America's largest Muslim advocacy organisation has filed a complaint with police in a Las Vegas suburb saying seven Muslim men were detained and told they were acting suspiciously while praying in a shopping centre car park.
Sydney Morning Herald, 6 March 2010 (AP)
The Council on American-Islamic Relations said on Friday it filed the complaint this week against the Henderson Police Department because it did not understand what was suspicious about the men.
"Our main concern is the police department looking at praying and the way they looked as probable cause for investigating those men," said CAIR spokeswoman Munira Syeda. "They did nothing illegal."
Henderson police spokesman Todd Rasmussen said the complaint was received and internal affairs would investigate, but he declined comment on the incident.
The group said the men from southern California, whom it identified as being of various ethnic backgrounds including Middle Eastern and south Asian, were performing one of five required Muslim daily prayers in the lot while they stopped to buy gas and food on December 20 during a road trip.
