A group of Muslims yesterday rallied in support of the NYPD’s controversial anti-terror surveillance of area mosques and Islamic social organizations and student groups.
“We stand behind transparency and police work,” said Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser of the American-Islamic Forum for Democracy outside Police Headquarters in lower Manhattan.
“In no way do we want to be spied on. But this is not about spying; this is about monitoring public programs,” said Jasser, one of three dozen Muslims who gathered to support the NYPD’s surveillance of their brethren.
“If you look at arrests for terrorism, of the last 200 arrests, 80 percent have been from Muslims, and yet we are only 1 1/2 percent of the population,” said Jasser, who narrated a documentary, “The Third Jihad,” about the dangers of radical Islam that the NYPD showed at training centers and later disavowed.
“So it’s rather a denial not to recognize that we have a responsibility to root out the radicalization,” he said. “To ignore the problem within our own family is to ask for this kind of surveillance.”
The NYPD has come under fire in recent weeks since reports surfaced that undercover cops have secretly monitored Muslim groups and politicians across the Northeast in the years since the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has said the program complies with the law and is geared toward preventing another attack.
“The NYPD is doing their job,” said Mohammed Hai, 58, a Muslim from Babylon, LI, who was at yesterday’s rally supporting the surveillance. “The police have to protect us.”
But critics of the surveillance, noting the small size of yesterday’s gathering, said many more people oppose the program.
Donna Lieberman, executive director of the NYCLU, said it’s un-American to paint all Muslims with a single brush.
“The broad surveillance of the Muslim community without evidence or allegations of criminal wrongdoing casts a shadow of suspicion on all law- abiding Muslims and undermines the core values of our free society without contributing to our safety or security,” Lieberman said.