The New York Police Department has been monitoring Muslim college students in areas beyond New York City limits, including Syracuse University.

Undercover officers looking for suspicious terrorist activity were sent by the NYPD to monitor Muslim student associations within different colleges and universities throughout the Northeast, according to an article published Saturday by The Associated Press.

An anonymous source said a student informant was present on SU’s campus as well, according to the article.

With help from the CIA, the NYPD has developed secret programs to monitor Muslims in their everyday lives, including where they eat and how often they worship, according to the article.

Detectives have browsed Muslim student websites and have sent officers on student trips to monitor participants, often recording personal information for police records, according to the article.

The anonymous source, who said SU had an undercover officer on campus, is a person familiar with the NYPD’s program, but remained anonymous because he did not have authority to discuss it, according to the article.

‘The University was not ever aware of or involved in any of the reported activities by the New York City Police Department,’ said Kevin Quinn, SU’s senior vice president for public affairs, in an email. ‘We are a University community that embraces a diversity of opinions, ideals, and viewpoints, along with personal privacy. As such, we do not approve of, or support, any surveillance or investigation of student groups based solely on ethnicity, religion, or political viewpoint.’

Tanweer Haq, chaplain of Syracuse’s Muslim Student Association, saw these acts as a clear violation of civil rights.

‘Nobody wants to be on the list of the FBI or the NYPD or whatever,’ Haq said in the article. ‘Muslim students want to have their own lives, their own privacy and enjoy the same freedoms and opportunities that everybody else has.’

Haq declined comment for The Daily Orange. Members of SU’s MSA also declined to comment and members of the Islamic Society of Central New York could not be reached.

After the NYPD realized 12 people convicted on terrorism charges had once been members of Muslim student associations, the department initiated efforts to investigate what goes on within such organizations, said NYPD spokesman Paul Browne in the article.

The monitoring began in 2006 when officers patrolled Muslim student websites and collected information as a ‘daily routine’ for a year, Browne said. The AP recently learned of the undercover officer program, with some reports dating back to 2008, according to the article.

Muslim student associations became an interest to the NYPD because of the population of young men within them, as terrorist groups often pick members from that demographic, according to the article. Officers worried that lecturers and activities such as paintballing could be used as terrorist training.

Mushaf Haque, a freshman neuroscience major and member of SU’s MSA, said the news did not come as a surprise to him, but left him with mixed emotions.

He said although he respects that the NYPD has a job to protect others, it should not be done at the expense of a group of people. The process seems counterproductive that way and will be more damaging than helpful to the country’s issue with terrorism, he said.

Haque said it would be more beneficial to hold a cooperative discussion between the NYPD and Muslim student associations and see what is achieved. That way, the NYPD won’t be seen as meddlers but as caring people.

Haque also said the NYPD needs to learn the meaning of Islam, as the images of Muslims show in the media aren’t what the Islamic religion teaches.

‘Islam is always open to talk with others and understand others,’ he said in an email. ‘In fact, in Islam it is my fault if my neighbor goes hungry. … That is the emphasis we place on taking care of our fellow human beings and getting to know them. … I just wish people saw that more than they see other things.’

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the NYPD typically only follows legitimate leads on suspected criminal activity. Recently, documents reveal no suspicious activity, according to the AP article.

Browne said in the article students who advertised and sent emails about regular events would not be monitored with a ‘terrorism file.’ The NYPD only investigated people who they believed had ‘reasonable suspicion to believe might be involved in unlawful activities,’ he said.

Other schools involved in the undercover program include: Yale University, University of Pennsylvania, the Newark and New Brunswick campuses of Rutgers University, and the State University of New York campuses in Buffalo, Albany, Stony Brook and Potsdam, among others.

mjberner@syr.edu

Published on February 19, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Contact Maddy: mjberner@syr.edu