Muslim Civil Rights Group CAIR Moves Annual Banquet Citing ‘Multiple Terror Threats’ Against Venue

Topline

The Council on American-Islamic Relations on Thursday said it has been forced to move its annual banquet after the original venue and its staffers were received terror threats, which the Muslim civil rights group said was in response to its support for Palestinian human rights amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.

FILE PHOTO: Nihad Awad, Executive Director and co-founder of the Council on American-Islamic … [+] Relations (CAIR), speaks outside the White House.

Key Facts

The event scheduled to take place at a Marriott in Arlington, Virginia on Saturday will now be moved to an alternate secure location “due to multiple terror threats targeting the hotel, its staff, CAIR and American Muslims,” the group said.

The original venue, the Marriott Crystal Gateway, had been hosting the event for over a decade, CAIR said.

The Marriot purportedly received anonymous phone calls threatening to plant bombs in the hotel’s parking garage, kill hotel staffers and “storm the hotel in a repeat of the Jan. 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol” if the banquet went ahead as planned.

The decision to move the event was prompted by the sheer number of threats, along with their inability to get additional security from local police, CAIR said.

The civil rights group has informed both the FBI and local law enforcement about the matter.

Crucial Quote

“We will not allow the threats of anti-Palestinian racists and anti-Muslim bigots who seek to dehumanize the Palestinian people and silence American Muslims to stop us from pursuing justice for all,” CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said.

Key Background

The threats follow CAIR warning that government officials and news outlets were “fanning an atmosphere of hate and dehumanization, not seen since the aftermath of 9/11.” The civil rights group says there has been a spike in violence targeting Muslim Americans and Palestinian Americans since Hamas’ terror attack on Israel and Tel Aviv’s subsequent retaliation. Over the weekend, Wadea Al-Fayoume, a six-year-old Palestinian-American boy, was murdered and his mother stabbed by their landlord in Illinois in an incident that law enforcement authorities linked to the conflict in the Middle East.

Tangent

Speaking from the Oval Office on Thursday evening, President Joe Biden raised the issue of hate crimes targeting both Muslims and Jews in America and said: “We must, without equivocation, denounce antisemitism. We must also, without equivocation, denounce Islamophobia.” Biden’s speech also addressed Wadea’s murder and acknowledged that Muslim Americans and Arab Americans are “outraged and hurting” about a potential post-9/11-style rise in Islamophobia.

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Tangent

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