The people's voice of reason
The people's voice of reason
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, announced recently that it has launched a new satellite office in the state of Alabama. Veteran attorney Britton O'Shields has been hired to serve as the office's lead attorney.
O'Shields is the first hire for CAIR's revamped presence in the state of Alabama.
O'Shields is a graduate of the Cumberland School of Law at Samford University in Birmingham. She previously worked for CAIR as a legal intern in 2015-2016.
She has worked for other nonprofits such as Redemption Earned, which advocates for certain worthy inmates seeking parole, and Crisis Center Birmingham, where she provided programmatic assistance to victims of sexual assault and domestic violence.
O'Shields will be assisting Alabama Muslims with civil rights complaints, educating the community about their rights, and acting as CAIR's representative in local activist and policy coalitions.
CAIR-Alabama served the Alabama Muslim community as a state chapter from 2015 until its operations were limited during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.
CAIR's stated mission is to protect civil rights, enhance understanding of Islam, promote justice, and empower American Muslims.
In 2007, CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) trial, a Hamas financing case that led to the FBI ceasing its working relationship with CAIR. The HLF trial was the largest terror-financing case in American history. In 2008, during a retrial of the HLF case, an FBI Special Agent labeled CAIR as "a front group for Hamas" during her trial testimony. In 2010, a federal judge reiterated that his court had "ample evidence" that CAIR was involved in "a conspiracy to support Hamas." CAIR is funded largely by donors in Saudi Arabia. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) at one point listed CAIR as a terrorist organization.
The group fashions itself as a civil rights voice for American Muslims. It was founded by members of the Palestine Committee (PALCOM), an organization "established to support Hamas," according to the U.S. attorneys that prosecuted the Holy Land Foundation trial.
CAIR has dismissed this criticism as an "urban legend."
CAIR wrote in a statement: "There is no legal implication to being labeled an unindicted co-conspirator, since it does not require the Justice Department to prove anything in a court of law. Regardless, the issue of our inclusion on the list was settled in CAIR's favor. On October 20, 2010, Judges Garza, Benavides, and Crone of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals found that the U.S. Department of Justice violated the Fifth Amendment rights of the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), and by implication the rights of more than 300 similarly-named Muslim organizations and individuals, such as CAIR, when it included them on the publicly-filed un-indicted co-conspirator list in 2007."
https://www.cair.com/dispelling-rumors-about-cair/
On Monday, CAIR announced that it is calling for its supporters to march on Washington on April 5 to protest Israel's resumption of combat operation in Gaza. They are also calling for the U.S. government to no longer provide military support for Israel.
"The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today called on community members to join the March on Washington for Palestine to be held on April 5th at 1 p.m. in Washington, D.C."
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