Muslims Falling Victim to US ‘War on Terror’: American Activist

“Right now, we are involved with something that government calls a 'war on terror'. And in that war on terror, they have been targeting the Muslim community. From a practical point of view with a legal system, it means bending the principles of the legal system to fill up the jails essentially with wrongfully convicted people; Muslims. That seems to be what the bottom line is. There are different ways that they do it. There are different goals that they are trying to accomplish, but the bottom line is that a lot of these people are being unfairly prosecuted, unfairly convicted, and put in the jail,” Steve Downs, an American rights activist, told the Tasnim news agency.

He added that the root cause for such a mistreatment towards Muslims is “unfair principles adopted in doing trials" across the US. 

“Typically the United States has every generation prosecuted… I am not expecting anything to change dramatically. This is a very large system and the racism is very deeply entrenched and Obama, Hillary Clinton or (Donald) Trump is not going to change it much one way or other; I do not think. Because we are talking about many people and all of whom have adopted a particular point of view which recognizes a white community is on top and a second class group of people that are not. That is very hard to change. It will take many generations,” Downs further said.

“To be a Muslim in America is to be in trouble. People are watching you,” he said, adding that the US government “wants people to be silent, to be subservient; that is what a good Muslim is”.

The American activist called on Muslims to speak out, saying, “I am hoping the whole Muslim community will speak out about these injustices.”

Racism and the use of excessive force by law enforcement have become the focus of national debate in America, particularly against African-Americans and Muslim minorities during the last several years.

Watch the video of Tasnim’s interview with Steve Downs below: