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PRESS STATEMENT: CAIR-Chicago Condemns DNC Member for Assaulting Muslim Delegate Holding ‘Stop Arming Israel’ Sign, Calls for Criminal Charges

- For Immediate Release and Distribution -

AP Photo/Brynn Anderson

Muslim civil rights and advocacy group calls for individual who struck Muslim with “We Love Joe” sign to be condemned, identified and charged.

(CHICAGO, IL, 8/20/2024) – The Chicago Office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Chicago), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today condemned DNC members for assaulting a Muslim woman and other delegates who were silently holding a banner that said “stop arming Israel.” 

Video from the Democratic convention last night appears to show a DNC attendee hitting a Muslim woman over the head with a sign for holding up a sign that said “stop arming Israel.” Other individuals attempt to rip the banner out of their hands.

CAIR-Chicago Executive Director Ahmed Rehab said:

The American people have every right to make this reasonable, humanitarian and patriotic demand. If not in the people’s arena of politics, then where? The violent censorship that seems to always meet this message to silence it only underscores its veracity and urgency, as well as the oligarchic stranglehold plaguing our politics.” 

CAIR-Chicago’s mission is to defend civil rights, fight bigotry, and promote understanding.  

CONTACT: Ahmed Rehab, Executive Director of CAIR Chicago, 202-870-0166, arehab@cair.com; Maggie Slavin, Operations Manager of CAIR-Chicago, 815-590-3991, mslavin@cair.com; Hafsa Haider, Communications Coordinator of CAIR-Chicago, 561-317-7509, hhaider@cair.com