To: The United States House of Representatives, The United States Senate, and President Donald Trump
@POTUS: Designating Muslim Brotherhood as Terrorist Would Hurt America
Just Foreign Policy
Don't designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. Doing so would strengthen extremism and hurt America.
Why is this important?
The New York Times reports that an executive order is under discussion at the White House which would designate the Muslim Brotherhood, a mostly nonviolent Islamist political movement in the Middle East, as a terrorist organization. [1]
Such a move would hamstring U.S. diplomats, who wouldn't be allowed to talk to the Brotherhood. Among Islamist groups in the Middle East, the Brotherhood has been relatively moderate in recent decades, a key reason the U.S. has maintained communication with them under longstanding bipartisan U.S. policy. Like the Smith Act during the McCarthy period, banning the Brotherhood would criminalize a political belief, regardless of behavior. It would unnecessarily classify a huge group of people as enemies of the U.S., though they had no dispute with the U.S. in the past. It would be spectacularly hypocritical, since the U.S., especially the CIA, maintains cozy relations with Saudi Arabia, whose government promotes and enforces, including with violence, a far more rigid and extreme form of Islam than most Brotherhood groups espouse. Such an overbroad designation would allow the executive branch to opportunistically and unaccountably target Islamists not based on whether they threaten the United States, but based on whether they support the imperial agendas of Saudi Arabia and the CIA.
The ACLU says the move would "target and stigmatize American Muslims" and would "open the door to using overbroad and unfair laws" that "sweep up innocent individuals and organizations and lack due process safeguards ... it could have a tremendous effect on freedom of speech." [2]
Urge President Trump and Members of Congress to oppose designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization by signing our petition.
References:
1. "Trump Pushes Dark View of Islam to Center of U.S. Policy-Making,"
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/01/us/politics/donald-trump-islam.html
2. "'Witch hunt' fears as US may outlaw Muslim Brotherhood,"
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/02/hunt-fears-ban-muslim-brotherhood-170201014221892.html
Such a move would hamstring U.S. diplomats, who wouldn't be allowed to talk to the Brotherhood. Among Islamist groups in the Middle East, the Brotherhood has been relatively moderate in recent decades, a key reason the U.S. has maintained communication with them under longstanding bipartisan U.S. policy. Like the Smith Act during the McCarthy period, banning the Brotherhood would criminalize a political belief, regardless of behavior. It would unnecessarily classify a huge group of people as enemies of the U.S., though they had no dispute with the U.S. in the past. It would be spectacularly hypocritical, since the U.S., especially the CIA, maintains cozy relations with Saudi Arabia, whose government promotes and enforces, including with violence, a far more rigid and extreme form of Islam than most Brotherhood groups espouse. Such an overbroad designation would allow the executive branch to opportunistically and unaccountably target Islamists not based on whether they threaten the United States, but based on whether they support the imperial agendas of Saudi Arabia and the CIA.
The ACLU says the move would "target and stigmatize American Muslims" and would "open the door to using overbroad and unfair laws" that "sweep up innocent individuals and organizations and lack due process safeguards ... it could have a tremendous effect on freedom of speech." [2]
Urge President Trump and Members of Congress to oppose designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization by signing our petition.
References:
1. "Trump Pushes Dark View of Islam to Center of U.S. Policy-Making,"
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/01/us/politics/donald-trump-islam.html
2. "'Witch hunt' fears as US may outlaw Muslim Brotherhood,"
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/02/hunt-fears-ban-muslim-brotherhood-170201014221892.html