This data was last updated on 31 August 2020.
Address: 745 Atlantic Avenue, Boston MA 02111
Phone: 857 – 217 – 2930
Email: info@muslimjusticeleague.org
Website: https://www.muslimjusticeleague.org/
Religious Affiliation: The MJL identifies as “rights based” and is not officially tied to a specific tradition, but mainly organizes in the Muslim community.
History: The Muslim Justice League (MJL) was founded in 2014 by four Muslim women to mount a community-led resistance to the human and civil rights violations against Muslim Americans as part of the “War on Terror.” The organization’s founding coincided with Boston’s designation as a pilot city in “Countering Violent Extremism” (CVE) campaigns, which target healthcare centers, schools, and Muslim organizations as the subject of state-sponsored soft surveillance, a socio-cultural means of regulating the behavior and activities of a specific group.
Leadership: The three person MJL staff is led by Fatema Ahmad, the executive director, and has a seven member Board of Directors led by Tahirah Abdullah, MJL’s president. The team is mainly women of color.
Description: Since its inception, the MJL has primarily focused on counter-surveillance initiatives in Boston and nationally, extending their support to all hyper-policed communities regardless of their religious beliefs. Although the MJL was founded by Muslim women and mainly organizes in the Muslim community, they are adamantly “rights-based, not faith-based.” The MJL will advocate for any group that faces policing - predominantly people of color. They often work in conjunction with the Asian American Resource Workshop and Families for Justice as Healing, among others.
The MJL’s work operates at the nexus of legal and social advocacy for counter-surveillance, anti-racist, and anti-Islamophobic measures. Although the organization was founded by a team of lawyers and initially took on legal cases, the onus of their work has shifted to community organizing and advocacy work. They offer youth and adult workshops, program seminars for students in school classrooms, and host public panels to provide political education and engagement for Muslim and non-Muslim people alike.
Members of the MJL staff often attend convenings – two- or three-day events organized by a larger watchdog organization that bring together a coalition of smaller groups to brainstorm strategy – from which they glean innovative ways to empower the community they serve. These convenings often inspire new ways to engage with youth groups, a demographic that forms a cornerstone of the MJL’s community. “It’s amazing to see these teenagers – who are so heavily surveilled – resort to activism instead of despair,” said executive director Fatima Ahmad. “I consider my work with these youth groups one of the most fulfilling parts of my job.”
Resources: Alongside their work in the community, the MJL’s website serves as a resource for people from highly-surveilled communities. They provide toolkits on immigration, flying and traveling as a Muslim, a reading list, and information on what to do if you have been contacted by the FBI. The site also has a page specifically directed towards CVE initiatives, offering a brief summary of CVE initiatives and Massachusetts-specific CVE programs as well as information on CVE’s manifestations in healthcare and education. The website is a free and accessible resource and provides important information about the MJL’s work, as do their Twitter and Facebook pages.
Challenges: One challenge for the MJL is the sheer size of the state surveillance organizations against whom they work. The FBI and the Boston Police Department are both massive, with budgets that far eclipse the MJL’s. “It’s incredible to think that one BPD officer’s salary is actually the same as our annual budget,” said Ahmad. “I may not be able to afford a fancy processing service to organize my findings on, say, the BPD budget, but I can sure as hell put that information in a GoogleDoc and disseminate it. Grassroots organizing is amazing that way.”
Demographics: While the majority of the population served by the MJL are Muslim and/or communities of color, they work with all heavily-surveilled communities in the Boston area and nationwide.
Activities and Interfaith Work: In addition to their activism efforts, the MJL provides opportunities for community members to exist without fear of surveillance. “Creating spaces of joy for the community, for people to be Muslim, be queer, be brown or Black—just to be themselves—is a cornerstone of our mission,” said Ahmad. “While some of our more social events are fundraisers, we also think it’s important to celebrate our community.” One such event, their annual “Be Seen, Not Watched” party, which celebrates the anniversary of the MJL’s founding, exists to commemorate the MJL’s accomplishments, to highlight the talents of community members, and to garner support for the organization. It is an intentionally “unplugged” gathering at which members eat and drink, enjoy poetry and art, and watch performances by artists from highly-surveilled communities.
The MJL’s existing efforts to abolish the police have taken center stage following the national outrage sparked by the May 2020 killing of George Floyd, which pushed ideas of defunding or abolishing the police into mainstream political discourse. “It is important to remember that this moment is built on years of community advocacy,” said Ahmad. “It is exciting to see people educating themselves and engaging with our resources in ways they may not have before.” Moving forward, Ahmad and her team hope to see dramatic shifts in the utilization of state resources away from surveillance and militarization. “Ideally, in five years, we wouldn’t have to exist,” she said. “But we’re excited for budget season this year – after all, these are our resources. It’s time they were used to do good.”