ADL Articles

by: Marilyn Mayo June 24, 2016 The recent attack on the les­bian, gay, bisex­ual and trans­gen­der (LGBT) com­mu­nity in Orlando that left 49 dead and more than 50 wounded is yet another example of law enforcement standing in the line of fire in the fight against domestic extremism. From 2009 to the present, at least 64 members of law enforcement have been shot by domestic extremists--including anti-government extrem­ists, white suprema­cists, domes­tic Mus…

by: Oren Segal June 23, 2016   Akram Musleh, an 18-year-old resident of Brownsburg, Indiana, was arrested on June 21 for attempting to travel to join ISIS. Court documents indicate that Musleh had been engaging with terrorist propaganda since at least 2013, when Musleh was a 15-year-old high school student. According to authorities, the FBI first came into contact with Musleh after it was discovered that he posted three videos of Anwar al-Awlaki to YouTube in August 2013…

by: Mark Pitcavage June 22, 2016   An analyst with the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis was arrested after a June 9 incident at DHS headquarters in Washington, D.C., when security personnel performing random security checks allegedly discovered that Jonathan Wienke was carrying a concealed handgun, as well as a knife, pepper spray, handcuffs, and other items. Wienke was charged with carrying a pistol without a license. However,…

by: David Robbins June 20, 2016 By Jonathan Green­blatt CEO of the Anti-Defamation League This blog originally appeared on Medium The assault on the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in Orlando last weekend that left 49 dead and more than 50 wounded in its wake was in many ways unprecedented and, in many others, far too familiar. It was the deadliest mass public shooting in American history. And it shattered sacred moments of multiple…

by: Mark Pitcavage June 17, 2016   On June 14, Pennsylvania authorities caught and arrested a fugitive accused of having shot and killed three of his neighbors in West Virginia the previous day. Erick Shute, 29, who allegedly had a long-running series of disputes with the neighbors, reportedly attacked the three (and a fourth who escaped) over a conflict about firewood. Shute was a minor public figure as the vocalist for the longstanding death metal band Pyrexia, with which he…

by: Marilyn Mayo June 16, 2016 In the wake of the brutal terrorist attack by Omar Mateen that killed 49 members of the LGBT community and wounded 53 others at a gay nightclub in Orlando, communities held vigils across the country to express solidarity with the victims. In marked contrast to the love and support shown by people around the world, haters voiced anti-Muslim and anti-LGBT sentiment and promoted anti-Semitic conspiracy theories in the aftermath of the event. Not surprisingly,…

by: Oren Segal June 16, 2016 One year ago, on June 17, 2015, a white supremacist murdered nine parishioners at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston.   It’s terrible – and unfair – that the quiet space in time we should have had to reflect and properly mourn these murders targeting African-Americans has been literally blown apart by another tragedy – even larger in scale – involving the deliberate targeting of members of the LGBTQ community in Orlando…

by: Oren Segal June 15, 2016 Update - 9/27/16: Newly released information indicates that Mateen told a hostage negotiator during the standoff that his attack was inspired by the death of an ISIS commander. This indicates that Mateen’s support of ISIS may have been more influential in his decision than was previously known. This weekend’s shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, which left 49 dead and 52 people injured, has reinvigorated debate surrounding the…

by: Oren Segal June 15, 2016 The claim by Orlando shooter Omar Mateen that he acted on behalf of ISIS in perpetrating a shooting at a gay club draws attention to the role of anti-gay sentiment in Islamic extremist ideology and propaganda. ADL analyzed past issues of Dabiq, ISIS’s English language magazine, and Inspire magazine, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)’s English-language magazine, to determine the scope of anti-gay rhetoric and threat in those publications…

by: Jinnie Array June 14, 2016 The unspeakable tragedy that took place at the Pulse Club in Orlando, FL in the early morning of June 12 brings with it a wide range of emotions for people across the country and world. Those feelings include anger, sorrow, loss, hopelessness, horror, fear, rage and also—a sense of powerlessness. It is easy to feel powerless when you think there is nothing you can do: nothing you can do about the hate, the gun violence, the terrorism and the extremist…

by: Oren Segal June 09, 2016 In response to a Code of Conduct adopted at the request of the European Commission by online companies Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft, the Los Angeles Times Editorial Board called the Code “a well-meaning but heavy-handed move against jihadist propaganda.”  The Editorial explained: The code of conduct was presented as a set of voluntary commitments closely tracking what the four companies say they’ve been doing on their own…

by: Oren Segal June 07, 2016 Iowa Governor, Terry E. Branstand, recently issued a religiously divisive and likely unconstitutional proclamation urging all Iowans to attend state-wide Bible reading marathons organized by Christian-based groups.   Declaring “the Bible … as the one true revelation from God, showing the way of Salvation, Truth, and Life …,” the proclamation states that the Governor: … encourage[s] all Iowans to join in this…

by: Shaya Lerner June 02, 2016 A French cartoonist with a long record of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel art work has been named the winner of Iran’s most recent Holocaust cartoon contest.  Zeon, who the Iranian media said was arrested in the past for his “anti-Zionist” cartoons in 2015, won the $12,000 prize.  His winning work features what appears to be the entry gate of a Nazi-era death camp atop a cash register with six million in cash inside. The next day, the…

by: Jinnie Array June 01, 2016 Beginning on Memorial Day and for four consecutive evenings this week, the History Channel will air its 2016 version of ‘Roots,’ a remake of the 1977 television miniseries based on Alex Haley’s classic novel Roots: The Saga of An American Family.  The book is an historical portrait of American slavery based on Haley’s heritage dating back to 1750 in the West African village of Juffure and how his family’s saga unfolded over…

by: Marilyn Mayo May 27, 2016 White supremacists and anti-Semites have been bombarding Jewish journalists with anti-Semitic tweets, particularly if the journalists have been critical of presidential candidate Donald Trump or his family. Anonymous tweeters whose background is unknown have also joined in the attack. Journalists such as Julia Ioffe, Bethany Mandel, Jonathan Weisman and Ben Shapiro have all been targets of this campaign. Many of the tweets feature Holocaust imagery. Yellow…

by: Oren Segal May 24, 2016 NBC recently released the names of 15 U.S. residents who allegedly traveled to join ISIS since 2013. The names had been provided to the network by an individual who claimed to be a defector from ISIS and were reportedly verified by West Point's Combating Terrorism Center and other counterterrorism specialists. While three of the individuals on the list – Yusuf Jama, and Douglas McCain – had already been publicly known, the other 12 had not. The list…

by: Oren Segal May 23, 2016 Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the National Defense Authorization Act for 2017 (“NDAA”), inclusive of a broad, discriminatory provision sponsored by Rep. Steve Russell (R-OK). This provision, offered in the name of “religious freedom,” would allow religiously affiliated federal contractors and grantees to discriminate against women, any religious group, and LGBT people with taxpayer dollars. During House…