Bloomberg is pressed to end spying of Muslims by police

By Nick Clunn, The Record (Hackensack N.J.) –

HACKENSACK, N.J. — More than two dozen religious groups called on New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Tuesday to end the covert surveillance of Muslims, imploring him to partner with believers instead of allowing police to stalk them.

Police training and methods must “support the constitutionally protected right to worship without scrutiny for every religious community,” group leaders said in a letter that was sent to the mayor’s office Tuesday.

Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly have maintained the surveillance was legal and necessary to protect a city under constant threat of another terrorist attack. A spokesman for Bloomberg offered no additional comment Tuesday.

A message requesting comment from the New York Police Department was not returned.

New York police monitored Muslims throughout the metropolitan area by observing where they ate, prayed and shopped, and officers watched Muslim student groups at 16 colleges, according to a series of reports by The Associated Press. In New Jersey, officers targeted Muslims in Newark, the Omar Mosque in Paterson and a student organization at Rutgers University.

The letter signed by the religious leaders was given to reporters Tuesday at the interdenominational Riverside Church in Manhattan, where leaders representing Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Sikh organizations voiced their disapproval.

Rabbi Justus Baird of Auburn Seminary in New York said religious groups grow fearful and suspicious when singled out.

“You can learn a lot more about people if you talk to them rather than by stalking them,” Baird said he has told law enforcement groups.

Imam Al-Hajj Talib Abdur-Raschid, president of the Islamic Leadership Council of Metropolitan New York, accused Bloomberg and Kelly of “acting more like rulers than public servants” and celebrated the growing number of people who have spoken out against NYPD surveillance activities.

“It’s no longer Muslims speaking out in a vacuum,” Abdur-Raschid said.

The meeting of religious leaders coincided with the release of a poll measuring public sentiment about the surveillance.

A Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday showed that 58 percent of those surveyed said the NYPD dealt with Muslims fairly, but found that 29 percent thought police were unfair, up from 24 percent in February.

All 16 of the national groups that signed the letter are affiliated with Shoulder to Shoulder, a coalition that formed after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to challenge a rise in anti-Muslim sentiment.

Representatives from the United Methodist Church, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America were among the major national groups that added signatories.

The letter asked Bloomberg to purge NYPD training materials that Muslims may find offensive, a request that stems from the screening of a controversial firm, “The Third Jihad,” to police recruits.