 Welcome to another episode of Critical Conversations, where we discuss hot topic issues related to American Muslims and other targeted communities. Today we will talk about Islamberg, a Muslim enclave in upstate New York, which has been repeatedly targeted by anti-Muslim hate groups and individuals over the past few years. Islamberg was most recently in the news earlier this year when local authorities arrested four young men who were planning to attack the community with heavy weapons and explosives. Why is this community repeatedly being targeted? What does this case tell us about growing Islamophobia in this country? And what does it mean for domestic terrorism and hate crime laws in this country? And to discuss all of this, we are joined today by Tahira Ahmadabadood, who is an attorney and who has represented Islamberg in the past. Tahira, thank you so much for being here. You're welcome. Thank you for having me, Mehlika. Absolutely. So Tahira, before we get to exactly what happened, you have a personal connection with Islamberg. Yes. And so could you for us describe what that is and also tell us a little bit about the community, how it was founded, et cetera. Yes. So Islamberg, as you said, is a small enclave upstate New York. It's 45 miles southeast of Binghamton. So people who are familiar with Sunni Binghamton will know generally that that's the major city outside of the very rural community. The communities in towns that are called Hancock and Deposit because they're small towns and sometimes there's some overlap between what, of course, is the boundaries. And the community was established in 1984 by Muslims who had converted from Christianity most of them to Islam and really sought to leave the inner cities and to save their kids from some of the blight that occurs in poverty-stricken communities, particularly in the 80s. It was really rampant in Brooklyn. And I lived in Brooklyn at that time with my parents who also had converted. So in 1984, I was whatever, nine years old or whatever age that I was. And as the families left the inner city, some had purchased property in New York and that's the community that is known as Islamberg and others moved to other parts of the country that just were safer. And so one of the goals, though, it's a really interesting, and being an adult, looking back now I see it as an interesting social occurrence which is that when you take people like poor African Americans from systems like you were facing in that community and you put them in a world where they're really fending for themselves, they're engaging in husbandry, they're learning how to live in a rural community, they're learning to be self-sufficient, you increase the odds of success in future generations, they're overall more happy and independent and now 30, 40 years later, you get to reap the benefit of that sort of a move. And it was a good move in the community, I was really happy and I visit often for aid celebrations, weddings, and family and friends and the life that was there. And the other thing I want to just describe about Islamberg is that I think of it as a rural subdivision, you know how you go into suburbs and there are these houses that are built. Islamberg is no different, you're driving through a rural community in a mountain and then literally you get to a point where you drive down the hill and there is the enclave. So it's not really as mysterious or as isolated as some of the online trolls will have you believe, it is there in the heart of this rural district. Right, and it's made up of a lot of doctors and engineers and people who are very well integrated in the surrounding communities. And what would you say about their relations with surrounding communities? They're really wonderful and again when we look at the generation, so I'm 45, my parents and their colleagues in their generations are the ones who made the investment and began that way of living. So it's my generation who have gone to school and become the engineers, become the doctors and nurse practitioners and they are very integrated because most of them work off of the property. The children attend college and universities off of the property. The younger kids play sports like football is a big thing and soccer. And so there's a very good relationship between the larger communities of Hancock and Deposit and the community that resides on Islamberg. And so for the people that know the area, they know that there's no problem, there's no separation between the two and that there's good and loving relationships between the Muslims who live there and the non-Muslims and other neighbors who live off of the property and in Deposit and Hancock. Sure, absolutely. And so when did you actually hear about this most recent plot to attack Islamberg? It's almost as if it becomes sort of a regular thing where the local law enforcement will call the administrators of the land, of the property, of the community and say, and we have a good relationship with members of law enforcement. And of course, I don't live on the property, I don't live in New York, but my proximity in terms of growing up close to the community and serving as a lawyer to get us through some really rough patches where we've been on the receiving end of some serious threats has me. There's no separation, it's up close and personal. And what happened was similar, the local law enforcement had called some of the administrators and said this is what's happened. We understand that some students at a school of state New York about three hours away was planning to attack the community, that the plan was real and that had they ventured to actually take steps to do it, there would have been loss of life. So it was not just kids sitting talking. It was a plan that had been carefully prepared and they did not mince words, law enforcement did not mince their words when they said if these, some of them were not students, some of them were young adults, had they gotten close enough, people would have died. Wow. And so that's how we found out, probably about a week or so before the news actually became public. Wow, and how did the Islamic community respond to that? How did you have more security measures in place as a result? And