Petition demands end to attacks on Muslims

Federal agents moved on Nov. 12 to seize four mosques and an Islamic charity, the Alavi Foundation, using phony claims that they were channeling money to fund an Iranian nuclear weapons program.

The charge is preposterous that a few mosques in the U.S. and an office building in New York City, with an annual rental income of just $4.5 million, constitute a financial front for the Islamic Republic of Iran to finance its nuclear industry.

This is despite the fact that even U.S. intelligence agencies admit that no such nuclear weapons program exists (newsweek.com, Sept. 16).

This attack is just the latest in the ongoing assault against Muslim people, used to justify U.S. colonial wars and occupations in the Middle East and Central Asia. All progressive and anti-war activists in the U.S. have a particular obligation to stand in solidarity with our Muslim sisters and brothers and to defend their basic rights to assemble and worship as they choose. These are basic human rights which are also guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution.

Stop the War on Iran calls upon all those who protest the attacks upon the mosques and who stand with our Muslim sisters and brothers and defend their basic civil rights to sign on to the petition below, and demand an end to these attacks. See StopWarOnIran.org.

Workers World endorses this petition and joins with progressives and anti-war forces in calling for an end to repression against all Muslim communities.

Petition Text:

I am writing to denounce attempts by the U.S. government to seize four Muslim houses of worship built with funds from the Alavi Foundation. The claims that this foundation was somehow involved in funding an Iranian nuclear program are as false as previous claims from Washington about alleged weapons of mass destruction in Iran and Iraq.

Attempts to seize the assets of the Alavi Foundation, a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) charity that works to promote interfaith dialogue and to teach Islamic culture, the Persian language and literature, is just the latest act in an ongoing campaign of demonization, disinformation, sanctions, and threats targeting the people of Iran. It is no coincidence that on the same day that the U.S. government unleashed its attacks on the mosques, the White House renewed the long-standing U.S. economic sanctions against Iran, once again using false claims about “weapons of mass destruction.”

This attack is a clear violation of the basic human rights to assemble and worship, just two weeks after FBI agents gunned down Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah in Detroit. It is part of an escalating number of political attacks, legal frame-ups and media slanders against Muslim people.

I demand an end to the targeting of Muslim people and mosques.

I demand an end to the campaign of demonization and sanctions against Iran.