Dear Friends,
As school starts up and many return to work, its worth noting some highlights from August. ICNY has long advocated for the Community Safety Act that would ban religious profiling and introduce an Inspector General to the NYPD and we were delighted to learn that the City Council overturned a Mayoral veto of this piece of legislation. In addition ICNY Staff stood in support of immigration reform down on Varrick St. Detention Center. Finally, please find below our statement about the AP’s disclosures this week on the NYPD’s labeling of mosques as terrorist organization:
This week’s disclosures by the AP that the NYPD designated mosques as subject to “terrorism enterprise investigtions” affixes law-abiding Muslim New Yorkers with a grossly undeserved and tainted label. For the City of New York to be a truly safe place, all New Yorkers must be confident that they will be evaluated as individuals, not judged by their group association–in this case religious identity. Yesterday’s revelations about the NYPD’s labeling of mosques makes even more timely the ACLU lawsuit against the NYPD about discriminatory surveillance Raza v. City of New York. The Interfaith Center of New York joins other organizations in calling for an end to discriminatory policing practices that target law-abiding Muslims.
The Interfaith Center of New York was also recently awarded a small grant of $6500 to assist the New York Council for Humanities in its Muslim Voices Project. ICNY staff will help select literature that introduces children and teens to the world of Islam and Muslims. ICNY is delighted to contribute to this new initiative, which will raise public awareness and counter Islamaphobia.
Click here to access ICNY’s September E-bulletin and List of Events.
