Muslim activists protest racist American policies that target Muslims at US borders.
They want to be treated equally.
The Muslims were upset and felt they were unjustly targeted at the border.
KOMO News reported, via ROP:
Recalling the civil rights movement, one man says he’s asking for equality – and is tired of being profiled because of his Muslim beliefs.
Jeff Siddiqui of Lynnwood took his message Sunday to the U.S.-Canadian border, where he and a handful of protesters delivered their message, yards away from the Peace Arch.
Siddiqui, who is with the group American Muslims of Puget Sound, organized what he calls a peaceful demonstration to send a message to passers-by.
“We don’t want a country where – to use Martin Luther King’s words – where we are judged by the color of our skin or our faith,” Siddiqui says.
He tells KOMO News he felt like he was targeted by a border official about a year ago when he tried to leave Canada and go through the checkpoint. Siddiqui describes what happened:
“After haranguing me for a while, and I told him to mind his manners, he said, ‘Well, do you have anything in your van you don’t want us to find?’ And I said, ‘What do mean?’ He said ‘Oh, like terrorists, guns, grenades under the seat.'”
Somewhere between 25 and 80 demonstrators were supposed to show up for Sunday’s border protest – including some fellow Muslims. But only about six actually showed up.
Siddiqui says he knows why they didn’t come.
“Muslims are terrified,” he says. “They don’t want to be targeted. They don’t want to be identified, they don’t want to be listed as trouble makers for future treatment, and they’re just terrified even though they’re citizens.”
In the last 24 months 126 people were indicted on terrorist-related charges in the United States. All of them were Muslim.
