FBI Changes Tactics to Win Muslim Trust

After complains of secret surveillance and trapping Muslim worshippers, the FBI is changing tactics to win the trust of the sizable Muslim minority.
“They are as American as apple pie,” US Attorney Wifredo Ferrer told the Miami Herald on Monday, May 16.

“We want to make it very clear that we are their US attorney, we are their Justice Department.”
Relationship between US Muslims and law enforcement officers were brought to light after three Pakistan-born imams were arrested at a mosque on charges of having links to the Taliban.
Arriving during Fajr (dawn) prayers, dozens of heavily armed federal agents and police surrounded the Flagler mosque to arrest the trio. But the police were told to wait till prayer is finished before arresting the three outside the worship place.
During the prayers, one guard took off his shoes, as a show of respect, before getting into the mosque.
When announcing the arrest, both Ferrer and John V. Gillies, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Miami Office, stressed that other mosque members and the rest of the community should not be branded by the actions of a handful of its members.
“They [US Muslims] are just as concerned about terrorist attacks as anyone else,” Ferrer said.
“They do not want to live in fear.”
The raids were conducted under new national rules of engagement intended to show more sensitivity toward religious practices after a series of outreach meetings in South Florida this year between federal law enforcers and Muslim leaders.
Ferrer said the outreach programs were initiated last year by US Attorney General Eric Holder to address concerns over increasing tensions and hate crimes.
Along with the outreach meetings, the US Attorney’s Office earlier this month hosted a training session for 65 federal, state and local agents and officers aimed at “at enhancing law enforcement officers’ cultural competence and sensitivity on issues involving the Arab, Muslim and Sikh American communities”

Strained Ties

The new FBI tactics, which was evident during the arrest of the suspects, won plaudits from American Muslims.
“Instead of barging in with 25 agents and trampling all over the place, one agent took off his shoes and went in,” Asad Ba-Yunus, a former Miami-Dade assistant state attorney who now serves as legal adviser for the Coalition of South Florida Muslim Organization, said.
“They respected the congregation that was there.”
However, the fact that the imams’ indictment was based on bank records and taped phone calls has rekindled the sense they’re being singled out for secret surveillance.
“The FBI has a very important job to do and we support it,” Nezar Hamze, executive director of the Council on America-Islamic Relations, said.
“However, their job sometimes crosses the line and interferes with the rights of peaceful Muslim people.”
Since 9/11, Muslims, estimated between six to seven million, have become sensitized to an erosion of their civil rights, with a prevailing belief that America was stigmatizing their faith.
US Muslims are particularly wary of the FBI’s history of targeting members of their community.
In 2009, Muslim groups threatened to suspend all contacts with the FBI over sending informants into mosques.
The infamous post-9/11 technique of sending spies to mosques has been stirring uproar in the United States.
The uproar escalated after media revelations that the FBI implanted a non-Muslim informant in a California mosque to seek building a terrorism case.
The fake FBI operations have stirred uproar inside the United States over entrapping young people, who posed no real threat to the US security.

Source: OnIslam