ORLANDO, Florida: A day after Gov. Ron DeSantis designated a leading Muslim civil rights organization as a \u201cforeign terrorist organization,\u201d leaders of the group\u2019s Florida chapter on Tuesday promised a lawsuit and said the state had no legal basis for such a declaration.<\/p>\n
The governor\u2019s executive order against the Council on American-Islamic Relations was an attack based on conspiracy theories, similar to those aimed in past decades at other minority groups like Jewish, Irish and Italian Americans that created fear and division, Hiba Rahim, the Florida chapter\u2019s deputy executive director, said at a news conference in Tampa.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are very proud to defend the founding principles of our Constitution, to defend free speech,\u201d Rahim said. \u201cWe are proud to defend democracy, and we are proud to be America first.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rahim blamed DeSantis\u2019 support for Israel as a reason for the executive order because she said the group\u2019s activism had caused \u201cdiscomfort\u201d to Israel. In October, the group played an active role in advocating for the release of a 16-year-old Palestinian-American from Florida who had been held in an Israeli prison for eight months. Mohammed Ibrahim was released last month.<\/p>\n
Florida has an estimated 500,000 Muslim residents, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, also known as CAIR.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will not back down here,\u201d said Rahim, vowing to sue.<\/p>\n
The DeSantis order also gives the same \u201cforeign terrorist\u201d label to the Muslim Brotherhood. President Donald Trump last month issued an executive order that sets in motion a process to designate certain chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization.<\/p>\n
Questioned by reporters at a press event in North Miami Beach on Tuesday, DeSantis doubled down on his administration\u2019s decision to label the Muslim civil rights group a \u201cforeign terrorist organization.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI welcome the lawsuit,\u201d DeSantis said, calling the designation \u201ca long time coming.\u201d<\/p>\n
The governor also said he expects state lawmakers to push \u201cfollow-on legislation\u201d on the issue during the regular session that starts in January.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I think our executive order is kind of the beginning,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The governor\u2019s executive order instructs Florida agencies to prevent the two groups and those who have provided them material support from receiving contracts, employment and funds from a state executive or cabinet agency.<\/p>\n
Founded in 1994, CAIR has 25 chapters around the country. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has issued a similar proclamation in Texas. CAIR last month asked a federal judge to strike down Abbott\u2019s proclamation, saying in a lawsuit that it was \u201cnot only contrary to the United States Constitution, but finds no support in any Texas law.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking at the Florida news conference Tuesday, Tampa attorney Miranda Margolis said the governor didn\u2019t have any legal authority to unilaterally designate a nonprofit as a terrorist organization.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis designation is without legal or factual basis and constitutes a dangerous escalation of anti-Muslim political rhetoric,\u201d said Margolis, who was representing the National Lawyers Guild, a progressive legal group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ORLANDO, Florida: A day after Gov. Ron DeSantis designated a leading Muslim civil rights organization as a \u201cforeign terrorist organization,\u201d leaders of the group\u2019s Florida chapter on Tuesday promised a lawsuit and said the state had no legal basis for such a declaration. The governor\u2019s executive order against the Council on American-Islamic Relations was an …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":90804,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90777"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90806,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90777\/revisions\/90806"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}