CAIR'S 'GOLDEN CHILD' ON WARPATH
A US Islamic group, which the White House cut ties with after its director said he was “happy” about Hamas’ terrorist attack against Israel on Oct. 7, is facing allegations of sexual assault and harassment.
The suit could see the Council on American-Islamic Relations forced to open its books amid claims secret foreign donors are funding its multimillion-dollar budget.
Lori Saroya was once, in the words of one person who knows her, CAIR’s “golden child.”
Fromm Minn. to WH
Based in Blaine, Minn., where she was a CAIR chapter leader, Saroya became so important to the national leadership that the nonprofit brought her to the White House and groomed her to become a senior leader because she was the group’s “pride and joy.”
Now 42, Saroya is shaping up to be CAIR’s worst nightmare as she pushes back in an ugly legal battle with the controversial Muslim civil rights organization that includes charges of sex assault and harassment allegations involving several CAIR leaders.
Saroya, who is now the first Muslim to serve on the Blaine City Council, filed a defamation lawsuit against the group last week in Minnesota federal court.
That case was in response to a statement put out by CAIR in January 2022, accusing Saroya of “cyberstalking” CAIR staffers by using burner email and social-media accounts to spread “Islamophobic tropes and conspiracy theories” about the organization.
In her complaint, Saroya said that the press release led to her being bullied online and made her so afraid that she stopped going to her mosque.
She also said the allegations in the press release came up during job interviews and she wasn’t offered jobs by those people.
She has said she left CAIR after she called on the organization to look into sex-assault and harassment allegations against several leaders, including one individual who Saroya said “engaged in a pattern of unwelcome and highly inappropriate conduct” toward her.
Formed in 1994 by a group of young Muslim activists concerned about the rise in antiMuslim discrimination, CAIR is now the biggest Muslim rights group in the US and includes about 33 local chapters across the country.
Pro-Oct. 7 chief
But there has also been controversy around the group and its uber-powerful co-founder and executive director, Nihad Awad, who is PalestinianAmerican.
Last month, the Biden administration said it had ended its work with CAIR on crafting a national antisemitism strategy after Awad said he was “happy” to witness Hamas’ attack against Israel.
Awad made the shocking statement at the 16th annual Convention for Palestine in Chicago on Nov. 24, according to video circulated by the Middle East Media Research Institute.
A former volunteer for CAIR, who did not want to be identified publicly, told The Post that she witnessed some of the same abusive behavior on the part of CAIR senior leadership that Saroya claims to have witnessed. The ex-volunteer blamed Awad for engendering a culture of fear at CAIR which enables senior leaders to target staffers and volunteers, mainly women.
“It’s a power thing and Awad and some of the others see women as easy targets,” the woman said.
“He’s running the organization and he has cult-like status so everyone does everything he wants. CAIR is also a legal organization so it’s full of lawyers. I was threatened. I had their head of litigation threatening me.
“The problem is that this is the only civil-rights organization [Muslims] have,” she added.
“So people think women like me and Lori should just accept all of this because there’s no one else if we undermine this organization. That’s why Lori is so courageous in pushing back.”