This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, March, 24, 2011 - WASHINGTON - Concerned that a growing number of American Muslims are facing discrimination, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., has organized a Senate hearing next week on possible measures to protect the civil rights of the religious minority.
Tuesday's hearing is being held in response to what the senator's staff called an increase in "anti-Muslim bigotry" last year, including hate crimes, hate speech, restrictions on mosque construction and other types of discrimination.
"Our Constitution protects the free exercise of religion for all Americans," Durbin said in a statement. "During the course of our history, many religions have faced intolerance. It is important for our generation to renew our founding charter's commitment to religious diversity and to protect the liberties guaranteed by our Bill of Rights."
The hearing by the Senate's Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights, which Durbin chairs, will be held less than three weeks after a controversial House hearing that focused on allegations of the radicalization of American Muslims. Senate staffers said the hearing is not a response to the House event.
Complaining that they were being singled out for scrutiny, many American Muslims protested the March 10 hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee, chaired by U.S. Rep. Peter T. King, R-N.Y. At that hearing, Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., one of the two Muslim members of Congress, broke down in tears when he recounted the story of a Muslim first responder, Muhammad Salman Hamdani, who died when he tried to rescue people trapped in the burning World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.
This week, King -- who is planning other House hearings related to what he alleges to be radicalization of many U.S. mosques -- told the New York Observer that he objected to the focus of Durbin's hearing. "Why not have a hearing on everyone's civil rights?" King asked, saying there far more reports of hate crimes against Jews than against Muslims.
FBI statistics for 2009 reported 931 "anti-Jewish" hate crimes incidents and 107 "anti-Islamic" incidents. But Durbin's panel is focusing more on incidents reported last year.
Last September, the Pew Center on Religion and Public Life reported that, of the 1,897 mosques in the United States, there were reports of community resistance to 35 mosques and Islamic centers -- led by the controversy about the plan to build a mosque and Islamic center near "ground zero" in New York City.
Another major controversy involving Islam last year related to a Florida pastor's threat -- not carried out -- to conduct a public burning of the Koran in commemoration of the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. A Pew study found that controversies and news related to Islam dominated U.S. coverage of religion last year.
The number of Muslims in St. Louis has grown tremendously over the past two decades, with the influx of immigrants from Bosnia and elsewhere. The region now has at least nine Muslim community centers, while it had only one Nation of Islam mosque in the late 1950s.
Among the witnesses at Durbin's hearing will be Muslim civil rights leader Farhana Khera, a former Judiciary Committee counsel who is now executive director of Muslim Advocates and the National Association of Muslim Lawyers. She is an expert on racial profiling.
Another witness at the hearing will be Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the polyglot former archbishop of Washington, D.C. The Justice Department's top civil rights official, Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez, is also scheduled to testify, along with his Bush administration predecessor, Alex Acosta.
The Durbin-led Judiciary subcommittee was formed this year by merging the former Constitution Subcommittee and the Human Rights and the Law Subcommittee. The new subcommittee has jurisdiction over all constitutional issues, as well as legislation and policy related to civil rights, civil liberties and human rights.