normally, because this is not the first time that it's been targeted. That's right. So I mean, how is the community doing now? So with the community, I think it's safe to say that there is always a form of shock and maybe that shock leads to maybe a numbness and a questioning of why is this happening, why does this continue to happen, how real a threat is it? Because as you're trying to fill your way through this idea that your home is constantly being targeted and that law enforcement is constantly watching and surveilling for threats to it, it just becomes a different way of functioning. So the community, of course, was shocked. They were interested. They were curious and did take security measures just making sure that people were around towards the front of the property. The main entrance and egress and to make sure that law enforcement made a more visible presence. The other thing is, again, this is not a very sophisticated style of living. And it's winter and the roads, particularly on a slumber, are difficult to navigate. It is icy. It is snowy. And so where are you going? You're going to come and you're not going to be able to make it down the hill safely. So where are you going? So the community is just juggling those realities of rural living and now also preparing for outsiders to do what? Oh, my goodness. And so as we've mentioned before, I mean, this is not the first time that Islamberg has been targeted. In 2015, there was a Tennessee man, Robert Dogard, who was trying to recruit a militia to attack the community with lots of weaponry. And thank goodness the plan was intercepted by the FBI. And so could you talk a little bit about why this particular community? Why does it repeatedly come under attack? You know what I think happens in going back to why the community was even established and the reality, and again, being an adult and being able to have an area of perspective and a lens that allows me to see things in a much clearer way. I think what we're experiencing is a combination of racism, anti-Muslim sentiment, xenophobia, and the reality is that when predominantly African-American people, working class and poor, remove themselves from the systems and the structures that control them, i.e. living in the inner city at that point, and they start fresh, I think America doesn't know what to do with that. And then when you have people who are cynical and already inclined to lean towards hatred and bigotry, not only do they not know what to do with it, they do not accept it. And so what you have is lots of people on social media, particularly those who fund hate, which is a real thing, just pokes and pokes and pokes at the community and advances these lies and these myths, and it radicalizes people into thinking that there is a threat in this community that does not exist. So my colleague, Tahira Clark, who also represents, yeah, we have the same first name, also represents Islamberg. After the plot was revealed and law enforcement made their initial arrest, she did a press conference with other members of leaders in the community, and she warned families, she warned American families to pay very close attention to what their children are doing on social media because they are becoming radicalized by right-wing hatred. And so now you have these people, four, five, six young men, some of them high schoolers, one of them a 16-year-old, whose life is now forever changed because he sat on his computer or in communication with people who were radicalized by hate. So you have two sets of victims. You have this community, and now you have the offenders, and their lives will never, ever be the same. And it's not unlike what happened in Columbine. It's not unlike what happened in Columbine. Absolutely. And I mean, in this, I mean, and they were sort of, there's all these conspiracy theories that are sort of swirling around social media. Again, within these, you know, right-wing sort of groups and stuff. And a lot of people believe, people who frequent these sites, that this is a terrorist camp, and that is why, and I mean, the four young men that you just alluded to had never even visited that place, had never even been anywhere close to it. And there were so many people in the surrounding communities, in the larger community who said, who came out and sort of gave their quotes and said, if only they had just come and asked us, we would have told them how wonderful a community this is and how lovely our relationships are with them. And so there's just so much of that socialization going on, on social media. And we really also have to shine a light on the fact that some of that socialization is funded. It is not organic. It is manufactured and organized. There was a big report, I don't know if you had a chance to see it on sludge.com, they're an online news outfit. They had done some investigative journalism that resulted in the fact that some of your larger charitable foundations actually give cover to donors who want to fund organizations that effectuate hate. And it's really wild, but the investigation revealed that there are 34 organizations on the Southern Poverty Law Center's hate list that received $11 million from these large American foundations. Unbelievable. And a lot of these also have very strong connections with mainstream media outlets as well. And they're able to sort of perpetuate some of those fears as well. And I think that was, I think the first organization that perhaps came out with a very comprehensive report was the Center for American Progress when they came out with fear ink. And you talked about this Islamophobia industry that perpetuates these fears. And that's a real thing. And it's killing our country. It's harming not only Muslims of those who are perceived to be Muslims, but also regular young people in this country who do not understand what they are seeing and cannot process and understand that propaganda has taken over lots of the airways. Absolutely. And we'll get back to this point as well about how you count some of this. And so right now, Robert Dogard, again, the person from Tennessee, he is serving a 20-year sentence, but his case is currently under appeal. So what is his current status of incarceration? Right. So