, the Muslim civil society organizations and mosques requested the DOJ investigate whether the anti-Muslim hate group violated any federal laws by using paid spies to infiltrate, record, and undermine Muslim organizations, houses of worship, and leaders, including then-Rep. Keith Ellison, for the benefit of a foreign government.
Read the letter here.
Background:
In December 2021, CAIR-Ohio announced that its now-former director, Romin Iqbal, had been terminated for passing information about CAIR’s national advocacy work to IPT.
In the weeks after Iqbal’s termination, a Virginia Muslim voluntarily came forward to admit and apologize for working as a paid IPT spy from 2008 to 2012. In addition, the IPT whistleblower who first alerted CAIR to IPT’s efforts to target the community released a public statement and participated in an interview with The Washington Post.
Read more here:
