The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) suspended its operations in Florida after the state designated the group’s state chapter as a domestic terrorist organization.
Attorney General James Uthmeier (R-FL), who won his reelection bid on Tuesday — defeating challenger Jose Javier Rodriguez — confirmed the announcement on social media Thursday, when the designation took effect.
The ruling, he said, was a “great win by our Solicitor General’s office and for the people of Florida.”
Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) called the move a “good win” and added, “Florida is holding CAIR accountable.” DeSantis and other members of the Florida Cabinet maintain that the group has ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. The organization disputes those claims and says its mission is “rooted in faith, is to enhance the public’s understanding of Islam, protect civil rights, promote justice and empower American Muslims.”
Federal Judge Allen C. Winsor, of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida, rejected an emergency request from the Muslim civil rights organization to prevent the state from designating the group as a domestic terrorist organization.
“Today’s ruling is deeply disappointing and we are appealing it,” said Ashley Gorski, senior counsel with the ACLU’s National Security Project. “Today’s decision upholds state officials’ sweeping power to punish American organizations they brand as ‘terrorist,’ without due process and in violation of the First Amendment. Florida officials have been relentless in seeking to silence our clients’ civil rights work and advocacy, damaging not only them but also their community. We cannot allow this dangerous and sweeping censorship regime to stand.”
CAIR called the move “baseless and unconstitutional.”
“We have suspended our operations in Florida because of Governor DeSantis and other state officials’ baseless and unconstitutional enforcement of the state’s unprecedented new ‘domestic terrorist organization’ laws against us,” the organization said. “The ACLU, SPLC, and their partners are representing us in a federal lawsuit challenging this designation on First Amendment and due process grounds.”
Last year, DeSantis signed an executive order that designated CAIR and CAIR Florida as terrorist organizations, which blocked them from receiving public contracts, funding, and benefits from state and local agencies.
CAIR was first founded in Washington, D.C., in June of 1994 by Omar Ahmad and Nihad Awad. The organization currently has chapters in over twenty states. Its website says the organization’s core mission is to “provide American Muslim youth the training, skills and experience for positive activism, to empower them to guide their communities from the margin to the mainstream and to foster a healthy American Muslim identity that fits comfortably within pluralistic American society.”
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