Chapel Hill 'hate crime' response criticised by Muslim lawmaker

[hrmjustin]

Dan Roberts

Washington’s first Muslim congressman has publicly rebuked the Obama administration’s terrorism strategy during a White House summit on countering violent extremism, warning that recent moves to prevent money transfers to Somalia risked radicalising its large expatriate community in the US.

Keith Ellison, who represents a Minnesota district with the highest Muslim population in the US, also criticised the response to the murder of three students in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, arguing that a failure to prosecute hate crimes fuelled the narrative that America was at war with Islam.

Ellison’s remarks came on the second day of a summit characterised until now by vice-president Joe Biden’s claims the US was more experienced than Europe at preventing extremism because of its history as a immigrant nation.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/18/ketih-ellison-muslim-chapel-hill-hate-crime