PRESS STATEMENT: CAIR-Chicago Slams Dangerous Misinformation Campaign Targeting Chicago Leaders
Demands an end to duplicitous tactics employed by the ADL
- For Immediate Release and Distribution -
Ald. Raymond Lopez (15th) during a City Council meeting on April 16, 2025.Credit: Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago
CHICAGO, IL, 5/23/2025) — The Chicago office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Chicago), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, strongly condemns the dangerous misinformation campaign falsely linking Ald. Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez (33rd), Ald. Byron Sigcho Lopez (25th), Mayor Brandon Johnson, and Rep. Delia Ramirez (IL-03) to the suspect in a recent Washington, DC shooting. It also demands an end to duplicitous tactics employed by the ADL (see addendum under press release).
This smear campaign was led in part by Ald. Ray Lopez and former Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Iris Martinez, who shared misleading social media posts attempting to connect these progressive, anti-genocide leaders to the DC shooting suspect.
As reported by Block Club Chicago, Ald. Lopez circulated a photo from a 2018 United Working Families (UWF) candidate training event. The photo showed Alderman Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez, Alderman Byron Sigcho Lopez, Mayor Brandon Johnson, and Representative Delia Ramirez with red circles and connecting lines drawn to Chris Poulos, Rodriguez-Sanchez’s former campaign manager and chief of staff. Those spreading the image falsely claimed Poulos was the alleged shooter, Elias Rodriguez. Separately, Iris Martinez shared a Facebook post inaccurately stating the suspect displayed a Rodriguez-Sanchez campaign sign in his apartment window and demanded her resignation.
Alderwoman Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez said:
“I think that is really irresponsible. This can cause a lot of harm, and this can put people in harm’s way. I think that it’s important that people consider those things before spreading misinformation to social media.”
Despite clear reporting exposing the falsehoods, those behind the posts left them online for hours, further amplifying the harm.
CAIR-Chicago also slammed the Anti-Defamation League's (ADL) attempt to link the aforementioned leaders, peaceful student protesters, and other anti-genocide voices to the DC shooting as "shameful and deceptive."
CAIR-Chicago stands in full solidarity with Alds. Rodriguez-Sanchez and Sigcho-Lopez, Mayor Johnson, Rep. Ramirez, and all advocates speaking truth in the face of injustice and the dehumanization of the Palestinian people.
We reject the dangerous weaponization of antisemitism accusations aimed at silencing legitimate criticism of Israeli state violence and U.S.-backed atrocities. Such bad-faith attacks not only chill free speech but also endanger the lives and reputations of community leaders who dare to speak truth to power.
“These are leaders who have bravely stood up against genocide and forced starvation of children,” said Ahmed Rehab. “To intentionally conflate their human rights advocacy with antisemitism is reprehensible. It puts a target on their backs — and on ours.”
Read CAIR-Chicago’s response to the DC shooting, here.
Watch Executive Director, Ahmed Rehab, call out media bias and the pro-genocide lobby's selective outrage on FOX, here.
CAIR-Chicago’s mission is to defend civil rights, fight bigotry, and promote tolerance.
CONTACT: Ahmed Rehab, Executive Director, CAIR-Chicago, 202-870-0166, arehab@cair.com | Hafsa Haider, Communications Coordinator, CAIR-Chicago, 561-317-7509, hhaider@cair.com
More About the ADL Statement
In a May 23rd press conference, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said:
“If you're the mayor, you stop appointing and elevating people who have a history of being hostile to members of the Jewish community and when you find out that they have that history you get rid of them. Think about Pastor Johnson. The antisemitism wasn't what doomed him, it was the 9/11 conspiracies. The antisemitism was known for multiple days and the mayor continued to allow him to have the job of being the head of the CPS board. It wasn't until it came out that he was a 9/11 conspiracy theorist and said it was a quote inside job that he lost his gig and was forced to step down. He’s tried to elevate … one of the most active aldermen who’s out there at rallies with burning American flags, with calling for – chanting, leading the chants – and who was part of a training program at a union where death to America was taught to participants in Farsi and he was one of the guest speakers. I’m talking about Alderman Sigcho Lopez.”
Ahmed Rehab, Executive Director of CAIR-Chicago, responded to the ADL’s remarks:
"It is no secret that the ADL has been moonlighting as a propaganda arm that shills for Israel and demonizes its critics in an attempt to censor their legitimate criticism of Israel's crimes against humanity.”
SEE:
"Equating condemnations of mass murder and starvation against children in Gaza to "antisemitism" is not only absurd, it undermines our collective ability to combat actual antisemitism (hatred of Jews). Moreover, an organization working to shield foreign elements from accountability for their crimes renders them morally complicit in said crimes.
It is no surprise then that the ADL would parrot Israel Prime Minister's Benjamin Netanyahu's claims that calling for freedom for Palestinians against oppression, apartheid, and genocide is 'antisemitic.'
We call on the ADL to move away from doing the bidding of a foreign war criminal and return to their original mission that many of us respected them for. That includes putting out a statement condemning the genocide, a simple step they have yet to do in over a year and a half of weekly mass murder sprees against children and innocent families in Gaza."
SEE:
The ADL has not spoken out against maniacal anti-Palestinian hatred expressed by Israeli leaders even as their statements have fueled genocide and starvation campaigns in Gaza.
This chilling massacre, just yesterday, is an example of daily war crimes taking place against civilians in Gaza for over a year and a half now. The ADL continues to support the perpetrators of these war crimes and has yet to issue a single statement of condemnation. Rather, the ADL uses its influence to slam critics of these crimes as "antisemitic. The media must do its job and ask the ADL to answer for its public positions.
Source BBC