Muslim leaders of mosques in some 20 cities in the US, including Phoenix and Oklahoma City, are preparing for anti-Islam demonstrations scheduled for Friday and Saturday by a loose group of potentially armed rightwing protesters.
Various Facebook pages are promoting the protests and calling on followers to go to any mosque, Muslim establishment or Islamic organization and voice their opinion on Saturday, 10 October.
“We are not canceling our prayer services for Friday and Saturday but we will have Phoenix police officers here in case the protestors get violent, especially because we have been hearing that some of the protestors will be armed,” said Usama Shami, the president of the Islamic Community Center of Phoenix (ICCP), the largest mosque in Phoenix that hosts more than 800 people for Friday prayers.
Phoenix police confirmed that they would have a presence at the event, with the caveat that it is legal in Arizona to openly carry guns.
Among the groups organizing the events, dubbed the Global Rally for Humanity, are the Oath Keepers, a group that advocates for open carry of guns and has been described as a “fiercely anti-government, militaristic group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Zainab Chaudry, outreach manager of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) in Maryland and a key organizer of the community alert to the mosques all over the US, said “this is one of the most massive anti-Islam protests in recent history ... even in post-9/11 we didn’t see the kind of Islamophobia that we see now”. » | Halima Kazem in San Francisco and Tom Dart in Houston | Friday, October 9, 2015
