OKLAHOMA CITY – The Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-OK) may consider legal action following a legislative hearing Tuesday in which CAIR-OK and others were labeled as terrorists and terrorist organizations.
Adam Soltani, CAIR-OK executive director, said Wednesday that both he and Imam Imad S. Enschassi of the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City were targeted by Republican Rep. John Bennett and other “Islamaphobe” speakers as the “top terrorists in the state.”
On Tuesday, Bennett hosted Interim Study H16-029, “Radical Islam, Sharia Law, the Muslim Brotherhood and the radicalization process.” CAIR-OK officials said the hearing was specifically held in order to marginalize and demonize the Oklahoma Muslim community.
“Yes, CAIR is looking at possible legal action against Bennett,” said CAIR-OK Executive Director Adam Soltani. “We will not stay silent. We’ve always protested when elected officials use their power and state resources to propagate hate. This took it to a whole new level; the blatant lies and accusations are disturbing.”
Bennett, who gained notoriety when he called Islam “a cancer that needs to be cut out of the nation” in past remarks, also said he planned to “kick CAIR out of the state.”
During the hearing, Bennett and other speakers called CAIR-OK a terrorist organization and named Soltani as a top terrorist leader in the state.
“We’re going to be called bigots, and racists, and Islamophobes and a whole host of other things by the media after this is over,” said Bennett. “We’re going to be called that by terrorist organizations like CAIR that is here today, but you know that is a small price to pay to put our foot to the tail end of these terrorists and these anti-American groups in the name of freedom.”
He added that “we are going to do all we can to kick these terrorist organizations out of the state of Oklahoma and do whatever it takes to protect our citizens,” Bennett said.
Among the speakers present after the hearing were Frank Gaffney, president and founder of the Center for Security Policy; John Guandolo, founder of UnderstandingtheThreat.com, an extreme anti-Muslim conspiracy theory website; and retired Lt. Gen. William G. “Jerry” Boykin, former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and current executive Vice President of the rabidly anti-LGBTQ Family Research Council.
Guandolo accused those present of being terrorists during the meeting, Soltani said. Guandolo also said the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City and related groups in Norman, Tulsa and Stillwater; the Islamic Council of Oklahoma, in Edmond; and the Muslim Student Associations on the campuses of Oklahoma State University, the University of Oklahoma, the University of Central Oklahoma, Southeastern Oklahoma State University and other college campuses in the state were all linked to terrorist networks.
“The jihadist network does exist,” Guandolo said. “Any delay today in dealing with this danger in your state will lead to greater danger tomorrow.”
“He looked at me and said, ‘the lead terrorist is sitting right here. Adam Soltani is the lead terrorist in Oklahoma,’” Soltani said. “He accused the Imam of training terrorists.”
Guandolo has been called by The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), “a disreputable character, who regularly attacks the U.S. government, claims that the director of the Central Intelligence Agency is a secret Muslim agent for the Saudi government and says that American Muslims ‘do not have a First Amendment right to do anything.’”
“Notably absent from the testimony given at this hearing was any information on the needs of Oklahoma citizens,” said CAIR-OK Civil Rights Director Veronica Laizure in a statement. “Our state needs leaders who are focused on the budget crisis, poverty, food insecurity, racial injustice, record cuts to education funding, and the countless other real problems that our communities are struggling with – not leaders that use their platform to demonize the Muslim community.”
Members of the Oklahoma Interfaith Alliance were also present to protest the hearings, and other Oklahoma lawmakers said they were embarrassed by the interim study.
“When Rep. John Bennett called me and Adam terrorists, he hurt,” said Enchassi on social media. “I didn’t react. But when he said the interfaith community was complicit because they stood with us, that’s when I felt obliged to give all who were there hugs. That really made him mad. He asked me to sit down. That’s when I told him off. I basically wanted him to know that we are not on a plantation and he is not the master.”
On Wednesday, other legislators were speaking out against Bennett’s comments and the hearing itself. Democrat Rep. Jason Dunnington called the hearing an example of “state-sponsored bigotry.”
“History teaches us that using public office to incite fear and hatred for entire groups of people in society has had unimaginable consequences. I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in Oklahoma will join me in condemning this type of state sponsored bigotry,” Dunnington said.