CAIR GETS EVENT WITH ASSAD REGIME FIGURE CANCELLED

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) announced tonight that a Washington, D.C. event featuring Grand Mufti Ahmad Badreddine Hassoun, who has been a source of threats against America’s national security and a key supporter of the brutal Syrian regime, has been cancelled. CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad on June 25 contacted the U.S. State Department asking them not to allow Hassoun entry to the country because he has threatened the United States and Europe with suicide attacks and because of his supportive role in the brutal regime of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.

In an October 2011 speech, which is available on YouTube, Hassoun said, “I say to all of Europe, I say to America, we will set up suicide bombers who are now in your countries, if you bomb Syria or Lebanon.” CAIR also asked the Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP), which was to host the event, not to include a supporter of violence like Hassoun in the event. This evening, Philip Wilcox, president of FMEP, told CAIR in an email: “We have cancelled the Thursday programme because the Mufti’s You Tube comments, of which [we] were not informed, were entirely incompatible with the theme we were led to believe he would project, ‘Coexistence and Dialogue.’”