WASHINGTON, D.C. (MASNET – May 18, 2010) – Muslim American Society Freedom joined the ACLU and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, along with other plaintiffs in a joint lawsuit regarding the new Arizona immigration law.
The group files a lawsuit at the US District Court of Arizona challenging Arizona’s new law requiring police to demand “papers” from people they stop who they suspect are not authorized to be in the United States. MASF is a civic and civil rights advocacy division of the Muslim American Society, America’s largest Muslim grass roots organization.
“Although we are the only Muslim organization to file as plaintiffs in the lawsuit, we feel that the need to challenge legalized racial profiling is a moral and civic imperative stated Mahdi Bray, executive director, MAS Freedom. “Clearly Arizona’s SB-1070 is unconstitutional and opens the doors for racist practices in addressing immigration issues.
“With the legal assistance of the Partnership for Civil Justice, a Washington DC law firm who specializes in civil rights protection, MAS Freedom is launching a nationwide ‘No More Arizona Campaign’,” Bray added. “The campaign through town hall meetings and education material assists citizens and immigrants in challenging discriminatory immigration practices.”
In other MAS news, the organization reports that plans to build a Mosque near Ground Zero has drawn outrage in New York, and has divided families of the nearly 3,000 people that perished on Sept. 11, 2001.
Details of for the $100 million complex just two blocks from the former World Trade Center site remain sketchy. Proponents say the project would be a bridge between Islam and a city still recovering from the worst terrorist attack on American soil.
MAS stated that for some survivors, erecting a mosque and 12-story glass-and-steel complex at the old Burlington Coat Factory at 45 Park Place in lower Manhattan is offensive. For others, the cultural center represents a step towards improved relations with the Muslim world.
