It’s all about the numbers in the victimhood bullying game.

And Nihad Awad, executive director of CAIR, has problems getting the numbers he needs to prove that Muslims are subject to unusual discrimination. This could be a real embarrassment for Awad, because if Muslims are actually doing well in the U.S., maybe they don’t need CAIR. And that could mean all that fine Saudi and UAE money is going to the wrong group. Or maybe that most American Muslims don’t want their kids to be part of the future Muslim Brotherhood Caliphate after all. What’s even worse - all those reports of discrimination cases against Jews (couldn’t be anti-semitism, must be better reporting….). So frustrating for Awad and his Royal backers!

Don’t take my word for it. Listen to Awad tell you about his problems with Muslims who just don’t understand how important those discrimination reports are to his career salary mission. We have the audio - Vigilant Freedom Center received a recording from the April 27, 2007 CAIR briefing on the 6 Imams, at the Muslim ADAMS Center in Virginia. CAIR advertised the meeting as “Cair Hosts Town Hall Meeting on Airport Profiling.” The speakers were Nihad Awad, CAIR Executive Director, Khadija Athman, CAIR Civil Rights Manager for CAIR, and Imam Magid from the ADAMS Center.
Nihad Awad gave two presentations: one in which he discusses his difficulties getting those discrimination reporting numbers up, and a second about CAIR’s story of the 6 Imams. The second speech also reveals some of CAIR’s tactical plans. Below, we provide a link to the audio in .wma format, and our best effort at transcription of excerpts. Garbled bits or guesses as to words are in brackets.
We have only had time to transcribe sections from the first presentation, and a small section from the Q&A section at the end of the second presentation. This means the bulk of the 6 Imams presentation is still just in audio. We’re posting all the audio here and any volunteers to assist in more transcription, please contact Christine@vigilantfreedom.com. More audio from our sources will come soon from other meetings, and we need volunteer transcribers. It’s not exciting work, but it is crucial for making audio evidence accessible to analysts.

If we get more transcripts, we’ll append them to this post.

1. First speech by Nihad Awad

Awad Presentation on Discrimination Reports (wma audio)

Some introductory remarks from another speaker, then after about 1 minute Awad starts speaking:

There were 196 cases reported by the Justice Department for Muslims in civil rights cases. There were over 1008 cases reported by the Jewish faith. We need to do a much better job not only in recognizing our civil rights but also in reporting it to the government. Which is very critical and very important.

And that is why, I think, this kind of program is important to the purpose of being able to inform the government official places …[garbled].

We will talk about the case, about the case of the imams, about the implications, about where the case is now…we’ll talk about the 6 imams case…Muslims who fly within the states, and also the lawsuit that we helped file, and the reaction, both in public, in the media and in Congress. What it means to civil rights and what it means to Muslims. This is very important. You will know that history is being made.

…It is very important for Muslims to understand the law, and it’s also very important for Muslims to exercise their legal rights in the country. And it’s also important that if these rights are violated, that Muslims recognize that these rights are violated. Many Muslims,they are discriminated against or mistreated, they overlook or ignore or they are afraid to say or challenge or report these mistreatments. Which means, more of the same will take place against the same person or persons or against Muslims. And when people stand up and say something and challenge them, then there will be change.

But the psyche of Muslims have to change. The laws are there, fortunately, but the laws are not utilized. They’re not understood and they’re not followed by the victimizers or the victims. So there’s a lot of ignorance about the law, and that’s why Muslims usually find themselves being mistreated or discriminated against. Reporting to an organization like CAIR is important, because it is empowering. It is empowering to the Muslims themselves who report, it is empowering to the organization, and it is important to the status of Muslims within the United States. Also it is a powerful tool and message to the government and the legislators, to those who make the laws in the country, to know that this phenomenon has to be dealt with, it has to be dealt with effectively, and results have to be seen….

The Department of Justice, in their annual report, don’t be surprised that if you feel Muslims are not treated well in the country, that the number of reports of incidents against Muslims or hate crimes is very low. Whereas the number of incidents and hate crime cases against the Jewish community is very very high. Maybe dozens of [incidents] against Muslims, but against Jews are in the thousands. But when you examine the situation you say, We really feel our community is more targeted. 54% - this is one of CAIR’s surveys - 54% of all Muslims surveyed said they had been subject to discrimination. 54% which if you put numbers down, we’re talking about tens of thousands of cases, not dozens, as is reported in the Justice Department’s annual report.

So there’s a huge gap between where we are as a community and underreporting what goes on, and how we are perceived. So we go to Congress, and testify before Congress, our claim and our statement is weak, because a fair-minded Congressman will ask the question, “How many cases are we talking about?” Well, we’re talking about a few hundred cases. You give the specifics, and here’s an annual report by CAIR. How many cases are we talking about, well maybe 2000 cases. How many Muslims do we have in the United States? Well, we have 6 million. So if you divide 2000 over 7 million [sic], that’s very very small percentage.

