The D.C. Muslim Caucus is getting negative press attention for telling Muslims they are required to vote as their leaders tell them to. A spokesperson justified the stance by referencing international Islamists.

A issued by the D.C. Muslim Caucus endorses a list of candidates in Washington, D.C. and instructs Muslims to vote against a ballot measure that would legalize small amounts of marijuana for non-medical use.

“According to Islamic tenets, Muslims participating in democratic elections are obligated to vote as a bloc based upon a consensus of the Muslim community,” the October 27 press release states.

The core message is that Muslims should not trust themselves to vote correctly and are required by their faith to reject political independence. It doesn’t matter how much you know and how much passion you have, the judgment of leaders like the D.C. Muslim Caucus is trustworthy and yours is not.

The D.C. Muslim Caucus’s at-large director Talib Karim displayed his Islamist orientation by referencing Islamists to the Washington Post when asked about his group’s position requiring Muslims to vote as a bloc.

First, Karim referenced a 2007 session of the Muslim World League, an international Islamist organization based in Saudi Arabia. It is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and its operations in the U.S. have come under investigation for terrorism financing.

As the Post pointed out, Karim mischaracterized the Muslim World League rulings. The document he supplied did not tell Muslims to vote as a single bloc as directed by their leadership.

The second document Karim gave to the Post was a 2006 article by a sharia judge in the United Kingdom named Haitham al-Haddad. He is an Islamist with a history of extremist rhetoric including anti-Semitism, anti-gay rhetoric, support for the execution of apostates, condemnations of democracy and anti-Americanism.

Al-Haddad tells Muslims to vote as their leaders tell them to. Further, he said, “It is upon the remainder of the Muslims therefore to accept and follow the decisions of these organizations.”

The D.C. Muslim Caucus has links to other Islamists.

Karim's Facebook page also features photos from an in Philadelphia where he excitedly talks about the crowd being inspired by radical clerics Imam Siraj Wahhaj and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

The Caucus’ website features , executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), speaking at its 2014 Ramadan Iftar dinner. CAIR is a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity with Hamas linkages that endorsed sharia governance in September.

The event honored Washington, D.C. Mayor Vince Gray and also raised money for the Palestine Victims Fund of Islamic Relief USA (IRUSA), the U.S. branch of Islamic Relief Worldwide, another group with strong Muslim Brotherhood ties. The Israeli government says the group finances Hamas, a claim supported by its work with a Hamas-linked charity in Turkey.

The event page also lists the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), another U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity, as a sponsor.

A Facebook post by Kalim about a similar event honoring the D.C. mayor in August 2013 also lists CAIR, ISNA and IRUSA as sponsors.

The present, who declared in 2006, “Our job is to change the constitution of America.”

Syeed was the director of academic outreach for the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), another Brotherhood front, from 1984 to 1994. During that time, the FBI had an informant inside the Brotherhood warning that IIIT was working to infiltrate the U.S. government and universities.

Also featured in the photo is Saba Ahmed, who believes in anti-American 9/11 conspiracy theories, won't denounce sharia governance and shows solidarity with a Somali accused of planning to bomb a Christmas tree lighting event in Portland in 2010.

The D.C. Muslim Council claims to represent 20% of Muslim residents in the capital. That’s a frightening claim considering the Islamist sources of the group’s beliefs.

This political dogmatism is part of Islamist doctrine. A secret 1991 U.S. Muslim Brotherhood memo, uncovered by the FBI, defines the Brotherhood’s “work in America as a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within.” The memo explicitly states its desire to consolidate the Muslim-American community behind it by:

“Establishing an effective and a stable Islamic Movement led by the Muslim Brotherhood which…aims at unifying and directing Muslims’ efforts, presents Islam as a civilization alternative and supports the global Islamic State wherever it is.”

The D.C. Muslim Caucus’ press release is part of Islamism’s condescending treatment of Muslims and its “with-us-or-against-us” stance towards Muslim critics.

When it comes to theology, Muslims are told to follow the sharia that is based upon the interpretations of medieval Islamic scholars and Islamist clerics. Reformation is equated with doubting Islam and, therefore, heresy.

When it comes to politics, some debate is permitted, but when decision time arrives, Islamists expect Muslims to follow their directives. Dissent is considered betrayal of the ummah (the global Islamic community) or, in the case of some Muslim critics, “Islamophobia,” sedition or even apostasy.

In his book A Battle for the Soul of Islam, Muslim anti-Islamist Dr. Zuhdi Jasser explains that Islamists view the concept of the ummah as a single nation-state, political party or military force.

Non-Islamists, on the other hand, see the ummah as a diverse religious community that doesn’t cause a dichotomy between citizenship and faith.

An example of this dichotomy in action is when a CAIR official said in June that the West is promoting nationalism among Muslims as part of a divide-and-conquer strategy.

Muslim activist Asra Romani writes:

“It’s critical that we ditch the concept of the ‘Ummah’ with a capital ‘U’ and recognize that we are an ‘ummah’ with a small ‘u,’ meaning our religious identity doesn’t have to supersede other loyalties and identities. This attempt to push an “Ummah” is the politics of ideologues of puritanical Islam who want to mollify dissent.”

Muslims should be offended at the arrogance of the D.C. Muslim Caucus and how they demand that Muslims vote according to their directives.

The Caucus and other Islamists are relying upon religious coercion, not political persuasion. It is fitting for a theocracy, not for a democracy like the U.S. that is based on equality and the belief that every voter should feel free to make up his or her own mind.

The press release is more than a cheap political tactic. At its root, it is supremacist and anti-democratic.