February 19, 2012

Today, the Muslim Public Affairs Council called upon the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the New York City Police Department’s alleged pervasive spying against Muslim American college students at more than a dozen colleges and universities across the northeast.

SEE: NYPD Monitored Muslim Students All Over Northeast (Associated Press)

“University organizations are supposed to be safe spaces for students of all backgrounds and faiths to Constitutionally express their thoughts and practice their faith,” said Alejandro J. Beutel, MPAC Government and Policy Analyst and former MSA President at Seton Hall University in South Orange, NJ. “Without providing a shred of evidence indicating any activity posing a threat to public safety, the NYPD has grossly criminalized a community of youth seeking to explore their identities and pursue a better future for themselves.”

According to the report by the Associated Press:

The New York Police Department monitored Muslim college students far more broadly than previously known, at schools far beyond the city limits, including the Ivy League colleges of Yale and the University of Pennsylvania, The Associated Press has learned.

Police talked with local authorities about professors 300 miles away in Buffalo and even sent an undercover agent on a whitewater rafting trip, where he recorded students' names and noted in police intelligence files how many times they prayed….

The report goes on to say that the universities included Yale, Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, Syracuse, New York University, Clarkson University, the Newark and New Brunswick campuses of Rutgers, the State University of New York campuses in Buffalo, Albany, Stony Brook and Potsdam, Queens College, Baruch College, Brooklyn College and La Guardia Community College.

ALSO SEE: “Weekly MSA Report” (NYPD via Associated Press)

Because this is a weekly report, there may be more instances of spying than has been revealed in this single document. This is the latest revelation in a string of major controversies coming from the NYPD that include:

• Widespread religious profiling and infiltration without any indication of criminal wrongdoing in Muslim centers of worship and community life throughout New York City

• Pervasive use of an anti-Muslim hate film “The Third Jihad” shown to nearly 1,500 NYPD officers and investigators (1 in 25) as part of its training curriculum

• Wholesale monitoring of Shia mosques and centers of community life inside and outside its New York City jurisdiction

SEE ALSO: MPAC Demands Reform of NYPD After News of Anti-Muslim Training Video

SEE ALSO: MPAC Demands NYPD Investigation in Wake of Shia Community Profiling