New York police officers are monitoring Muslims attending university in the US by tracking student organizations and perhaps spreading their tentacles farther than they ought. This makes the news now because they have been caught spying on Muslims illegally. "We know how many times you've been praying" - NYPD(-Ed).
New York police officers are accused of monitoring Muslims attending university in the US by tracking student organisations and following them on social outings, it was reported in the US.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, America's largest Muslim civil liberties organisation has hit out at the latest allegations the New York Police Department (NYPD) “spied” on Muslim students while they were attending major Ivy League universities such as Yale.
According to a US report by the Associated Press, police officers from the NYPD “sent an undercover agent on a whitewater rafting trip, where he recorded students' names and noted in police intelligence files how many times they prayed.
“Detectives trawled Muslim student websites every day and, although professors and students had not been accused of any wrongdoing, their names were recorded in reports prepared for Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly," it added.
"The NYPD continues to act as if it is somehow above the law that governs all other individuals and institutions," said CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper.
The CAIR has called on the New York state legislature to investigate the reports and has also highlighted allegations that NYPD offic ers initiated a program of spying on Shia mosques without warrants and without any evidence of wrongdoing by worshipers.
Last year, the CAIR expressed concern over an “unprecedented” rise in the number of attacks against the American Muslim community.
“We are witnessing an unprecedented increase in rhetorical and physical attacks on the American Muslim community and Islam,” the CAIR said.
By Shane McGinley
