US-based Islamist organizations ignore killings in Iran, condemn America

While Islamist organizations mobilize energetically to denounce U.S. foreign policy and its allies, they avoid publicly scrutinizing authoritarian regimes.

By Noah Sandler, Middle East Forum

It took a while, but the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) finally acknowledged the violence perpetrated by the mullahs in the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has cost the lives of up to 30,000 protesters.

But CAIR, which portrays itself as a defender of human rights overseas and civil liberties of Muslims in the U.S., still couldn’t muster much outrage over the brutal killings, which have filled morgues throughout the country.

CAIR’s indifference to the violence in Iran was evident when its chief spokesperson, Edward Ahmed Mitchell, spoke to reporters from The Hill, a Washington, D.C.-based news outlet, on January 15, 2025.

During the interview, in which the CAIR spokesperson condemned the Trump administration’s “march to war,” Mitchell stated that he was “disturbed by the killing of protesters” and the “burning of mosques” before condemning the U.S. and Israel for their attack on Iran in July 2025.

“Our nation attacked Iran last summer,” he complained. It wasn’t authorized by Congress. It wasn’t provoked.”

Instead of holding the regime accountable for massacring thousands of its own citizens, Mitchell used the deaths of these protesters as a jumping-off point to condemn Israel and the U.S. for attacking a country whose leaders have called for their destruction—for decades.

“CAIR’s deputy director is not engaging in civil-rights advocacy in this segment—he is advancing a political narrative,” said Aidin Panahi, a longtime opponent of the Iranian regime.

“When CAIR argues that the ‘march to war with Iran’ has ‘nothing to do with protecting Iranian protesters’ and ‘everything to do with toppling an adversary of the Israeli government,’ it recasts a geopolitical talking point and shifts scrutiny away from the Islamic Republic’s repression.”

CAIR took a similar tack when it condemned the Trump administration’s extradition of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on January 3, 2025, and brought him to New York to face drug trafficking charges.

In response to Maduro’s arrest, CAIR released a statement in support of the “Senate War Powers Vote” which condemned the Trump administration.

Instead of acknowledging that Venezuelans cheered in the streets to celebrate Maduro’s ouster, CAIR used the events as a pretext to condemn Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, stating that “If our government is truly concerned about authoritarians, it would stop funding, coddling and praising such oppressive leaders, starting with the likes of Benjamin Netanyahu.”

The fact is, Netanyahu is a duly elected Prime Minister, and Maduro was an unaccountable dictator who hates the United States.

It’s all part of a recurring pattern. While Islamist organizations mobilize energetically to denounce U.S. foreign policy and its allies, they avoid publicly scrutinizing authoritarian regimes, especially those aligned with Islamism or those aligned against “the West.”

Muslim Public Affairs Council

The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) followed a similar pattern.

While publishing a statement that condemned U.S. action in Venezuela as destabilizing and counterproductive, it remained silent on the protests in Iran.

Its tone was much less incendiary than CAIR’s, but the underlying imbalance remained. While repression by the Islamic Republic does not warrant attention, U.S. intervention in Latin America does.

Other Institutions

Among institutions linked to Jamaat-el-Islami, the silence was universal. Organizations like ICNA, MUNA, HHRD, and others failed to issue statements on both the situation in Iran as well as Venezuela.

However, many organizations’ social media feeds actively spread awareness about Gaza during the same period, raising doubts about their priorities and underscoring that the absence of commentary on Iran was a choice rather than a capacity issue.

One figure who stands out is Omar Suleiman, the president of the Yaqeen Institute, who posted almost daily about Gaza.

Since the beginning of the year, he has posted extensively about the situation in Gaza, while ignoring the tragedy unfolding in Iran entirely.

While Yaqeen presents itself as an ethical authority for American Muslims, its leadership turns a blind eye to protests against the Islamic Republic and instead bashes the Middle East’s Israel.

This bashing was also directed at the Trump administration in response to the Venezuela controversy, referring to President Trump as “a terrorist in a suit.”

