US Muslim Brotherhood Umbrella Group Calls On Biden Administration To Appoint Islamophobia Envoy

Pak­istani media is report­ing the Unit­ed States Coun­cil of Mus­lim Orga­ni­za­tions (USCMO) has pub­lished an open let­ter call­ing on Pres­i­dent Joe Biden to appoint a State Depart­ment spe­cial envoy to mon­i­tor and com­bat Islam­o­pho­bia. Accord­ing to the report by the Asso­ci­at­ed Press of Pakistan:

April 25, 2021 In a let­ter to the pres­i­dent, the U.S. Coun­cil of Mus­lim Orga­ni­za­tions (USCMO) said such an envoy at the State Depart­ment could help address the Islam­o­pho­bia that affects the third largest reli­gious group in the coun­try. The envoy could sup­port efforts both in the Unit­ed States and inter­na­tion­al­ly against anti-Mus­lim hate crimes and where Mus­lims are denied con­sti­tu­tion­al rights.

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Along with demand­ing the appoint­ment of a spe­cial envoy, the USCMO also request­ed that Biden include Mus­lims at every lev­el of gov­ern­ment, meet with Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers, and pur­sue sys­temic pol­i­cy reforms to address anti-Mus­lim dis­crim­i­na­tion. Accord­ing to the arti­cle, the White House has not yet respond­ed to media inquiries about whether the admin­is­tra­tion will appoint such an envoy, and a State Depart­ment spokesper­son has said the depart­ment could not speak to any poten­tial nom­i­na­tion. 

Groups tied to the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in the Unit­ed States, a transna­tion­al Islamist influ­ence net­work cov­ered by the Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR), have repeat­ed­ly tried to influ­ence the Biden admin­is­tra­tion regard­ing nom­i­na­tions of US gov­ern­ment employ­ees and poli­cies per­tain­ing to Mus­lims and civ­il rights in general.

The Unit­ed States Coun­cil of Mus­lim Orga­ni­za­tions was estab­lished in 2014 by eight orga­ni­za­tions, sev­en of which are part of the US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood. Since its found­ing, the USCMO has grown to include 35 mem­ber orga­ni­za­tions, almost half known to be part of the US MB and includ­ing almost every impor­tant com­po­nent of the Broth­er­hood in the US. Pri­or GIOR report­ing about the USCMO by the GIOR has included:

• An Octo­ber 2020 report that the USCMO had issued a state­ment sev­er­ing its rela­tion­ship with EMGAGE, a Mus­lim civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tion also tied to the US Mus­lim Brotherhood.

• An Octo­ber 2020 report that Turk­ish Pres­i­dent Erdoğan had wel­comed USCMO rep­re­sen­ta­tives to the Turk­ish pres­i­den­tial com­plex, dis­cussing the need to strength­en US-Turk­ish relations.

• A Jan­u­ary 2021 report that the USCMO had pub­lished an online form for gov­ern­ment jobs in the Biden admin­is­tra­tion as part of its “Empow­er­ment and Ser­vice” program.

• An April 2021 report that the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of a USCMO mem­ber orga­ni­za­tion had met with the Turk­ish ambas­sador to the US and a Turk­ish-Amer­i­can influ­ence group close­ly tied to the Turk­ish rul­ing party.