In light of the San Bernardino attacks, Religion News Service takes a look at Muslim civil rights groups and their use of online activism during such tragic times.
For example, immediately following the attacks, Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Los Angeles Area chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, got ahead of the story and immediately posted on Facebook: “Can anyone ever justify shooting at random people? This madness is impossible to understand. Praying for the victims of #ColoradoSprings and #SanBernardino.”
“We are still a minority, so the only way we’re going to make an impact, since we don’t have the numbers, is through social media,” says Nabeelah Naeem, Communication Coordinator at CAIR. “If we didn’t have social media, there would be no impact at all.”
“Our community would be largely ignored by mainstream media if we were not so aggressive in using social media to promote ourselves,” comments interfaith blogger Amanda Quraishi. “I’ve seen such leaps and bounds on how we are able to present ourselves in the public eye to the mainstream media and as American Muslims in the last five or six years.”
