By Our Correspondent, Nov.19.25
TEXAS, USA—The Lone Star State exploded in controversy yesterday after Governor Greg Abbott slapped a ‘terrorist’ label on CAIR, a major American Muslim civil rights organisation, banning it and an international Islamist movement from owning land across the state.
In a stunning move that has been branded “defamatory and lawless,” the Republican Governor officially designated the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim Brotherhood as “foreign terrorist organizations” and “transnational criminal organizations.”
The drastic proclamation immediately bans both groups and their affiliates from purchasing or acquiring real estate across Texas, and authorises the state’s Attorney General to sue to shut down their operations.
Abbott: ‘Not Welcome in Our State’
Governor Abbott, known for his hardline conservative stance, pulled no punches, claiming the action was necessary to protect Texans from “radical extremists.”
”The Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR have long made their goals clear: to forcibly impose Sharia law and establish Islam’s ‘mastership of the world’,” Abbott declared.
”The actions taken… to support terrorism across the globe and subvert our laws through violence, intimidation, and harassment are unacceptable. These radical extremists are not welcome in our state and are now prohibited from acquiring any real property interest in Texas.”
The designation follows recent political confrontations in Texas over a planned Muslim-centred community near Dallas, which critics, including Abbott, had controversially dubbed a “Sharia compound.”
Civil Rights Group Hits Back
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which describes itself as the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organisation, immediately fired back, vowing a vigorous legal challenge and dismissing the Governor’s proclamation as a “stunt.”
Robert S. McCaw, CAIR’s government affairs director, wrote a blistering letter to Abbott, asserting: “You do not have the authority to unilaterally declare any Americans or American institutions terrorist groups, nor is there any basis to level this smear against our organization.”
CAIR accused Abbott of advancing “anti-Muslim bigotry” and “stoking anti-Muslim hysteria,” noting that neither CAIR nor the Muslim Brotherhood is designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the US federal government.
The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is a powerful, transnational Sunni Islamist political and social movement founded in Egypt nearly a century ago. While it remains a significant political force in the Middle East and is designated a terrorist organisation by several nations (including Egypt and Saudi Arabia), it is not on the US State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
CAIR was established in 1994 in the US to promote justice and combat anti-Muslim discrimination.
The organisation has been consistently accused by critics of having ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, claims it fiercely denies. It has routinely condemned terrorism and has spent three decades defending the civil rights of American Muslims.
