FBI pulls training that branded Muslims as violent

The FBI on Thursday said it had stopped a training session that called the Prophet Muhammad a “cult leader,” said mainstream Muslims were likely to support violent extremism and described the Islamic principal of charity as a “funding mechanism for combat.”

The content of the training session set off a wave of concern among Muslims across the nation who had been trying to help authorities battle homegrown terrorism.

An FBI spokesman confirmed on Thursday that the agency did host one training session six months ago that described Muslims as more likely to be violent as they increased in devotion to their faith. Slides from the training session, confirmed as accurate by the FBI and posted online by Wired magazine, show a graph illustrating how followers of other Abrahamic faiths have become more nonviolent since their inceptions, but Muslims have not.

The lesson painted Islam as a religion that promotes and supports violence, extensively citing references to assassinations, centuries-old wars and verses from the Quran. It emphasized killing, torture and holy war as central tenets of the faith.

A prior FBI lesson included descriptions of Islam as a religion that was “hard for Westerners to understand” and that “transforms (a) country’s culture into 7th century Arabian ways.”

The FBI lesson was part of “stage two” of training for counter-terrorism agents, agency spokesman Christopher Allen said. It was one lesson out of a two-week course, he said.

It was later pulled from the agency training program because it “does not represent the FBI’s view,” Allen said.

Intelligence officials and the White House have repeatedly pushed the importance of coordinating with local Muslim organizations to combat extremist ideas and identify instances of radicalization. But national Muslim leaders on Thursday lashed out at the FBI and Department of Justice, calling the training bigoted.

“It’s troubling because the FBI is sending two conflicting messages to Muslims,” said Farhana Khera, executive director of Muslim Advocates, a legal advocacy and educational organization. “On the one hand they are saying we need your assistance to fight crime, to fight terrorism, and on the other hand they clearly are dispersing, not only disrespect, but ignorance, really.”

The organization sent a letter to the Department of Justice’s Office of Inspector General, calling for an investigation into the practices.

“The American people should be concerned about this because when you have law enforcement officials who are basically not focusing on actual evidence of wrongdoing and instead following bias and stereotypes, that doesn’t make us safer,” Khera said.

Representatives for the Islamic Society of Greater Houston, the nation’s largest local Muslim organization and a major FBI partner, declined to comment on their concerns about their partnership with the agency.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations called on FBI Director Robert Mueller to reform the agency’s use of the materials, saying “biased training will inevitably result in biased investigations.” Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, said the lessons were tantamount to hate speech.

“Definitely there are now people within our government that are being financed by our tax dollars to promote hate speech against a religious minority in America,” he said.

Asked why it was included in the training in the first place, FBI spokesman Allen said it was part of the plan for the two-week course.

“The instructor who conducted that training block no longer provides training on behalf of the FBI,” the agency said in a statement. “Policy changes have been under way to better ensure that all training is consistent with FBI standards. These changes will help develop appropriate training content for new agent training and continuing education for all employees, as well as introduce a robust consultative element from experts outside the FBI.”

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