The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization in the US on Thursday announced that the hotel scheduled to host CAIR’s 29th annual banquet in 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. The Muslim group has hosted banquets there annually for over ten years.
“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,” read CAIR’s press statement.
It said: “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.”
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.
“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,” said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad, who is Palestinian-American.
CAIR also said it 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,” the group said.
, the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization in the US on Thursday announced that the hotel scheduled to host CAIR’s 29th annual banquet in Virginia, has canceled the event due to multiple terror threats targeting the hotel, its staff, CAIR and American Muslims.){kind=link}