By Mallory Black and Michelle Kim
WASHINGTON – On the eve of the one-year anniversary of the Boston marathon bombings, a Muslim coalition Monday rolled out the first national outreach campaign to help community leaders mitigate threats of violent extremism among its members.
The Muslim Public Affairs Council, a national group promoting and lobbying for Muslim American’s civil rights, outlined the Safe Spaces Initiative, a toolkit of pre-emptive strategies and resources to educate imams and youth group leaders on community-based intervention strategies.
“The idea of this toolkit, and the counter narrative that the American Muslim communities work on in general, is to build resiliency within our community,” said Haris Tarin, director of the MPAC. “It’s important that if there are problematic ideas that young people, but not only young people, this is not a problem among young people, there are also older individuals.”
An estimated 4.5 million Muslims live in the U.S., according to a 2011 Pew Research survey, with 2.75 million under the age of 18.
Council leaders said when they learned that the Boston marathon bombers were Muslim, it was a wakeup call that radicalism within their communities can lead to violence that hurts others and damages the image of all Muslim Americans.
MPAC hopes young Muslims like Azraf Ullah, 19, of Sterling, Va., will champion the cause. Ullah has been an active member of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society youth group, which he said gives him an opportunity to help people better understand Muslim Americans.
“We make an impact in what we do,” Ullah said. “Some of us are Muslims. Some of us aren’t Muslim, but the point is that we want to combat extremism.”
The initiative announced Monday was designed to help Muslim leaders build on existing partnerships with local and federal law enforcement. The initiative highlights three steps to prevent, intervene and eject, meaning extremist members are removed from the Muslim community.
Rizwan Jaka, a trustee of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society, said his members have already taken steps to help eradicate extremism.
“We want to try to help prevent violence and extremism through the counseling and intervention methodology as much as possible,” Jaka said. “But if there is any threat that is imminent or that is outside the fold of counseling, we will call law enforcement immediately.”
Extremists who commit acts of violence or terrorism goes against Islamic principals, Jaka said. He said his members feel it’s their duty to protect their country and their community from extremism.
He added that extremists often use the Internet and social media platforms like YouTube and Twitter to reach and recruit vulnerable Muslims.
“It’s something that we have to counter as people of all faiths,” Jaka said.
With the launch of the campaign, Ullah said he hopes the campaign will continue to drive efforts toward a peaceful Muslim American community.
“Ultimately it’s going to be the youth individual volunteers, the organizers, grassroots organizations that will end up changing the place we live and changing our environment,” Ullah said.
