NEW YORK (MintPress)—The New York Police Department has certainly started the new year off on the wrong foot. First came the news that its intelligence programs were devised by a veteran CIA officer without the required authorization of the agency’s general counsel. Now it has been revealed that Police Commissioner Ray Kelly lied about his role in a controversial film about radical Islam, and Muslim groups are calling for his resignation.
Kelly appears for about 30 seconds of the 72 minute movie “The Third Jihad” that in 2010 was shown to more than 1,400 New York City police officers and supervisors who had gone for counter terrorism training. The movie, produced by the conservative Clarion Fund, shows dramatic footage of bombings and mayhem while the narrator says: “This is the true agenda of much of Islam in America. A strategy to infiltrate and dominate America.”
Kelly originally maintained he was not involved but earlier this week acknowledged he had given the filmmakers a 90-minute interview in 2007. In the video, Kelly speaks about the general threat of a nuclear or biological terror attack on the city without criticizing Muslims. The NYPD’s chief spokesman, Paul Browne, had initially said the commissioner’s appearance was taken from other sources. He had also indicated that the film was shown to just a few hundred officers.
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Public backlash
A group of activists held a news conference on the steps of City Hall on Thursday and called for both Kelly and Browne to step down. “The Muslim American community and their allies are tired of lie after lie that the NYPD keeps feeding this community, and we’re here to say we are demanding accountability,” said Linda Sarsour of the Muslim American Civil Liberties Coalition (MACLC).
Indeed, Kelly has said in the past that the NYPD department conducts surveillance only when it is following leads, but a recent investigation by the Associated Press revealed a secret intelligence program aimed at racial profiling, infiltrating religious groups and monitoring ethnic neighborhoods even when there was no evidence of wrongdoing.
“The film was bad enough, using it in training was bad enough, Commissioner Kelly taking part was bad enough, but now they are comfortable lying to the Muslim community, lying to the media and lying to the city,” said Cyrus McGoldrick, a manager at the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), in an interview with MintPress. CAIR is one of the organizations that “The Third Jihad” accuses of being soft on terrorist groups.
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Police state?
In the wake of 9/11, the NYPD began acquiring greater power to take part in domestic spying, which until then had been strictly limited. In 2003, Kelly and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg sought permission to expand their ability to carry out surveillance operations, assuring a federal court that police would not abuse that power or infringe on people’s rights.
Kelly has apologized for the playing of the movie and his role in it, but has rejected calls for his resignation. “He didn’t address the issue. He was caught in a lie,” says McGoldrick of CAIR.
Mayor Bloomberg, meanwhile, has stepped up his defence of Kelly and Browne. On Thursday, while backing the NYPD officials “100%,” he said Kelly would have to intensify his outreach efforts to Muslims. On his weekly WOR Radio show on Friday, Bloomberg argued that it was time to move on. “After a 90-minute interview a long time ago, they just clipped it and put it in. After he found out about it, he did what he was supposed to do,” said the Mayor. “Now, c’mon, let’s get on with it.”
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Enough is enough
That’s not likely to happen. Activists are demanding not only for Kelly and Browne to lose their jobs, but also for a U.S. Department of Justice inquiry into the showing of the film and the retraining of all the police officers who saw it.
“NYPD officials should not have permitted and actively participated in the screening and creation of such hateful propaganda produced by a special interest organization,” said Nermeen Arastu, attorney at the Asian American Legal Defence and Education Fund (AALDEF), in a statement. The Clarion Fund also produced a video entitled “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West” that it distributed through swing states in the last presidential election.
Still, activists insist this is not just a Muslim issue but a mainstream movement for reform. Any type of community that values civil liberties is working to make sure there is concrete change,” McGoldrick tells MintPress. He says there is a lot of backing from City Council members as well, and critics of Kelly and the NYPD will continue to push for independent oversight of a police force that Mayor Bloomberg has called the seventh largest private army in the world.
“They’re not enforcing the law, says McGoldrick, “They’re breaking it.”
Source: MintPress
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