Now, at the O.C. Register, "Rep. Loretta Sanchez attacked for saying between '5 and 20 percent' of Muslims support terrorism":
Rep. Loretta Sanchez, a Democrat from Orange running for U.S. Senate, is under fire for saying that between “5 and 20 percent” of Muslims could be extremists willing to participate in terrorism.This Blitzkrieg will be unrelenting. She'll get no respite from the far-left Islamo-enablers. Sad.
Critics, including Islamic and immigration-rights activists, said the statement was inaccurate, reckless and promoted a false stereotype. One group called for her to bow out of the race to replace retiring Sen. Barbara Boxer.
“At a time when bigoted, Islamophobic rhetoric is spurring troubling incidents of hate across the country - including in Orange County - Rep. Loretta Sanchez' wildly off-the-mark claims are irresponsible and dangerous,” Reshma Shamasunder, executive director of the California Immigrant Policy Center, said Friday.
“We expect California's representatives to uphold our values of inclusion and diversity, not trample them.”
Sanchez, a 10th-term congresswoman who sits on the House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees, made the comment Wednesday on the online TV program “PoliticKING with Larry King.”
“We know that there is a small group, and we don’t know how big that is — it can be anywhere between 5 and 20 percent, from the people that I speak to — that Islam is their religion and who have a desire for a caliphate and to institute that in anyway possible,” she said.
“And again, I don’t know how big that is, and depending on who you talk to, but they are certainly — they are willing to go to extremes. They are willing to use and they do use terrorism.”
The terrorist Islamic State group known as ISIS has called for a caliphate – a worldwide Islamic government without national borders.
After her appearance on the show, Sanchez issued a follow-up statement that appeared to be an effort to quell criticism.
“I strongly support the Muslim community in America and believe that the overwhelming majority of Muslims do not support terrorism or ISIS,” she said. “We must enlist the voices of the Muslim community in our fight against ISIS instead of alienating them through fear-mongering and discrimination.”
The Muslim population is 1.6 billion worldwide and 2.8 million in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center. It is not known how many favor a caliphate, but Sanchez told PBS-TV that her estimate came from an unnamed book published by Harvard Press.
On Friday, she issued another statement, saying there was “equally compelling data to support far lower estimates.”
“I want to reiterate that my reference to those numbers does not reflect my views of the Muslim community in my district, in America or the vast majority of Muslims around the world,” she said. “I believe that Muslim Americans are fully committed to the security and prosperity of our country.”
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