Trump’s views on Muslims engender hostility across world: Commentator

Press TV has interviewed Richard Silverstein, a journalist and political commentator in Seattle, about the US authorities refusing to let a British Muslim family board a UK flight to Los Angeles, amid Washington’s Islamophobic policies.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: This family being denied passage to board their flight with no explanation, your thoughts sir.

Silverstein: Well it is becoming a common occurrence, I am sorry to say. I wanted to make your viewers aware also of the case of an American citizen named Ayan Mohammed who flew to Heathrow airport to visit relatives in the UK and she was also detained for 13 hours and questioned and she says in an article in the BBC that it was because she was wearing a headscarf. She was given no other reason for the interrogation. Finally she was freed and allowed to go visit here relatives in the UK. A Jordanian citizen … flew from Jordan to Chicago and when he got off the plane he was not permitted to enter the United States and he was given no explanation. He had a valid visa that he had gotten from the US embassy in Amman and he was given no explanation for the reason he was deported. There is a picture of his passport with his cancellation of his visa which is really shocking and it comes on the heels of Donald Trump’s call for refusing to admit Muslims into the United States and it is really a shameful behavior considering that Donald Trump is only running for president but it does seem like his views have infected the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) of the Obama administration unfortunately.  

Press TV: This kind of racial profiling has been going on for years and many governments have actually tried to endure to address it. Now why are we taking steps backwards and is this kind of approach constructive in the fight for security and against terrorism, sir?

Silverstein: No of course it is not. It only engenders hostility on the part of Muslims around the world, against the United States for the ignorant kinds of views that Trump represents and we have heard Hillary Clinton say that Donald Trump is the best recruiter for ISIS (Daesh) that there is because they only have to refer to his horrible ideas about Muslims, his ignorant fearful ideas about Muslims and then Muslims around the world believe that everybody in the United States feels the same way about Muslims and I would like to tell your viewers that that is not the case and that Donald Trump represents a minority of people in the United States but unfortunately the fear that comes from terror groups like ISIS does get into the body politic and make people very frightened about their security and we have to stand up against that and say that Islam is not ISIS and we cannot react to all Muslims just because there is a small group that have the views of followers of ISIS.  

Press TV: And on that note you are well aware of the rise of Islamophobia is actually now doing pretty an intense job of changing popular culture. What does the future hold if we continue down this path?

Silverstein: Well I think we are fighting very hard here in the United States, many of us against that. The president, President Obama has really rejected Donald Trump’s rhetoric and he has made a point of saying that Muslims are a healthy and important part of our American citizens and play an important role in our society and most of us, most of the people here in the United States really rejected this call to fear and bigotry on the part of Trump and the other Republican presidential nominees.

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