NYPD found promoting Islamophobia

PressTV

Gary Anthony Ramsey

This week it was revealed that more than a thousand New York police officers were shown the controversial film called “The third Jihad” while taking anti- terrorism training classes.

Talat Hamdani lost her son Muhammad during the 9-11 attacks. She says she is outraged it was shown to New York public servants who are suppose to protect her rights.

Fear of Muslims in America continues to threaten worshipers of Islam who have been subjected to a number of recent attacks.

Representatives from dozens of Muslim and non-Muslim groups gathered at City Hall to demand the resignation of New York City Police Commissioner.

Ray Kelly and his deputy of public information Paul Browne. Both men at first denied the film was shown then later backtracked on their comments.

The Third Jihad is a 71-minute documentary that claims that much of the Islamic leadership in the US is preaching what they call "Jihad" to its followers. Kelly even gives a 14-second interview in the movie.

The movie was produced by the non-profit Clarion group which has ties to Aish HaTorah - an Israeli organization that opposes any territorial concessions on the West Bank. Documents reveal that more than 14 hundred police officers have seen this film.

The controversy comes as the NYPD has been challenged in court for placing spies and provocateurs in Mosques and community centers. It also happens as the US congress is once again set to hold hearings on the radicalization of Islam - proceedings that many have labeled as racist and inflammatory.

Kelly issued his regrets late Wednesday saying quote “I offer my apologies to members of the Muslim community, in particular, who would find the film inflammatory and it's airing on department property, though unauthorized, to be inappropriate.

The department claims a sergeant placed the film in a display loop that flashed on the walls of the training facility.

Through a number of statements, the NYPD has insisted that its officers are trained to protect all of the citizens of New York regardless of race or religion. But Muslim Americans say that is hard to believe especially if a matter of policy, those officer are shown films that depict them as radical and terrorists that deserve neither protection or respect . 

NYPD’s Anti-Muslim training Film financed by Israeli non-profit

INN World Report/NYTimes
Michael Powell

Ominous music plays as images appear on the screen: Muslim terrorists shoot Christians in the head, car bombs explode, executed children lie covered by sheets and a doctored photograph shows an Islamic flag flying over the White House.

“This is the true agenda of much of Islam in America,” a narrator intones. “A strategy to infiltrate and dominate America. ... This is the war you don’t know about.” 

This is the feature-length film titled “The Third Jihad,” paid for by a nonprofit group, which was shown to more than a thousand officers as part of training in the New York Police Department.

In January 2011, when news broke that the department had used the film in training, a top police official denied it, then said it had been mistakenly screened “a couple of times” for a few officers.

A year later, police documents obtained under the state’s Freedom of Information Law reveal a different reality: “The Third Jihad,” which includes an interview with Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, was shown, according to internal police reports, “on a continuous loop” for between three months and one year of training. 

During that time, at least 1,489 police officers, from lieutenants to detectives to patrol officers, saw the film. 

News that police trainers showed this film so extensively comes as the department wrestles with its relationship with the city’s large Muslim community. The Police Department offers no apology for aggressively spying on Muslim groups and says it has ferreted out terror plots.

But members of the City Council, civil rights advocates and Muslim leaders say the department, in its zeal, has trampled on civil rights, blurred lines between foreign and domestic spying and sown fear among Muslims. 

“The department’s response was to deny it and to fight our request for information,” said Faiza Patel, a director at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, which obtained the release of the documents through a Freedom of Information request. “The police have shown an explosive documentary to its officers and simply stonewalled us.” 

Tom Robbins, a former columnist with The Village Voice, first revealed that the police had screened the film. The Brennan Center then filed its request. 

The 72-minute film was financed by the Clarion Fund, a nonprofit group whose board includes a former Central Intelligence Agency official and a deputy defense secretary for President Ronald Reagan. Its previous documentary attacking Muslims’ “war on the West” attracted support from the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, a major supporter of Israel who has helped reshape the Republican presidential primary by pouring millions of dollars into a so-called super PAC that backs Newt Gingrich. 

Commissioner Kelly is listed on the “Third Jihad” Web site as a “featured interviewee.” Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, wrote in an e-mail that filmmakers had lifted the clip from an old interview. The commissioner, Mr. Browne said, has not asked the filmmakers to remove him from its Web site, or to clarify that he had not cooperated with them. 

None of the documents turned over to the Brennan Center make clear which police officials approved the showing of this film during training. Department lawyers blacked out large swaths of these internal memorandums.