{"id":2566,"date":"2011-03-08T10:35:50","date_gmt":"2011-03-08T10:35:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2011\/03\/muslims-and-supporters-protest.php"},"modified":"2011-03-08T10:35:50","modified_gmt":"2011-03-08T10:35:50","slug":"muslims-and-supporters-protest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/03\/muslims-and-supporters-protest","title":{"rendered":"Muslims and Supporters Protest Congressional Hearings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NEW YORK (RNS) When Anam Chaudhry, 17, sang the national anthem to several hundred protesters in Times Square on Sunday afternoon, she wore a Muslim headscarf, and around her shoulders, another garment: the American flag.<br \/>\n&#8220;We love this country,&#8221; said Imam Shamsi Ali, head of the Islamic Cultural Center here, after Chaudhry opened the interfaith rally. &#8220;We want to see America remain the most powerful and most beautiful country in the world.&#8221;<br \/>\nFaith leaders and supporters braved the rain on Sunday to protest the upcoming congressional hearings on homegrown Islamic terrorism planned for this Thursday (March 10).<br \/>\nProtesters held signs and wore t-shirts bearing the rally&#8217;s slogan, &#8220;Today, I am Muslim, too,&#8221; while others said it was unjust to single out a religious group as a threat to national security.<br \/>\nAs the rally wore on, another slogan took shape in the speeches and protests. It was a cry for inclusion, an expression of patriotism: &#8220;I am American, too.&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;People say Islam is the enemy,&#8221; said rally organizer Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who is also a co-founder of a controversial project to build a mosque near Ground Zero. &#8220;The real enemy is radicalization and extremism, and we, as Americans, are against it.&#8221;<br \/>\nSome faith leaders have encouraged Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., who, as chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security, has spearheaded the hearings, to widen its scope to include other threats to national security.<br \/>\n&#8220;That&#8217;s absolute nonsense,&#8221; King told <em>The New York Times<\/em> on Sunday. &#8220;The threat is coming from the Muslim community, the radicalization attempts are directed at the Muslim community. Why should I investigate other communities?&#8221;<br \/>\nLeaders at the rally expressed a desire to help fight against the threat of terrorism.<br \/>\n&#8220;The threats to our country are too big to disqualify any person who &#8216;loves freedom&#8217; &#8212; as (former President George W.) Bush would say &#8212; from lending a hand,&#8221; said the Rev. Chloe Breyer, an Episcopal priest.<br \/>\nSome protesters said they saw the hearings as a kind of hazing period for Muslims in America.<br \/>\nProtesters from an array of countries waved American flags, but not everyone at the rally shared in the patriotic fever.<br \/>\n&#8220;I don&#8217;t like this country,&#8221; said Muhammad Rashwan, 27, who moved to New York from Egypt two years ago. &#8220;The press is unfair to the Middle East, and people act like the words of the press come from God.&#8221;<br \/>\nFour blocks south of the rally, 50 people gathered in a counter-protest, but disbanded early on as the rain fell.<br \/>\n<strong>&#8211; SIMONE GORRINDO<\/strong>, <em>Religion News Service <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NEW YORK (RNS) When Anam Chaudhry, 17, sang the national anthem to several hundred protesters in Times Square on Sunday afternoon, she wore a Muslim headscarf, and around her shoulders, another garment: the American flag. &#8220;We love this country,&#8221; said Imam Shamsi Ali, head of the Islamic Cultural Center here, after Chaudhry opened the interfaith&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":264,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,8,5,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","category-news","category-politics","category-rns"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Muslims and Supporters Protest Congressional Hearings<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/03\/muslims-and-supporters-protest\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Muslims and Supporters Protest Congressional Hearings\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"NEW YORK (RNS) When Anam Chaudhry, 17, sang the national anthem to several hundred protesters in Times Square on Sunday afternoon, she wore a Muslim headscarf, and around her shoulders, another garment: the American flag. &#8220;We love this country,&#8221; 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said Imam Shamsi Ali, head of the Islamic Cultural Center here, after Chaudhry opened the interfaith&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/03\/muslims-and-supporters-protest","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2011-03-08T10:35:50+00:00","author":"editor","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/03\/muslims-and-supporters-protest","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/03\/muslims-and-supporters-protest","name":"Muslims and Supporters Protest Congressional Hearings","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-03-08T10:35:50+00:00","dateModified":"2011-03-08T10:35:50+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58d12601cbe230a61e6f2ea91d341249"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/03\/muslims-and-supporters-protest#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/03\/muslims-and-supporters-protest"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/03\/muslims-and-supporters-protest#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Muslims and Supporters Protest Congressional Hearings"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58d12601cbe230a61e6f2ea91d341249","name":"editor","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dfc\/dfcc0838a84dd70003db24678b13c234x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dfc\/dfcc0838a84dd70003db24678b13c234x96.jpg","caption":"editor"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/editor"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/264"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2566\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}