Crowd in NYC rallies against Islamophobia

AP 03/05/2011 19:35

Some 300 people gathered in Times Square on Sunday to speak out against a planned congressional hearing on Muslim terrorism, criticizing it as xenophobic and saying that singling out Muslims, rather than extremists, is unfair.

Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons and the imam who had led an effort to build an Islamic center near the World Trade Center site were among those who addressed the crowd.

"Our real enemy is not Islam or Muslims," said the imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf. "The enemy is extremism and radicalism and radical ideology."

The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Peter King, has said that affiliates of al-Qaida are radicalizing some American Muslims. He's planned hearings starting Thursday on the threat he says they pose.

King, a Republican from New York's Long Island, told CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday that he sees an international movement with elements in the United States of Muslims becoming more radical and identifying with terrorists.

Speakers at the cold and drizzly Times Square rally said King was targeting Muslims unfairly.

"American Muslims are as fully American as any other faith community," said Rabbi Marc Schneier, founder of The Foundation for Ethnic Understanding. Singling out Muslim Americans "as the source of homegrown terrorism" is an injustice, he said.