A petition organized by a nonprofit urging Muslims to limit social outreach with the FBI has provoked a national debate within the Muslim community about how to deal with law enforcement.
The curb proposed by the petitioners -- eliminating joint FBI town halls and other meet-and-greet events -- is largely a response to the FBI's restricting its work with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the largest Muslim civil rights group.
The petitioners say their stand on behalf of CAIR, which has an extensive presence around the country, has larger meaning for all Muslim institutions.
"We're fighting against being relegated to second-class citizenship," said Agha Saeed, chairman of the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections in Newark, Calif., the coalition of national Muslim organizations that issued the March 17 petition.
The tensions with the FBI come as the agency insists that it wants better relations with Muslims.
"Oftentimes, the communities from which we need the most help are those who trust us the least," FBI Director Robert Mueller said on Feb. 23 in Washington. "But it is in these communities that we ... must redouble our efforts."
Saeed and others said limiting social contact is unrelated to helping the FBI solve crimes, which they said they are unequivocally committed to. Nonetheless, several prominent Muslim leaders have refused to sign the petition and say Muslims are shooting themselves in the foot by limiting contact with the FBI.
"Disengagement is not going to resolve anything -- and may even be harmful to the safety and security of the American-Muslim community," said Maha ElGenaidi, president of Islamic Networks Group in San Jose, which has done extensive cultural awareness trainings for numerous law enforcement agencies, including the FBI.
"Muslims need to reach out and build bridges," she said. "Whose help do Muslims need when hate crimes are being committed against them? They need law enforcement on their side and not against them."
The current situation has its origin in the 2008 trial and convictions of five leaders of a Texas charity, Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. The men were convicted in November of 108 criminal counts, including support of terrorism, money laundering and tax fraud. The group was accused of funneling millions of dollars to Hamas, which the government declared a terrorist group in 1995.
As part of the trial, the government labeled roughly 300 different individuals and groups as "un-indicted co-conspirators." The label does not affect anyone's rights, but Muslims complain it functions as a public smear. A federal official speaking on condition of anonymity told The Chronicle that the FBI is limiting its contact with CAIR because one of its founders was named as an "un-indicted co-conspirator."
Muslim leaders also complain the label does not identify what crime has been committed, and that once someone is labeled as an un-indicted co-conspirator there is no opportunity to clear their name.
"If CAIR has done something wrong, they should be tried in a court of law," said Shakeel Syed, executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, a coalition of 70 mosques. The group collectively issued a statement on Feb. 11 saying it would stop doing social outreach with the FBI because of the agency's new policies toward CAIR.
"All of us are equally accountable to the law," said Syed.
E-mail Matthai Kuruvila at mkuruvila(at)sfchronicle.com. For more stories visit scrippsnews.com
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