NEW: Field Guide to #AntiMuslim Extremists
Please educate yourself about the backgrounds & organizations of any extremists in this report with whom you’re not already familiar. You can either bookmark this page (or the SPLC page) or download the report in PDF format, embedded below for your convenience.
Executive Summary
Ever since the Al Qaeda massacre of Sept. 11, 2001, American Muslims have been under attack. They have been vilified as murderers, accused of conspiring to take over the United States and impose Shariah religious law, described as enemies of women, and subjected to hundreds of violent hate crime attacks. A major party presidential nominee has even suggested that America ban Muslim immigrants.
Fueling this hatred has been the propaganda, the vast majority of it completely baseless, produced and popularized by a network of anti-Muslim extremists and their enablers. These men and women have shamelessly exploited terrorist attacks and the Syrian refugee crisis, among other things, to demonize the entire Islamic faith.
These propagandists are far outside of the political mainstream, and their rhetoric has toxic consequences — from poisoning democratic debate to inspiring hate-based violence.Sadly, a shocking number of these extremists are seen regularly on television news programs and quoted in the pages of our leading newspapers. There, they routinely espouse a wide range of utter falsehoods, all designed to make Muslims appear as bloodthirsty terrorists or people intent on undermining American constitutional freedoms. More often than not, these claims go uncontested.
A coalition of four research and civil rights groups — the Southern Poverty Law Center, Media Matters for America, the Center for New Community and ReThink Media — banded together to prepare this manual. Our hope is that journalists and others will use it as a guide to effectively counter these extremists and their damaging misinformation. These propagandists are far outside of the political mainstream, and their rhetoric has toxic consequences — from poisoning democratic debate to inspiring hate-based violence. […]
Profiles of the following 15 people are included in the guide:
- Ann Corcoran
- Steven Emerson
- Brigitte Gabriel
- Frank Gaffney
- Pamela Geller
- John Guandolo
- Ayaan Hirsi Ali
- David Horowitz
- Ryan Mauro
- Robert Muise
- Maajid Nawaz
- Daniel Pipes
- Walid Shoebat
- Robert Spencer
- David Yerushalmi
I realize no one may ever bother checking back for updates, but given the howls of outrage over the inclusion of Maajid Nawaz, you might be interested in taking a look at pages 95-102 of the Studia Anglica Resoviensia, Volume 10 (PDF will automatically download instead of opening). It goes into a good bit of detail on how the Prevent counter-terrorism strategy (one of four components) has largely failed due to controversy over non-grassroots groups like the Quilliam Foundation and the Sufi Muslim council, being subsidized over more genuine & trusted local community groups/leaders. This created competition and resulted in “a permanent split in the community: the dichotomy of a bad (‘Islamist’) and a good (‘moderate’) Muslim was becoming permanently embedded in people’s mentalities and the official discourses.”
Throwing large sums of money to a bunch of groups who tell the government what they want to hear, especially when those groups are unfamiliar and mistrusted because they have no history with a given community. I don’t blame them—after all, with laws being what they were/are, people can basically just be “disappeared” if they’re thought to be linked to terrorists. These non-organic groups might be great for interesting 5-10 minute sound bytes on cable TV, but they’re not exactly conducive to building the trust needed for long-term constructive relationships.