Excerpt:
It’s always been curious why Maajid Nawaz, a Muslim, wound up in the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) controversial journalist’s guide listing “anti-Muslim extremists.” Nawaz is a former extremist who founded the U.K-based Quilliam Foundation, a think tank that counters Islamic radicalism.
The answer may have been hiding in plain sight.
The report, which was removed from the SPLC’s website in April, noted that it was compiled with input from ReThink Media, the Center for New Community and MediaMatters. Now that collaboration has cost the SPLC nearly $3.4 million in a legal settlement and that included multiple apologies to Nawaz.
[...]
When the guide was written, ReThink Media employed a former leader with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) who has a history of radicalism. And since then, ReThink hired Corey Saylor, CAIR’s former national legislative affairs director.