In sum, Suleiman assails U.S. foreign policy while giving Iranian leaders a pass.

DAWN

The most extensive reactions to the events in Iran and Venezuela came from Islamist-aligned think tanks and advocacy figures, where framing choices were more explicit.

DAWN, an advocacy organization focusing on the Middle East, issued no formal statements on Iran for more than two weeks, until it broke that silence in a piece published on January 15, 2026.

However,in its first sentence, it called President Trump’s plan to take military action illegal and later denied that the United States had any moral authority due to its “lawless invasion of Venezuela” and its aiding and abetting of “genocide in Palestine.”

Nevertheless, its executive director, Sarah Leah Whitson, filled the gap through a barrage of personal social media posts.

Responding to Trump’s threat of intervention in case of a violent regime clampdown, she dismissed his concern for Iranian human rights as a “farcical pretence,” arguing instead that U.S. sanctions, not the regime itself, were the primary source of Iranians suffering.

In Whitson’s posts regarding the events in Iran, none offered support for the protesters and none condemned the regime.

Instead, she focused almost exclusively on Western culpability. This framing was replicated in her reaction to the extraction of Maduro.

She described it as an invasion and a violation of international law and the U.N. Charter.

However, she did not meaningfully discuss the Maduro regimes own violations of international law and the U.N. Charter, such as arbitrary executions and the murder of civilians.

Additionally, she did not attempt to contextualize the situation or provide some nuance.

Her track record sheds important light on the origins of her perspective. Prior to leading DAWN, she spent years serving as a senior figure at Human Rights Watch.

There, she faced frequent criticism for her disproportionate focus on Israel’s violations, while downplaying much worse abuses by countries that are much more authoritarian.

Her selective approach can be characterized as aggressively scrutinizing the U.S. and its allies’ actions while restraining herself when Islamist or anti-American regimes are implicated.

NIAC and Others

Similarly, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) had more condemnation to offer for the U.S. than for the Islamic Republic.

In its first statement on the protests, it briefly expressed solidarity with Iranians and called on the regime to halt the violence.

However, this was quickly overshadowed, as the majority of the statement focused on warning against foreign intervention and blaming the U.S. for the outbreak of the protests, claiming that the “U.S. played a key role in the impoverishment of Iranians.”

NIAC explicitly invoked Venezuela as a cautionary tale. By arguing that external involvement there had worsened conditions, it acknowledged Iranian grievances yet minimized regime responsibility and redirected attention toward U.S. policy choices.

This reinforces a narrative in which Western actions are portrayed as the principal source of suffering.

This tone has remained unchanged, even as thousands of protesters seeking medical care in Iran’s overcrowded hospitals are being executed by regime forces in their hospital beds.

In a letter sent on January 22, 2026, NIAC called on President Trump to “explore serious efforts” on “adjustments to sanctions policy that can benefit ordinary Iranians.”

While this may give the impression that NIAC cares about ordinary Iranians, it would undoubtedly strengthen the regime and its cronies.

Prominent figures such as Daniel Haqiqatjou claimed that Iran’s protests were orchestrated by the Mossad. Specifically, he alleged that the agency was “generating a distraction so that it can get its assets in place,” thereby dismissing any legitimacy of domestic opposition to the regime.

The rhetoric applied to Venezuela was similar. He portrayed the U.S. actions taken there as pure and simple imperial aggression, saying, “America’s moral standing is a very critical asset that it has, and Trump has basically discarded that.”

The upshot is this: as Iranians staged the largest protests in three years, U.S.-based Islamist organizations and their secular allies remained largely silent about the abuses endured by Iranian citizens under Islamist rule.

Meanwhile, they all condemned U.S. in Venezuela and support for Israel, accusing America of imperialism and unlawful behaviour.

This points to a familiar pattern. U.S.-based Islamist organizations readily condemn American actions overseas yet rarely confront abuses committed by Islamist or anti-Western regimes.

The result is an advocacy model defined less by universal principles than by selective engagement.