Florida’s ‘anti-Sharia’ laws called threat to religious freedom for all

Two new Florida laws Gov. Ron DeSantis described as “anti-Sharia” measures are really about limiting free speech and denying due process, a group of interfaith leaders said.

“Our Florida government is lying,” said Hiba Rahim, interim executive director of the Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “These laws are not about safety, and this is not an anti-Sharia bill.”

Only one of the 20 pages of House Bill 1471 address the subject of Sharia Law, a traditional legal code used in many Muslim countries, Rahim said during a press conference held April 7.

She said the bills DeSantis signed April 6 are totally unnecessary: “Our courts already do not allow any foreign law to supersede the Constitution of the land; that protection is already there.”

Nor is any Muslim leader in the U.S. or Florida calling for the implementation of Sharia Law, she added. “So why do they focus on that? Because it’s a distraction. What this actually is, is an anti-free speech law. It’s an anti-due process law. It’s an anti-First Amendment law.”

HB-1471 allows the governor and his cabinet to label organizations as terrorist groups and to deny scholarships and other financial aid to “certain students” at public colleges and secondary schools if they “promote domestic terrorist organizations or foreign terrorist organizations.”

HB-1473 exempts the state from having to publicly disclose any information related to the designation or prosecution of organizations deemed terrorist groups by the governor and cabinet.

Rahim and others said the legislation would open the way for DeSantis to persecute students and rights groups from speaking out in support of Palestinians and against Israel’s war in Gaza. In fact, the governor is such a staunch “Israel First” proponent that he held a Florida cabinet meeting in the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem in 2019.

One apparent target for the new laws is CAIR itself, which DeSantis designated a terrorist organization last December. The move came less than a month after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott branded the civil rights group as a terrorist organization.

But CAIR sued and in March a federal judge issued a temporary stay on DeSantis’ executive order as the case is litigated.

DeSantis claimed, meanwhile, the new laws were passed and signed to keep Floridians safe.

“To uphold the rule of law, our state must operate under one legal system, the Constitution must remain the law of the land, and we must defend our institutions from those who would harm us — especially terrorist organizations that seek to infiltrate and subvert our education system. HB-1471 reinforces these principles in Florida,” he said.

But there is nothing in the legislation limiting a governor and cabinet to targeting Muslims or Palestinian advocates, Rahim warned. “These new laws open the doors for the government to label advocacy groups, faith groups, student groups as terrorist without proper evidence, without due process, and then label the evidence as classified.”

And the bills will make Florida less safe because there is no limit on who can be targeted, said Megan Amer, CAIR-Florida’s policy director and a Christian. “It is all about political theater and to silence dissent for anybody that speaks up for the Palestinian people or anything that the current governor or the current people in power don’t agree with.”

And it’s about propping up Israel, she added. “It is very clear this is not a ‘Florida First’ or an ‘America First’ agenda.”

Neither CAIR nor any Floridian targeted by the law will endure the ordeal alone, said Andy Oliver, pastor at Allendale United Methodist Church in St. Petersburg.

An interfaith movement will be organized and rise up to resist attempts to use fear as the basis for public policy, he said. “We reject the lie that justice is extremism, that dissent is terrorism and that some communities must surrender their rights so a governor can stage another political spectacle. We will not be intimidated.”

“This is not only a Muslim issue. This is a Florida issue. This is a democracy issue. Because once the state claims the power to brand one group as beyond the protection of the Constitution, no community is safe for long,” Oliver said.

“So, Gov. DeSantis, if you are keeping a list of people who support CAIR and the Muslim community, you can put my name and my church’s name at the very top.”

 

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