Lawsuit against township in New Jersey.
At least six mosques in California and Georgia received letters threatening genocide targeting American Muslims, said Muslim advocacy group Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). The hand-written letters described Muslims as “Children of Satan” and a “vile and filthy people,” and said “there’s a new sheriff in town, President Donald Trump.”
The letters warned Muslims to “pack your bags and get out of dodge” because President-elect Donald Trump is “going to cleanse America and make it shine again. And, he’s going to start with you Muslims. He’s going to do to you Muslims what Hitler did to the Jews.”
According to CAIR, five mosques in California, and one in Georgia, received the letter from an anonymous group called “Americans for a Better Way.”
Nihad Awad National Executive Director, CAIR, on Monday, sent a letter to FBI director James B. Comey calling for an investigation into the matter. “We believe that only a vigorous investigation of this matter will reassure Muslim Americans that the civil rights and liberties of all Americans will be protected in the face of violent threats against their free exercise of religion,” read the letter.
There has been an unprecedented spike in crimes against Muslims after the presidential election. According to Southern Poverty Law Center, more than 700 incidents targeting Muslims have taken place since the election. FBI data indicate that anti-Muslim incidents jumped 67 percent in 2015.
Calling the letter a “hate motivated” incident, the San Jose Police Department, said that it has started a formal investigation.
Last week, the US Justice Department had filed a lawsuit against Bernards Township in New Jersey for denying zoning approval to allow the Islamic Society of Basking Ridge to build a mosque on land owned by the ISBR in Liberty Corner. The lawsuit said that the township violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA) when it denied permission to the society.
In March this year, ISBR had filed a lawsuit against the township for rejecting a proposal for a 4,250-square-foot mosque on Church Street in Liberty Corner Village claiming that discrimination was the basis for rejection.
The township, in a response to the original lawsuit, said that the “investigation is inappropriate at best and raises serious Constitutional issues.” It could “dissuade residents from participating in future land use hearings for fear of retribution from an applicant and the government.”
According to Dr. Ali Chaudry, a Bernards Township resident who is president of the ISBR, the filing by the Department of Justice “comes after a lengthy investigation that started in March. It addresses why Bernards Township denied our mosque application and it eviscerates the township’s claim that the denial was based on legitimate land use issues. Our community deserves its own place to pray and we will ensure we get it by standing up for our constitutional rights in court.”
The lawsuit states that the township applied different standards to the mosque development plan which were different from the standards applied to other religious groups.