New York Republican Rep. Peter King is set to open a controversial hearing Thursday on the radicalization of the American Muslim community. Critics have described the hearings as a modern-day form of McCarthyism designed to stoke fear against American Muslims. King has refused calls to broaden the hearing to examine right-wing militias or any non-Muslim groups. Ahead of the hearing’s first day, Nihad Awad of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said King is scapegoating Muslims.

Nihad Awad: “This kind of hearing serves to stigmatize the American Muslim community in the same way many people were stigmatized under the McCarthy senator who singled out people. And we’re just looking at a repeat by some people who’s in authority and abusing that authority, targeting a minority who might be unpopular because of propaganda and stereotypes and because of the political turmoil in the Muslim world. He knows that the Muslim community can be singled out, and I think he’s just exploiting this in an ugly fashion.”