NEW BERLIN, Wis.\u00a0\u2014 New Berlin Mayor Dave Ament is under fire over some anti-Islamic messages he posted on his personal Facebook page.<\/p>\n
Tuesday night, the New Berlin City Council passed a resolution at its meeting acknowledging and condemning the posts, saying they do not represent the city.<\/p>\n
People packed Tuesday night\u2019s city council meeting in New Berlin where the mayor publicly apologized.<\/p>\n
\u201cI take full responsibility for sharing them,\u201d said New Berlin Mayor Ament. \u201cI unfortunately did not take into account how these inappropriate posts could be insulting or offensive and hurtful, and I should have.\u201d<\/p>\n
He then left, saying it was a conflict of interest for him to stay.<\/p>\n
The posts said things like, \u2018If you vote for a Muslim for elected office in this country, you are a traitor;\u2019 and another starting with, \u2018Muslims offered the same deal in every century: convert, pay, or die.\u2019<\/p>\n
The Muslim Women\u2019s Coalition said they were the first group to be made aware of this by the community.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Janan Najeb, the founder said, this behavior shouldn\u2019t be accepted to begin with and they\u2019re concerned for the people of New Berlin.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to believe that you have a sitting mayor with a public Facebook page that is promoting such hatred not once or twice, but this is ongoing over months and months, and no one in the common council flagged it,\u201d said Najeb. \u201cNo one noticed it?\u201d<\/p>\n
At the meeting, roughly 15 people spoke their minds. Some expressed their support for the mayor.<\/p>\n
\u201cIslam is not a religion. It is not a race,\u201d said one speaker. \u201cTherefore, those posts can not be racist or Islamaphobic. Islam is a political and economic ideology centered on oppression. Particularly of women and homosexuals.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some shared their disappointment.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve known the mayor a long time,\u201d said another speaker. \u201cI\u2019m very disappointed. Actually, disappointed is an understatement. Not only in his actions but the fact that he\u2019s not in this room tonight to listen to all of this.\u201d<\/p>\n
A number of different faith-based organizations were also there, calling for the mayor to resign.<\/p>\n
Fauzia Qureshi, Executive Director of the Wisconsin Muslim Civic Alliance, also came to the meeting. She said she was disgusted by the posts. She\u2019s worried the posts could spark violence in the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn elected official and anybody sitting in office should be responsible for who they\u2019re serving,\u201d said Qureshi. \u201cSomebody who is a sitting mayor, somebody who is sitting elected official, should not be spewing this type of hatred.\u201d<\/p>\n
Others were disappointed that the mayor didn\u2019t stay to hear what people had to say.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the mayor was sitting, I would say, \u2018Mr. Mayor, if you have any concern for our city, you should apologize.\u2019 Which he has done,\u201d said Ahmed Quereshi, Executive Director of Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee. \u201cI recognize that. But then I would say, \u2018Mr. Mayor, you should resign so that the city can move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
The mayor has not said whether he plans to resign. Ament said he would take some time to reflect and step back from social media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW BERLIN, Wis.\u00a0\u2014 New Berlin Mayor Dave Ament is under fire over some anti-Islamic messages he posted on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[99],"tags":[15604,112,190,72214,38,2508,44521,21450],"class_list":["post-153323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-berlin","tag-app-top-stories","tag-berlin","tag-germany","tag-jamal-james","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-vod","tag-wisconsin"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/117163025234958348","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}