By Steve Neavling
ticklethewire.com
Responding to a question about Islamophobia during Sunday’s presidential debate, Donald Trump said Muslims must “report when they see something going on.”
“Muslims have to report the problems when they see them,” Trump said during the town hall. “And there’s always a reason for everything. If they don’t do that, it’s a very different situation for our country.”
But the FBI disagree that Muslims aren’t reporting suspicious activity, the Washington Post reports.
“They do not want people committing violence, either in their community or in the name of their faith, and so some of our most productive relationships are with people who see things and tell us things who happen to be Muslim,” FBI Director James Comey said over the summer. “It’s at the heart of the FBI’s effectiveness to have good relationships with these folks.”
After the Orlando nightclub shooting, for example, an American Muslim reported that he had notified investigators about the suspect because “I wanted to do my part.”
In an essay for The Post, the Muslim American, Mohammed A. Malik, said he wanted to correct false impressions about people who share his faith.
“I am hardly the first American Muslim to report on someone; people who do that simply don’t like to announce themselves in to the media,” Malik wrote. “Trump’s assertions about our community – that we have the ability to help our country but have simply declined to do so – are tragic, ugly and wrong.”
