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Rival Candidates & Community Leaders Condemn Trump’s Plan to Ban Muslims

HeadlineDec 08, 2015

Trump’s proposal quickly drew comparisons to policies enacted by Nazi Germany against the Jews and condemnation from both Republican and Democratic candidates, as well as an array of civil society groups. The head of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Nihad Awad, compared Trump to the leader of a lynch mob.

Nihad Awad: “We were extremely shocked to hear Donald Trump calling for total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the U.S. This is outrageous, coming from someone who wants to assume the highest office in the land. It is reckless and simply un-American. Donald Trump sounds more like a leader of a lynch mob than a great nation like ours. He and others are playing into the hands of ISIS.”

Later, award-winning Nigerian-American writer and New Yorker magazine contributor Teju Cole posted on his Facebook: “Trump is a dangerous clown … But it is important to understand that his idea of 'banning all Muslims,' scandalous as it is … is far less scandalous than the past dozen years of American disregard for non-American Muslim lives. And that wasn’t Trump. Trump didn’t murder thousands of innocent people with drones in Pakistan and Yemen. Trump didn’t kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people with bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan. Trump didn’t torture people at Bagram, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, or the numerous black sites across the planet. No American president in the past fourteen years has openly championed Islamophobia, but none has refrained from doing to Muslims overseas what would be unthinkable to do here to Americans of any religion.”

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