Which means Muslims are in good shape. Muslims are not treated badly. But if you ask (garbled) most Muslims nationwide, they will tell you an experience with discrimination. My interaction with Muslims nationwide tells me that most Muslims I know have encountered an incident or an experience with discrimination or mistreatment, whether subtlely or directly. But when we ask, have you contacted a civil rights organization like CAIR, the answer is “No.” Why? This is very interesting. They will say, “Well, what can you do?”

We can do a lot. At least, we have to report it. If there’s a merit to the case, we can intervene. And if we intervene, we can [tell] the party that discriminated against you that it is unlawful and there might be a legal course of action. And second, you empower yourself when you speak up. And when people speak up about their experience, they get support. Socially, psychologically, it feels good when people talk about their experiences, especially to a trusted party… It would feel [be?} even better if there is an institution that intervenes on behalf of these people and helps. It also feels much better if we know that there is a law that some people struggled for that’s there to be used. And I think it makes even better sense if the Muslim community is known and identified as a community that stands up for itself. So this whole process of identifying the violation, to understanding it …and then getting results and resolution, it’s very empowering.

This is the experience of African Americans, Jewish Americans, Catholics, all these minorities the non-majority whites in this country, all without exception have gone through what we are going through. The only thing is, the Muslim American experience is much better than theirs. Why? Because we are the last community. The last community benefits from the struggle of all previous communities.

So we are in better shape because there are laws on the books, there’s a system and people have showed us the way how to do it, and we just have to wake up and smell the coffee and so, it does not take a lot. Except in some cases, every decade there are new laws. Some of these laws are unconstitutional. They violate the civil rights. And they need some institution, some people to challenge the law, all the way up to the Supreme Court. Now the Supreme Court many times will tell the government, “You’re wrong. This is unconstitutional. ” So the system works, but it needs someone to use it.”

2. Second speech by Nihad Awad on 6 Imams - media and legal approaches

Short version (mostly Awad) (wma audio)

No transcription

Longer version (Awad and Khadija Athman) (wma audio)

No transcription

Q&A at the end (wma audio)

Excerpt from Awad’s answer to question on Defamation suits:

“There are two levels. Imams are going after those who caused this for them, the particular incident. The imams also have the right to sue the media if the media misrepresented them and that misrepresentation caused them harm. So this is almost like first draft. There could be second and third draft. There’s a statute of limitation for Defamation of one year. So until November 20, 2007 they have the right to sue any party who misrepresented them or defamed them.

But the laws of defamation in the United States are much more difficult. The most difficult laws. You can say almost whatever you want in this country. Unlike Europe and Canada, where there are strict, tough defamation laws. If you accuse someone, if you say something about some people, you can be sued, you can go to jail or you can be fined. In the United States, people use free speech, the First Amendment, to justify a lot of what they say. But there’s a limit.And I think there are many lawyers who are looking into this. But the main focus on the imams now is to have legal recourse against those who caused them [immediate] harm, they were rejected, they were mistreated, they were [arrested] and they were denied service.”

Just a couple comments.

The reason most Muslims don’t cooperate with CAIR’s trawling for stories of mistreatment and discrimination is that they are, to quote Awad, in good shape and not being treated badly. According to government data compiled by the Washington Post:

Americans of Middle Eastern descent are richer and better educated than most Americans, a demographic portrait at odds with recent images in the news of young, single, unsettled immigrants.

This population — a diverse group of Muslims and Christians that traces its ancestry to a swath extending from Afghanistan to North Africa — has found a comfortable niche in the United States.

Samia El-Badry writes of Arab-Americans, “They are very much like other Americans, except younger, more educated, more affluent and more likely to own a business.”

Lobbyists like Awad make a living from portraying the very diverse American Muslim population as a single entity, and by comparing them (endlessly - just listen for it) to the disenfranchised, segregated American Black community in the 1950s and 1960s. This is political parasitism and fabrication of the worst sort, and it’s time the Black community protested the cynical exploitation of their historic struggle for equality by the Islamist Lobby, funded by Royalist petrobillionaires in human-trafficking undemocratic states like Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

As for Awad’s complaints about “the most difficult laws” like the First Amendment, CAIR writes supports Democrat Party legislation that would decimate freedom of speech and give us “strict, tough” limits on what we can say - like those emerging dhimmitude paragons of Canada and Europe. Let’s see what happens if those bills get passed and challenged up to the Roberts Supreme Court. Bring it on.
Remember, CAIR bills itself as “America’s largest Islamic civil liberties group” - but their membership numbers were estimated at a mere 4,761 for 2004. Roughly equivalent to the membership of the Greater Milwaukee Association of Realtors, but significantly less than the American Quilting Society, both of whom do a lot more good in the world.

Expose CAIR. Challenge CAIR. Have a laugh at CAIR’s expense.

They’re a desert mirage.