Who We Are: MACLC

The MUSLIM AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES COALITION (MACLC) is a New York-based coalition of citizens, community members, spiritual leaders, organizers, advocates, attorneys, and groups whose mission is to organize around and give voice to absent perspectives on issues of national security, counterterrorism, law enforcement, and civil rights, as they affect Muslim communities in post-9/11 New York.

Initially created in response to the New York City Police Department’s troubling 2007 report, “Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat,” MACLC is concerned by the extent to which local, state, and federal government and law enforcement entities have criminalized Muslim communities in the name of national security through broad-based racial, religious, national security, and gender profiling.

MACLC is also disconcerted by law enforcement’s adoption of unsubstantiated and discriminatory radicalization theories, the predatory policing and prosecution models on which they draw, and the resulting aggressive use of informants and surveillance in Muslim communities.

MACLC believes that government and law-enforcement must be held accountable and respect the rights of Muslims and Muslim communities to practice their faiths, express their political opinions, organize, and live with respect and dignity.

Through legislative, legal, media and other forms of advocacy, MACLC works to ensure that government and law enforcement engage with Muslim communities in meaningful and non-coercive ways. MACLC also supports community organizing efforts focused on holding government and law enforcement accountable.

MACLC coalition members are frequently in the news, including the CLEAR clinic –see this August 2012 article  ; DRUM and CLEAR have also helped raise community concerns about the negative impact of informants/provocateurs in our midst; on this issue see reference to youth workshops in partnership with  CLEAR at the MAS Center in the recent Episode of This American Life on NPR.