A group representing local Muslim Americans wants to know more about the owner of a minor league baseball team’s ties to an outfit that’s been called an “anti-Muslim hate group."
The Connecticut chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations is looking for a chance to sit with Connecticut Tigers owner E. Miles Prentice III.
Prentice is the chairman of the Center for Security Policy, a group the Southern Poverty Law Center has called an “anti-Muslim hate group."
Tark Aoudi, the executive director of CAIR-CT, said the Center for Security Policy was founded by Frank Gaffney, who has been quoted as calling Muslims ‘termites.’
“The first thing that we did was call to try and speak to the team and try to speak to the mayor to try and figure what is going on because it’s never good to have a prominent member of your community associated with a group that calls any other people termites,” Aoudi said.
Prentice didn’t participate in an interview with Connecticut Public Radio, but a written statement issued on his behalf. In it, Prentice expressed that all fans are welcome to watch the Tigers at their home inside Norwich’s Dodd Stadium.
“After a short, long-planned family vacation next week, I will be meeting with influential leaders of various faith communities to affirm my personal commitment to welcoming and serving all of our fans, irrespective of their religious beliefs, if any, as we have always done,” Prentice said.
He didn’t indicate whether CAIR-CT would be included in the discussion.
Prentice has already declined meeting one-on-one with representatives of CAIR-CT. He’s also accused the group of being associated “with terrorists groups like Hamas.”
“I know that, while there has been no discrimination in the city of Norwich per se overtly, there may be issues in the future that must be addressed,” CAIR's Aoudi said.
The CAIR-CT executive director said the mayor of Norwich – the city where the Tigers play – recently said he’d sit down with the group and other local religious leaders to talk about the situation surrounding the team.
