MECAWI to protest FBI raids in Detroit tomorrow

DawudWalid 1 Comment

MECAWI/Moratorium NOW! Weekly Meeting to Feature Special Guest Tom Burke, Anti-War Activist Targeted in FBI Raids on Sept. 24
Monday, Sept. 27, 2010, 7-9 PM
5920 Second Ave, Detroit
Contact: 313.671.3715

This week’s regular organizing meeting for both the Moratorium NOW! Coalition and MECAWI will feature special guest Tom Burke, a longtime anti-war and solidarity activists, whose home was one of those raided in Chicago along with other activists in Minneapolis. The FBI served the activists with search and seizure warrants related to an investigation into “material aid to terrorist organizations.”

All of the organizers targeted have denied the allegations and are upholding their right to speak out against U.S. foreign policy in Colombia and Palestine. The U.S. government provides billions of dollars of direct assistance to both the repressive regimes in Israel and Colombia. Anti-war, peace and human rights organizations have all condemned the continued oppression carried out against the peoples of Colombia and Palestine.

Activists in Chicago, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Grand Rapids and North Carolina were targeted in the raids. In Minneapolis and Chicago, FBI agents entered homes and offices with drawn guns. They searched and seized personal papers, literature, organizational documents, music collections, photographs, financial records, computers and cell phones. Several activists were served with subpoenas to appear before a federal grand jury in October in Chicago.

The Moratorium NOW! Coalition and MECAWI condemns these actions by the Justice Department and demands that all property be returned to activists representing various organizations that have been targeted including the Anti-War Committee, Minnesota Coalition for a People’s Bailout, the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (Fightback!), Women Against Military Madness and others. We stand in solidarity with those who seek to raise public awareness about the role of the Pentagon abroad and the corporate ruling class inside the U.S.

Please join us for this important meeting where Tom Burke will provide a first-hand account of the current attacks against activists by the federal government.

We are also urging everyone to come out at the McNamara Federal Building, Tuesday, September 28 from 4:30-6:00pm, to demonstrate against these outrageous attacks against our brothers and sisters in areas throughout the mid-west and the southern U.S.

DawudWalid

Dawud Walid is currently the Executive Director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI), which is a chapter of America's largest advocacy and civil liberties organization for American Muslims and is a member of the Michigan Muslim Community Council (MMCC) Imams Committee. Walid has been interviewed and quoted in approximately 150 media outlets ranging from the New York Times, Wall St Journal, National Public Radio, CNN, BBC, FOX News and Al-Jazeera. Furthermore, Walid was a political blogger for the Detroit News from January 2014 to January 2016, has had essays published in the 2012 book All-American: 45 American Men on Being Muslim, the 2014 book Qur'an in Conversation and was quoted as an expert in 13 additional books and academic dissertations. He was also a featured character in the 2013 HBO documentary "The Education of Mohammad Hussein." Walid has lectured at over 50 institutions of higher learning about Islam, interfaith dialogue and social justice including at Harvard University, DePaul University and the University of the Virgin Islands - St. Thomas and St. Croix campuses as well as spoken at the 2008 and 2011 Congressional Black Caucus Conventions alongside prominent speakers such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Congressman Keith Ellison. In 2008, Walid delivered the closing benediction at the historic 52nd Michigan Electoral College in the Michigan State Senate chambers and gave the Baccalaureate speech for graduates of the prestigious Cranbrook-Kingswood Academy located in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Walid was also a featured speaker at the 2009 and 2010 Malian Peace and Tolerance Conferences at the University of Bamako in Mali, West Africa. He has also given testimony at hearings and briefings in front of Michigan state legislators and U.S. congressional representatives, including speaking before members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in Washington, D.C. Walid has studied under qualified scholars the disciplines of Arabic grammar and morphology, foundations of Islamic jurisprudence, sciences of the exegesis of the Qur’an, and Islamic history during the era of Prophet Muhammad through the governments of the first 5 caliphs. He previously served as an imam at Masjid Wali Muhammad in Detroit and the Bosnian American Islamic Center in Hamtramck, Michigan, and continues to deliver sermons and lectures at Islamic centers across the United States and Canada. Walid was a 2011 - 2012 fellow of the University of Southern California (USC) American Muslim Civil Leadership Institute (AMCLI) and a 2014 - 2015 fellow of the Wayne State Law School Detroit Action Equity Lab (DEAL). Walid served in the United States Navy under honorable conditions earning two United States Navy & Marine Corp Achievement medals while deployed abroad. He has also received awards of recognition from the city councils of Detroit and Hamtramck and from the Mayor of Lansing as well as a number of other religious and community organizations.

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One Comment

  1. I will definitely make an effort to be there. This is a significant threat to our free speech, to say the least. This is also a dangerous move to the Fascist right in this country and is yet one more unmasking of Nazism right here in this country. Next. . . they’ll want to open our US mail. Wake up, America.

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