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A Muslim American group has sued Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for designating it a \u201cforeign terrorist organisation\u201d, accusing the right-wing politician of violating its free speech rights over its Palestine advocacy.<\/p>\n
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and its Florida chapter filed the lawsuit in federal court on Tuesday to revoke the state decree that blacklisted the organisation.<\/p>\n list of 3 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n \u201cThe Executive Order [EO] identifies no criminal charges or convictions, relies on no federal designation, and inaccurately invokes statutory authority,\u201d the lawsuit said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt rests on political rhetoric and imposes sweeping legal consequences on a domestic civil rights organisation because of its viewpoints and advocacy.\u201d<\/p>\n DeSantis issued the order last week, labelling the group a \u201cterror\u201d organisation along with the Muslim Brotherhood.<\/p>\n The lawsuit was filed amid a spike in Islamophobia and right-wing calls for targeting Muslim groups in the United States, a push that CAIR said aims to suppress speech in support of Palestinian human rights.<\/p>\n Tuesday\u2019s lawsuit noted that CAIR has helped legally challenge DeSantis\u2019s ban against Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).<\/p>\n \u201cCAIR\u2019s advocacy on Palestine-related issues, including its representation of SJP chapters and opposition to state censorship of pro-Palestinian speech, forms an important part of the factual context in which Defendant DeSantis issued the EO,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n Last week, DeSantis said he would \u201cwelcome\u201d legal action by CAIR, saying it would give the state \u201cdiscovery rights to be able to subpoena\u201d the group\u2019s bank records.<\/p>\n CAIR\u2019s lawyers cited that response in the lawsuit, arguing that it demonstrates the governor\u2019s pre-existing bias against the group.<\/p>\n \u201cThese contemporaneous statements confirm that the Executive Order was intended to burden and deter Plaintiffs\u2019 advocacy rather than to serve any legitimate state interest,\u201d it read.<\/p>\n The lawsuit also underscored that only the US secretary of state has the authority to designate a group a \u201cforeign terrorist organisation\u201d, saying DeSantis\u2019s order is \u201cpreempted\u201d by federal law.<\/p>\n It also noted the lack of avenues for CAIR to confront or review the designation. \u201cThe Executive Order is self-executing, indefinite, and issued without procedural safeguards,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n CAIR deputy director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said the group is hopeful that the lawsuit will succeed because DeSantis\u2019s move is \u201cblatantly unconstitutional\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you want to punish an organisation for wrongdoing, you find evidence they did something wrong, you present that evidence in a court of law, due process occurs, and then a judge decides what the consequences are,\u201d Mitchell told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n \u201cGovernor DeSantis has skipped over that entire process because he knows care has not done anything wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n Mitchell went on to say that DeSantis should reflect on his own faults.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is he who has done something wrong,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cRon DeSantis needs to account for his \u2018Israel first\u2019 policies, his attacks on the First Amendment and his support for the genocide in Gaza. He is the one who needs to answer for his conduct, not CAIR.\u201d<\/p>\n DeSantis\u2019s designation followed a similar decree by another Republican governor, Greg Abbott of Texas, which CAIR is also challenging in court.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, Senator John Cornyn, who represents Texas, said he would push to revoke CAIR\u2019s tax-exempt status, invoking baseless allegations that the group is pushing to impose Islamic law in the country.<\/p>\n \u201cCAIR is a radical group of terrorist sympathisers with a long history of undermining American values and trying to unconstitutionally impose sharia law on Texas,\u201d Cornyn told Fox News.<\/p>\n Islamic law has no legal standing in federal or state courts anywhere in the US.<\/p>\n But right-wing advocates have drummed up unfounded fear of it for years as they push to demonise the Muslim community.<\/p>\n Over the past two decades, state and federal lawmakers have pushed to pass measures against Islamic law that critics said are unnecessary and only serve to fuel bigotry against Muslims.<\/p>\n CAIR\u2019s Mitchell dismissed Cornyn\u2019s threats, stressing that CAIR is a law-abiding group and there is no legal basis to target its tax status.<\/p>\n \u201cIf John Cornyn really thinks that American Muslims, who make up one percent of the American population, are trying to \u2013 or are somehow on the verge of \u2013 imposing Islamic law on 350 million people, he\u2019s insane,\u201d Mitchell said.<\/p>\n \u201cMore likely he is again spreading this conspiracy theory for political gain.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n A Muslim American group has sued Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for designating it a \u201cforeign terrorist organisation\u201d, accusing the right-wing politician of violating its free speech rights over its Palestine advocacy. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and its Florida chapter filed the lawsuit in federal court on Tuesday to revoke the state decree that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5641,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-canada-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
CAIR decries lack of due process<\/h2>\n
Texas crackdown<\/h2>\n
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