New York City may yank terror report to appease Muslims, settle suits: report
New York City may take down a terror report from its website that alerts law enforcement and citizens alike to the characteristics of would-be terrorists because critics say it discriminates against Muslims and is deeply flawed.
The New York Post reported that the 92-page document, “Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat,” is at the heart of secret talks between city officials and attorneys trying to settle federal lawsuits against New York politicos and law enforcement authorities for their monitoring of mosques.
The city has reportedly stopped monitoring mosques, but now is being asked to take down the report from its website by those who see it as a promotion tool for “religious profiling” and discrimination against Muslims, the newspaper said.
But law enforcement officials say removing the report, especially in the face of brutal terror attacks in Paris, would send the wrong message.
“The harm is that it sends the message that the [New York Police Department] is going to back down on its counterterrorism effort in the name of political correctness,” said one former New York City police official, the New York Post reported. “Shame on the NYPD if they do.”
Sources told the New York Post that the fate of the report is a major block in the discussion of settlement terms in the lawsuits.
The report warns that most radicalized Islamists started their lives in “unremarkable” ways — that they kept “unremarkable” jobs and lived “unremarkable” lives — and that most terrorist hopefuls were well-educated male Muslims between the ages of 18 and 35.
The report also pointed out the success of the Internet as a recruiting tool for terrorism and warned about the mind-set of recent converts, saying: “Their need to prove their religious convictions to their companions often makes them the most aggressive,” the New York Post quoted.