he was definitely convicted by a jury. And of all the charges that the US attorney had pursued against him was considered a major victory. He is currently incarcerated in one of the federal penitentiaries. I think he's 69. So because of his age and health issues, he may be at a hospital-based facility. Why am I saying all of those things? Because in his appeal, he essentially asserts that he was offered a deal, a plead bargain, very early after the charges had entered. And the judge rejected the plea and really forced the US attorney's hand towards litigation and towards prosecution. And so now with the appellate court reviewing it, there's a question about whether or not the judge was right to reject the plea deal. And if the judge was incorrect to accept it, then one of the options is that he gets to accept it sort of in retrospect. And that plea deal, if my memory serves me correctly, he may be released. Wow. Yeah. And did he ever express any remorse during his trial? No. And he actually had an opportunity to address the court prior to being sentenced. And he didn't. He sort of justified in a really weird way what he thought was happening and who he thought he was conspiring with. But there was never really any heartfelt apology. And again, what he was planning to do, he was caught on and intercepted saying things like he would kill children with machetes. And so this would have been a terrorist act on American soil upstate New York at the hands of a guy. Wow. And you've been, I mean, and if he is potentially released, I mean, that will be, again, re-traumatizing for the community again. And so I can't imagine what the community will go through if that happens. You have been frustrated by the fact that a lot of these people, whether Robert Dogard or Bowers, the person who attacked the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, or Dylan Roof, who attacked worshippers in Charleston, that they have not been charged on domestic terrorism charges and instead have been charged for hate crimes. And so why is that? I mean, how would you define domestic terrorism? And I mean, just by hearing about it, like something that is politically motivated and designed to sort of attack and kill innocent civilians, one would think that that would sort of fit into the domestic terrorism charge. So why is there this reluctance to charge these people with domestic terrorism? It's not a secret that there is a double standard. There is a double standard. The other thing that's not really a secret, and again, being a lawyer and dealing with the issue at hand and then examining the policies that prosecute these issues and potentially prevent some of these issues, I've learned a lot. So for example, under the United States Code, there isn't actually a domestic terror crime. There is no teeth in the definition of domestic terrorism under the US Code. It just doesn't exist. And so a person could be charged with all sorts of things that are domestic terror related or attempted murder and other things. But that title and the sort of emotion that it evokes when you hear that somebody has been charged with domestic terror will not occur unless the person is found to have had some sort of influence or involvement with an international organization. Nice, a foreign agency. A foreign agency. So by statute, under the federal code, they can be charged with a lot of stuff. But you will not hear domestic terrorism being one of them. You'll hear other words like domestic terror related. The interesting thing is that for this most recent attack in a threatened attack of Islamberg from the young men in Greece, New York three hours away, is that New York State actually does have a terrorism charge, which when we were looking at it, we think it was sort of inspired by 9-11. So New York State rewrote a lot of its criminal code. And so these young men were indicted yesterday or earlier in the week with terrorism, with conspiracy to commit terror, with having explosive devices. And so now people sit up a little straighter when you see that this has been taken seriously by what I think are really, really strong penal codes in the state of New York. Well, that's really excellent. And so, I mean, domestic terrorism charges as opposed to a hate crime charge. What is the difference in terms of the sentence saying or how it's prosecuted? And I could just sort of tell that. Yes, so every state is a little different. After the massacre at the hands of Dylan Roof, there was some back and forth because the state of South Carolina didn't have a hate crime statute. It didn't adopt in its state law a hate crime statute. And so people were really upset and was afraid that he wouldn't be punished and wouldn't receive the full force of the law as such an outrageous massacre of worshipers should. And there was a lot of pressure for the Obama administration's Department of Justice to take over that litigation just because of some of those factors and political and people were very angry. So every state has its own set of laws around what is a hate crime and again the issues of terrorism and how we define it. Generally speaking, hate crime is a crime that is committed on someone because of their identity in some form of a marginalized class. And as you indicated earlier, terrorism has to do generally. It's worded as violence or threats of violence towards a civilian population with a political agenda determined to make a political statement to the government. So and the difference in how it's sentenced and how they're enhanced, I don't know because they do vary but they are enhancers to the underlying crime that these people would have done, whether that's murder, whether that's attempted murder, conspiracy, those other charges are enhancements to those underlying primary crimes. Sure, and is this a sort of setting of precedent? So is this the first time that this has happened that they're being sort of charged with something so, I mean, not those four individuals, but the fact that the Department of Justice is bringing those charges to bear? So right now, with the Greece, New York case, it's only pending in New York state. So the Department of Justice hasn't taken any jurisdiction yet, but some of the early