Muslim activists have asked the White House to monitor a Christian Coalition symposium on Islam for fear that it will “be nothing more than an exercise in Muslim bashing.”
Eric Erfan Vickers, executive director of the American Muslim Council, said that if speakers at today’s symposium in Washington, D.C., attack Islam, the coalition should be denied funding under President Bush’s “faith-based” initiative.
“Given the history of the speakers that have been arranged for the program, we have every reason to believe that this symposium will be nothing more than an exercise in Muslim bashing,” Vickers wrote to Jim Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.
The symposium — “Muslims and the Judeo-Christian World: Where to From Here?” — will feature Daniel Pipes, the director of the Middle East Forum, who has been widely criticized by Muslim groups for his views on Islam.
