CLEVELAND – In a bid to raise awareness about dangers of rising Islamophobia, a Muslim civil rights group has kicked off the first day of the Republican National Convention in downtown Cleveland, distributing “blind intolerance” medicine to passersby.
“We’re trying to raise awareness about the rising tide of Islamophobia in America, and unfortunately Islamophobia has been flourishing within the GOP platform,” Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a nonprofit group, told NBC News.
In a satirical move, CAIR also handed out packets of “Islamophobin”, a mock medicine (actually chewing gum) to cure Islamophobia.
According to CAIR, ISLAMOPHOBIN is actually sugar-free-chewing gum.
The ISLAMOPHOBIN package states that the product is “Multi-Symptom Relief for Chronic Islamophobia” and claims the “Maximum Strength Formula” treats, blind intolerance, unthinking bigotry, irrational fear of Muslims, and US presidential election year scapegoating
A “warning” states that ISLAMOPHOBIN “may result in peaceful coexistence.”
“There’s no winner when hate dominates the conversation and there is less room for dialogue and respect for one another,” Awad said, adding that Islamophobin is “one creative way to shed light on this dangerous phenomenon.”
Awad said he will also travel to Philadelphia next week for the Democratic convention.
“These very proposals run counter to American values of inclusion, respect for one another as well as our foundational laws, including the U.S. Constitution,” he said.
Attending the news conference, Julia Shearson, executive director of the Cleveland, Ohio, chapter of CAIR, told reporters that the Muslim community will never stand silent when it comes to the equal treatment of everyone in the US.
“Either we are all equal under the law, and we are all provided the equal protection of the law, or we are not who we say we are as an American people,” she said.
Imam AbduSemih Tadese, of the Uqbah Mosque Foundation, told NBC News he attended the news conference Monday morning to voice his opinion that scapegoating of Muslims is “a failed politics” that will never work.
“We strongly encourage all politicians to stay away from this ideology,” he said.
“It was done before to the Jews and the Catholics and many others. So trying to do it to the Muslims is not going to work — simple as that.”