{"id":59067,"date":"2025-11-21T08:30:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T08:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/59067\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T08:30:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T08:30:13","slug":"cair-sues-texas-governor-over-unconstitutional-terror-designation-censorship-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/59067\/","title":{"rendered":"CAIR sues Texas governor over \u2018unconstitutional\u2019 terror designation | Censorship News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"article__subhead\">US Muslim civil rights group says Greg Abbott\u2019s designation of its Texas chapter as a \u2018terrorist organisation\u2019 is unconstitutional and defamatory.<\/p>\n<p>The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has filed a federal lawsuit against Texas Governor Greg Abbott after he \u201cfalsely declared\u201d CAIR\u2019s Texas chapter a \u201cforeign terrorist organisation\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The lawsuit, which also targets Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, seeks to block Abbott\u2019s designation of the group as a \u201cterrorist organisation\u201d, arguing it is both \u201cunconstitutional and defamatory\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n<p>CAIR General Counsel Lena Masri said in a statement on Thursday, announcing the joint lawsuit with the Muslim Legal Fund of America, that the group had won three cases against Abbott for his efforts to \u201cviolate the First Amendment by punishing critics of the Israeli government\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe lawsuit we have filed today is our first step towards defeating Governor Abbott again so that our nation protects free speech and due process for all Americans,\u201d Masri said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo civil rights organisations are safe if a governor can baselessly and unilaterally declare any of them terrorist groups, ban them from buying land, and threaten them with closure,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>CAIR, which was founded in 1994, is the largest Muslim civil rights organisation in the United States, with chapters in most states. It has been among the most vocal critics of US involvement in Israel\u2019s genocidal war on Gaza.<\/p>\n<p>Abbott, a staunch supporter of Israel, has repeatedly taken aim at pro-Palestinian advocates, including students protesting at Texas universities.<\/p>\n<p>Abbott, a member of the Republican Party, announced on Tuesday that he was designating CAIR as a \u201cforeign terrorist and transnational criminal organisation\u201d in a post on X, where he also said he was doing the same for the Muslim Brotherhood.<\/p>\n<p>The designation bans both groups from buying or acquiring land in Texas and authorises the state to pursue legal action to shut down their activities, Abbott said.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-arc-image-770 wp-image-4121049\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/2025-07-11T202857Z_1118321551_RC2JKFAW9KI2_RTRMADP_3_USA-WEATHER-TEXAS-TRUMP-1763707471.jpg\" alt=\"U.S. President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump and Texas Governor Greg Abbott participate in a roundtable with first responders and local officials, at Hill Country Youth Center, in Kerrville, Texas, U.S., July 11, 2025. REUTERS\/Kevin Lamarque\" fetchpriority=\"low\"\/>Texas Governor Greg Abbott, right, with US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, at the Hill Country Youth Event Center, in Kerrville, Texas, in July 2025 [Kevin Lamarque\/Reuters]<\/p>\n<p>In April 2024, Abbott said that pro-Palestinian student protesters at the University of Texas at Austin \u201cbelong in jail\u201d, earning a sharp rebuke from CAIR for violating the students\u2019 rights to free speech.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe First Amendment applies to the State of Texas, whether Greg Abbott likes it or not,\u201d CAIR said in a post on X at the time.<\/p>\n<p>The First Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees rights including freedom of religion, speech, the press and assembly.<\/p>\n<p>Democrats and other civil rights organisations have condemned the Texas governor\u2019s \u201cterrorism\u201d designation for CAIR, and US representative Ilhan Omar called Abbott a \u201cbigot\u201d who \u201cshould have no place in elected office\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe normalisation of anti-Muslim hate speech is vile,\u201d Omar wrote in a post on social media.<\/p>\n<p>The Texas Democratic Party also slammed the designation, describing it as \u201cdangerous, racist, and Islamophobic\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile Greg Abbott and the Republicans claim to follow the Constitution, they would trample on someone\u2019s First Amendment rights when they don\u2019t agree with or worship with them,\u201d the party said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">BREAKING: CAIR Legal Defense Fund and our partners at the <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MLFA?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@MLFA<\/a> just filed a federal lawsuit against Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton to block implementation of an unconstitutional and defamatory proclamation targeting CAIR-Texas.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement, CAIR\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/qVI9KJ8AfS\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/qVI9KJ8AfS<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 CAIR National (@CAIRNational) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CAIRNational\/status\/1991577412161655065?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">November 20, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US Muslim civil rights group says Greg Abbott\u2019s designation of its Texas chapter as a \u2018terrorist organisation\u2019 is&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59068,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2556,2918,13387,223,31823,13292,27,29,28,464,7454],"class_list":{"0":"post-59067","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-censorship","9":"tag-human-rights","10":"tag-israel-palestine-conflict","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-race-issues","13":"tag-racism","14":"tag-texas","15":"tag-texas-headlines","16":"tag-texas-news","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-us-canada"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}