In a quiet event during an otherwise well-publicized visit to Los Angeles this week, U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric Holder Jr. reached out to local Muslim American youths, calling on them to work with the government to fight violent extremism and pledging that the Justice Department would reinvigorate enforcement of civil rights and work to advance religious freedom.
"For American Muslims specifically, these are times that pose serious civil rights and civil liberties challenges," Holder told the crowd, according to a copy of prepared remarks.
The meeting, which was closed to the media, was held Thursday evening at the Omar Ibn Al Khattab Foundation, a mosque and community center near USC, said Dafer Dakhil, the foundation's director.
It lasted about an hour, during which Holder gave prepared remarks and answered questions from an invited audience of about 200 people between the ages of 18 and 33.
The relationship between the Muslim American community and the Department of Justice has come under increasing strain. Earlier this year, a coalition of the nation's largest Muslim organizations issued a statement demanding that the Obama administration address FBI actions, including what they described as the "infiltration of mosques," the use of "agent provocateurs to trap unsuspecting Muslim youth" and the "deliberate vilification" of one of the nation's largest Muslim civil rights organizations.
The point of Thursday's event "was to engage the Muslim community here in Los Angeles," said Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller.
Events closed to the media are not unusual and allow participants to have an "open, frank discussion," he said, adding that Holder also held a closed community round table Thursday morning about fighting gang violence in South Los Angeles.
Although Muslim Americans suffered in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks like all Americans, Holder said in his prepared remarks, they also suffered in unique ways -- as victims of hate crimes and as people who "have seen your faith maligned and insulted by those who commit acts of hatred and violence in its name."
Questions posed at the event included concern about law enforcement's profiling of Muslim Americans, the sanctity of mosques, hate crimes and plans for the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, said Dakhil, who helped organize the event.
