Tag: national security

‘The Longest Shadow’: 9/11 Leads to the Militarization of US Police Departments [ABCNews]

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, a wariness of Muslims swept the country. Hate crimes against Muslims skyrocketed. Mosques became inundated with threats. “Anything that showed that you were an Arab or a Muslim caused everyone to be suspicious of you,” said Sahar Aziz, director of the Center for Security, Race and Rights at Rutgers University Law School. In response to the terror attacks, police departments in some major cities compiled vast databases of alleged potential terrorists and undertook ambitious surveillance missions targeting Muslim communities. “You had massive surveillance programs… Continue reading “‘The Longest Shadow’: 9/11 Leads to the Militarization of US Police Departments [ABCNews]”
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9/11 and the Racial Limitations of Religious Freedom [Al Jazeera]

Each anniversary of the 9/11 attacks generates debates on how to balance security with liberty in the United States. What is often lost in the conversation is the role that race plays in constraining civil liberties for religious minorities. Today, the targets are Muslims. A century ago, it was Jews and Catholics. The racialisation script is the same. First, the religious minority is vilified in the media and among public officials as a disloyal fifth column. Then, the religion’s followers are racialised as a threat to the (Anglo-Saxon Protestant) American way of… Continue reading “9/11 and the Racial Limitations of Religious Freedom [Al Jazeera]”
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Security, Race, and Rights [The Maydan]

As the 20th anniversary of September 11 reminds us of personal tragedy as well as structural violence of the state, The Maydan Podcast editor-in-chief Ahmet Tekelioglu hosts Sahar Aziz, a legal scholar, an expert on critical race theory, and the founding director of the Center for Security, Race, and Rights at  Rutgers University Law School. She is the author of The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom published with the University of California Press in November 2021. Tekelioglu and Aziz also speak about the impact of 9/11 on legal… Continue reading “Security, Race, and Rights [The Maydan]”
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How 9/11 Changed American Muslims’ Relationship with Religious Freedom [Deseret News]

The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, changed the course of Sahar Aziz’s career. Before the planes crashed and the buildings collapsed, she’d planned to finish law school and move to the Middle East to do pro-democracy work. After, she still wanted to be a lawyer, but she set her sights on civil rights work much closer to home. For Aziz and many other Muslims, 9/11 was a wake-up call about not just the fragility of life, but also the fragility of America’s constitutional protections. In the months and years… Continue reading “How 9/11 Changed American Muslims’ Relationship with Religious Freedom [Deseret News]”
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The Power of Language in Combating Islamophobia [ACS]

Twenty years ago, America experienced the worst terrorist attack in its history, triggering a “War on Terror” against Muslim communities. Today, our nation is undergoing a moment of racial reckoning. Tens of millions of Americans, especially our youth, are recognizing that systemic racism is pervasive. Their attempts to upend such systems offers an important insight: words matter. How we describe a particular act can skew public opinion in support of government programs designed to subordinate specific minority communities. Take the word terrorist, for example. For the 97 percent of Americans… Continue reading “The Power of Language in Combating Islamophobia [ACS]”
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How the U.S. Government Manufactured Muslim Terrorists [Thinking Allowed]

Sahar Aziz was a host on the Thinking Allowed Podcast where she discussed how the American government selective enforces counterterrorism laws against innocent Muslims, while overlooking the spike in far right wing extremism over the past decade that culminated in a siege on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Her analysis is based on her article State Sponsored Radicalization in the Michigan Journal of Race and the Law. To listen and watch the interview, click here.… Continue reading “How the U.S. Government Manufactured Muslim Terrorists [Thinking Allowed]”
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Trump has threatened to declare a national emergency to build a wall. Is that legal? [PBS Newshour]

Emergency powers are usually used to address political crises in other nations such as the systemic violation of human rights, war, or a serious threat of abuse of weapons of mass destruction or nuclear weapons, said Sahar F. Aziz, director of the Center for Security, Race and Rights at Rutgers Law School in an email to PBS NewsHour. For example, Aziz said, emergency powers were invoked in response to opposition to stabilization efforts in the Balkans in 1997 and the wars in Syria and Yemen in 2012. The president doesn’t… Continue reading “Trump has threatened to declare a national emergency to build a wall. Is that legal? [PBS Newshour]”
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