‘We want our voices heard.’ Scores of Muslims from across Maryland converge on the State Capital, seeking out any lawmakers willing to listen to their complaints about countering Islamic terrorism programs and alleged anti-Muslim hate crimes in America.

Middle East Eye The event, co-organised by designated terrorist group CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) and the United Maryland Muslim Council, is an annual day of lobbying aimed at trying to empower the Muslim community.

Attendees visited over sixty offices in both the House of Delegates and the Senate office buildings to lobby lawmakers on issues related to strengthening anti-Muslim hate crime laws, ending Palestinian “genocide,” protecting Muslim minors’ rights during law enforcement interrogation and opposing a problematic countering violence extremism (Islamic terrorism) bill in the state legislature.

Groups of Muslims, both young and old, arrived in the state capital earlier in the day with a key aim in mind – to meet with lawmakers and their staffs to discuss how they planned to strengthen anti-Muslim hate crime laws and ask what they were doing to oppose ineffective and unconstitutional “countering violent extremism (CVE)” programs (better known as counter-Islamic terrorism programs and they are neither unconstitutional, nor ineffective).

Two of the bills on the agenda were on the issue of hate crimes, a subject federal law enforcement has appeared to play down in the past. In a report, the FBI reported that in 2018 no hate crimes took place in more than 70 cities and 15 counties across Maryland, a state of more than six million people.

“We know for a fact that’s not the case,” Chaudry said. “However, the burden of proof to show that there was a hate crime that occurred is so great that these crimes were not prosecuted the way that they should be.”