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Christie tries to allay Muslim fears
By ED BEESON, HERALD NEWS | 04/15/08
Says terror probes can't violate rights
NEWARK
-- When law enforcement and the local Muslim community embrace, it is not just
out of respect. It is also because they need each other.
Authorities say they want Muslims to be vigilant and vocal
about extremists in their neighborhoods, while the Islamic community needs
authorities to be protective of their civil rights.
This dynamic played out Monday afternoon when U.S. Attorney
Christopher J. Christie visited the Interfaith
Dialog Center,
a Turkish Muslim organization. Levent Koc, of Clifton,
the center's executive director, invited Christie to discuss his five
priorities for law enforcement in New
Jersey. Topping the list was fighting domestic
terrorism, Christie said.
An audience of about 30, including several prominent law
enforcement officials and members of the Muslim community, listened intently.
Among them were Bergen County Sheriff Leo P. McGuire, and Mohamed El Filali,
outreach director for the Islamic Center
of Passaic
County.
After Christie concluded his remarks, El Filali pulled
McGuire close and whispered something in the sheriff's ear. McGuire stepped
close to Christie and spoke. The conversation was about the plight of Mohammad
Qatanani, the Islamic Center's imam who is facing deportation because of a 1993
arrest that landed him in an Israeli jail for three months.
"Anything we can do for him," McGuire said of
Qatanani. "He has our full support. He's a great guy."
The soft-spoken, but influential Qatatani has been praised
for helping the FBI in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Christie told McGuire that his office was keeping tabs on
the Qatanani deportation proceedings.
But the U.S.
attorney added in an interview later that there was little he could do to
assist the embattled imam. The U.S. Attorney's Office solely handles criminal
matters, while Qatanani case is a civil matter being prosecuted by the Bureau
of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. A three-day court hearing for Qatanani
been scheduled for early May.
El Filali said he understood Christie's limitations, but he
hoped the U.S. attorney, who
was appointed by President Bush in 2001, might be able to play a
behind-the-scenes role in securing Qatatani's U.S. immigration status.
"The Muslim community is definitely looking at the law
enforcement's stance in this case," El Filali said. "Hopefully, due
process will prevail."
In his speech, Christie, who has been rumored to be mulling
a run as a Republican candidate for governor in 2009, did not flinch when he
spoke about fighting domestic terrorism. But he also gave equal attention to
his four other law enforcement priorities: fighting public corruption, violent
street gangs, human trafficking, and corporate fraud.
Christie highlighted the human cost of each of these crimes;
he also spoke about his victories in fighting them, such as the 125 indictments
he has secured across the state against allegedly corrupt public officials.
Christie said he hoped public appearances, such as the one
Monday, will begin to win the Muslim community's trust that federal
investigations into Islamic extremism, such as the last year's arrest of six
Muslim men allegedly planning to attack Fort Dix,
are not wholesale indictments of the religious community.
"Hopefully what this continued dialogue produces,"
he said in an interview, "is a sense of trust that when we have to do
difficult things that they'll have confidence in the fact that we're doing them
based upon the facts and not based on any predisposition that any of us has.
"I think the only way to break that kind of assumption
down," Christie said, "is to interact, and to have them take the
measure of you."
Reach Ed Beeson at 973-569-7042 or
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