“They don’t follow the Islamic rules or anything Islam”, he said.
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The activist cited a recent study by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, saying that mosque attendance is linked to greater civic engagement, not extremism.
Cruz, in NY as part of his Republican campaign for president, released a statement “We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized”.
Republican U.S. presidential candidate and former Governor Jeb Bush (R) speaks about businessman Donald Trump (L) as Senator Ted Cruz (C) looks on during the Republican presidential debate in Las Vegas, Nevada December 15, 2015.
The candidates made the statements in response to the deadly terrorist attacks in Brussels, Belgium, on Tuesday morning.
ISIS claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s suicide bomb attacks on Brussels airport and a rush-hour metro train in the Belgian capital which killed at least 30 people. “US must be vigilant and smart!” The Texas senator added that if Trump attacked his wife, he would be “more of a coward than I thought”.
“Ordering special patrols of Muslim neighborhoods will nearly certainly create an adversarial relationship between law enforcement and the communities they have sworn to protect, making those communities more vulnerable, more frightened, and often less willing to help”.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, condemned the calls for surveillance, saying it sends “an alarming message to American Muslims who increasingly fear for their future in this nation and to all Americans who value the Constitution and religious liberties”.
“What’s going on there and what’s going on in many other locations like Paris and others is a disgrace, an absolute disgrace that we allow it to happen”, he said.
“In the wake of Brussels, we don’t need another lecture from President Obama on Islamophobia, we need a commander-in-chief who does everything necessary to defeat the enemy”, he said. Stateside, several of the candidates in the upcoming United States presidential election weighed in on the catastrophe. “Abandoning Europe, withdrawing from North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, as Trump suggests, is preemptive surrender”, Cruz told reporters in Washington.
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Both communities have police departments that maintain law and order in the neighborhoods.
