The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an Islamic supremacist group that is funded by Saudi Arabia and designated as a terrorist organization in the UAE, is denouncing Republican frontrunner Donald Trump for saying that he’d consider closing down mosques that preach violent jihad.
In an interview, Trump was asked by Fox host Stuart Varney what he thought about the British debates over possibly shutting down “extremist” mosques that incite hatred and preach violence.
“I would do that, absolutely, I think it’s great,” Trump said.
“If you go out, you go fight for ISIS, you can’t come back. Why can’t you do it? You can do it here,” he added. “You’re going to have to certainly look at it.”
In a press release Wednesday, CAIR condemned Trump.
“Donald Trump’s apparent willingness to close down American mosques that he deems ‘extreme’ is totally incompatible with the Constitution and our nation’s cherished principle of religious freedom,” read a statement from CAIR spokesman Robert McCaw. “The government should not be in the business of deciding what is acceptable free speech or religious belief. Donald Trump’s off-the-cuff remarks are both un-American, and un-presidential.”
Ibrahim Hooper, another CAIR employee, who has in the past attended pro-Hamas rallies, noted that Trump is part of the “off-the rails Islamophobia that we are seeing from the right wing of the American political sector.”
CAIR has targeted several Republicans for comments the organization deems anti-Islamic. The group–which was named an unindicted co-conspirator and was put on trial for financing Hamas–has also gone after Republican nominee Dr. Ben Carson.
When Dr. Carson suggested that a Muslim who follows Sharia law (a set of Koranic laws that treats non-Muslims and women as second-class citizens, and sanctions the killing of apostates) is not qualified to run the President, because according to religious doctrine, Sharia usurps the Constitution, CAIR denounced Carson and called for him to drop out of the race.