| BREAKING: Terror Threats Force Va. Marriott Hotel to Cancel CAIR’s Annual Banquet |
| BREAKING: Terror Threats Force Va. Marriott Hotel to Cancel CAIR’s Annual BanquetCAIR to host event in alternate location after anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim extremists threatened to plant bombs and kill hotel staff due to CAIR’s support for Palestinian human rights The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today announced that the hotel scheduled to host CAIR’s 29th annual banquet in Arlington, Virginia, has canceled the event due to multiple terror threats targeting the hotel, its staff, CAIR and American Muslims. CAIR’s banquet was scheduled to take place Saturday, Oct. 21, at the Marriott Crystal Gateway, in Arlington, Virginia. CAIR has hosted banquets there annually for over ten years. CAIR also planned to host a separate banquet at a Westin hotel in Maryland on Oct. 28th. [NOTE: CAIR plans to proceed with hosting its Oct. 21st banquet at an alternate secure location with heightened security. The alternate location has been secured and will be announced shortly. Its Oct. 28th event in Maryland will also be cancelled as a precaution and merged into the Oct. 21st event.] In recent days, according to the Marriott, anonymous callers have threatened to plant bombs in the hotel’s parking garage, kill specific hotel staff in their homes, and storm the hotel in a repeat of the Jan. 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol if the events moved forward. Earlier today, leadership of CAIR and Marriott met to discuss ongoing threats and concluded that the volume and specific nature of the threats, combined with the inability to secure additional security from local law enforcement agencies made it impossible to safely move forward with the events. Law enforcement authorities and the FBI have been notified of the terror threats. The FBI has confirmed to CAIR that it is investigating the reported threats. The terror threats came after CAIR updated its original banquet programming to focus on the work needed to support basic Palestinian human rights. In a statement, CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad, who is Palestinian-American, said: “We strongly condemn the extreme and disgusting threats against our organization, the Marriott hotel and its staff. We will not allow the threats of anti-Palestinian racists and anti-Muslim bigots who seek to dehumanize the Palestinian people and silence American Muslims to stop us from pursuing justice for all. We plan to move forward with our annual events merged at an alternate location with significant security and broadcast it to the entire nation.” “We ask all those who value free speech, human rights and justice to support CAIR’s work today to show hateful extremists that they will not succeed in silencing us and will only make our voices stronger, God willing. |