conversations that we're having say that they may. And of course, the Department of Justice is in a state of transition right now with its own leadership. And so what will happen or what will come of that remains to be seen, but New York state is on top of it. And in fact, Governor Cuomo had reached out to the community as well and had ordered his police force to be more visible and present around the community of Islamberg, especially in the days following it. So I'm interested to watch how New York sort of unpacks the prosecution of these individuals. And this won't be the first time that New York has used these sorts of charges. And in fact, I was looking at an article earlier today where another sort of white nationalist was charged. And I believe that he was charged with the New York state terrorism statute. And he's the man who was saying he was roaming around the streets of Brooklyn looking to kill a black man and he stabbed a black man in the neck a couple years ago. So I think, and I need to just brush up on that, but I'm pretty certain he also was charged with something along these lines by New York state. Wow, so that is encouraging development. Okay, so in 2017, the FBI came out with a report saying that over the past 16 years, most of the violent extremist sort of attacks that took place here in the US were carried out by white supremacist groups, right? And yet 85% of the countering violent extremism budget under this administration goes to target black lives matter activists, Muslims, LGBTQ activists, immigrant justice activists. Environmental justice. Justice activists. So there's that. The administration's sort of priority setting. But then also, when we sort of look at other polls that are happening of sort of mainstream Americans, there was I think a poll that the New America Foundation carried out, I believe last year again, or maybe two years ago, which found that about 56% of Americans, regular Americans are concerned, very concerned about growing extremism within the Muslim community here in the US. So there is that general level of distrust as well between Muslims and non-Muslim Americans. So we've been talking about this a little bit earlier as well, but then how would you say that we can counter this? It's really a tough fight, because like you said, for the past 16 years, data bears out who and what the real threats are. But that's not making the front page of the newspapers. People aren't talking about it. There aren't big exposés. And in fact, I was listening to a podcast recently about how under President Obama's administration, while the increase of white-wing violence was increasing, particularly because he was a black man. As they started to investigate this and look into it, it made a lot of people in administration very uncomfortable. And so they walked back the resources that they had invested into investigating this occurrence. But it is the threat. And if the American people don't have an appetite to understand that the threat could look like your kid, your uncle, or your nephew, then we are doing ourselves a disservice. Because now we're here and we're fighting the wrong fight and we're facing the wrong threat. So how do we do it? I think it takes a multi-level approach. It means that we have to really push our media for accountability around the truth and around advancing the narrative that is accurate and necessary for the public to consume. That is very, very important. And I think right now the Overton window has changed so much in our world and in our country that we're all talking about everything without much filter anymore. And in some regards, that's a good thing because it means that while I knew and you knew that the greatest threat for the past 16 years was white nationalism, we would never talk about that publicly three or four years ago, but that now it is okay because we realize that we're in the space in our country where if we don't, then life as we know it may end and we may never recover from it. So we have to push the conversation, talk about it. We have to be realistic about what these threats are. And those who like Muslims, like those who identify as Muslims, like immigrants also have to be very visible in their own existence in the country and the community and society so that like the community of Islamberg, when someone says, well, what is the story? I need to address this myth. Others can do their validation and bidding for them, which speaks volumes and speaks louder than you just saying it for yourself. It's work. Community building is work. Loving and taking care of your neighbors is great work. This is not, we are in 2019, whether you know who lives next door to you, whether you're going and borrowing a cup of sugar, that doesn't necessarily exist the way it might have existed 40 or 50 years ago. Social capital has eroded. It really has. But we have to bring it back because we are really all we have and we're in a crisis right now in this country without it. And I mean, you're right. I mean, white nationalists, I mean, if they are against Muslims, they're also against Jews. They're also against blacks. They're also against the LGBTQ community. And so these marginalized groups have to come together in order to be able to move their voices louder and amplify them more. One of the greatest, I think, opportunities that exist for us is the ability to organize even on an interfaith basis because it is an anti-religious sentiment that exists. Dillon Roof attacked black worshipers. The Bowers guy attacked Jewish worshipers. These other attacks against Muslim community, it's a, there's an attack on religion. And unless we unite as a religious community wherever we can, we're not taking advantage of our strength and our numbers and our ability to fight back against some of that hate. Right, and the idea is to keep working and keep going. Keep working. Absolutely. Well, I wish we could talk for more, but we've run out of time, Tahira. Thank you so much for your expertise and insights. And we're just hoping that, you know, the Islamic community can stay safe and will continue to be protected. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. And until next week, this is your host, Mahleka Samdani.