US Muslims demand probe into threats to mosque imams

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Wednesday 27 May 2015 - 10:34 Makkah mean time-9-8-1436 Arizona, US (IINA) - An American Muslim advocacy group has called on state and federal law enforcement authorities to investigate threats mailed to a number of mosques in Phoenix and Arizona, and consider them as acts of domestic terrorism, OnIslam reported. "These letters clearly constitute threats of domestic terrorism targeting a religious minority and should be labeled as such and investigated accordingly by Arizona law enforcement authorities and the FBI," Imraan Siddiqi, chairman of the Arizona chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations Arizona (CAIR-AZ), said in a statement released on Monday. Siddiqi also called on the Obama administration to treat a planned religiously motivated attack on a Muslim community in New York as an act of terrorism and to charge the admitted organizer of the attack as a terrorist. The statement came after letters from people calling themselves "Patriotic Friends" was sent to Arizona Muslim religious leaders. The writer quotes the Bible and makes a number of threats to kill the imams and their families. The letters state: "First of all, in any state where Sharia law is invoked in any way, all Imams in that state and their families will die." It also threatens the "burning to the ground" of American mosques, and states: "I can see entire Muslim communities destroyed from Detroit to California." The full-page letter quotes the Bible and makes a number of threats to kill the imams and their families if they do not turn to Christianity. It is noteworthy that the threats are not the first to target American Muslims. Recently, CAIR called on law enforcement authorities in Baltimore County, Md., to step up protection of a mosque and Islamic school in that county following threats to bomb the school's bus and to spill "Muslim blood." CAIR also called on the FBI to investigate the phone threats as hate crimes. SM/IINA