The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been conducting extensive interrogations of Muslims in the United States (US) following the Israeli attacks on Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, according to a American Muslim lawyer.
Dina Chehata, director of civil rights at the Los Angeles office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said that over the past week or two, her office has received numerous complaints from members of the Palestinian, Arab and Muslim communities in Southern California.
“After the Israeli war, we recently received complaints that FBI agents contacted our community members directly, either by phone or by going to their homes, to question them. We consider this to be FBI surveillance and interrogation of our community,” she said.
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Chehata stated, “There have been complaints that federal and local law enforcement have asked community members whether they support Hamas, whether they support the use of violence in the war region, and their views on Israel and Hamas,” Anadolu Agency (AA) reported.
“We believe that many people in our community are being watched and surveilled by the FBI. We also know that the FBI is tracking many people who are not reported directly to us. Therefore, we know that the numbers in the reports we received do not represent the number of people the FBI agents were actually tracking; many more people were investigated,” she added.
Chehata said that CAIR has “issued a warning to our community to be vigilant as we have noticed several consecutive reports of agents interrogating Palestinians over the past week or two.”
Israel has launched a brutal military campaign on Gaza since the Hamas group’s October 7, 2023, incursion, resulting in the deaths of nearly 1,200 people.
Over 31,900 Palestinians, primarily women and children, have been killed and injured in the enclave due to mass destruction and shortages of necessities.
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