ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A day after Gov. Ron DeSantis designated a leading Muslim civil rights organization as a “foreign terrorist organization,” leaders of the group’s Florida chapter on Tuesday promised a lawsuit and said the state had no legal basis for such a declaration.
The governor’s executive order against the Council on American-Islamic Relations was an attack based on conspiracy theories, similar to those aimed in past decades at other minority groups like Jewish, Irish and Italian Americans that created fear and division, Hiba Rahim, the Florida chapter’s deputy executive director, said at a news conference in Tampa.
“We are very proud to defend the founding principles of our Constitution, to defend free speech,” Rahim said. “We are proud to defend democracy, and we are proud to be America first.”
Rahim blamed DeSantis’ support for Israel as a reason for the executive order because she said the group’s activism had caused “discomfort” to Israel. In October, the group played an active role in advocating for the release of a 16-year-old Palestinian-American from Florida who had been held in an Israeli prison for eight months. Mohammed Ibrahim was released last month.
Florida has an estimated 500,000 Muslim residents, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, also known as CAIR.
“We will not back down here,” said Rahim, vowing to sue.
The DeSantis order also gives the same “foreign terrorist” label to the Muslim Brotherhood. President Donald Trump last month issued an executive order that sets in motion a process to designate certain chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization.
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