Rep. Myrick meets with Muslims in town hall meeting

By: JournalNow Staff | THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: February 26, 2010

CHARLOTTE
U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick argued at a town hall meeting on Thursday that the threat of homegrown Islamist terrorism is real and defended herself against charges by Muslims that she was spreading fear about their religion.

The Charlotte Observer reported Myrick told a crowd of about 175 people, most of them Muslims, that she has never condemned Islam or linked moderate Muslims with terrorism.

The former Charlotte mayor said she wants constituents to understand that her concerns aren't about the rising visibility of the Islamic faith.

Charlotte's Muslim community, which numbers more than 7,000, was divided on whether to attend the meeting. Members of the Charlotte chapter of the Muslim American Society decided not to come.
Other Muslim groups did attend the meeting.

Jibril Hough, spokesman for the Islamic Center of Charlotte, even called U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the only Muslim member of Congress to seek his advice. Though Ellison has been critical of Myrick's past comments, he endorsed the meeting, Hough said.

Myrick, R-N.C., has said Islamic extremists are working their way into U.S. Muslim communities, infiltrating government institutions and influencing American citizens to attack their own country.

"I want people to be aware of the fact that it does exist and it is a threat to our national security," said Myrick, who serves on the House Intelligence Committee. "It could be an American citizen that could be radicalized by one way or another."

Myrick has said her fears about infiltration were realized in November, when Army Maj. Nidal Hasan killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas. Hasan, a psychiatrist, had trained colleagues on how to handle Muslims in the military. The FBI had been monitoring contact between Hasan and a radical Yemeni-American cleric.

Some experts disagree with Myrick's view that radicalized Islamic Americans present a growing terrorism threat. A study released last month by researchers at Duke University and UNC Chapel Hill found 139 Muslim-Americans involved in alleged or confirmed terrorism incidents since Sept. 11, 2001, out of a national Muslim-American population of more than 3 million.

"We have a problem," said David Schanzer, lead author of the study and director of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security. "It's important to keep it in perspective in its size and dangerousness, which I think are generally overblown."