(JTA) — A coalition of local Muslims has criticized the Seattle Police Department for using a racial-awareness training program run by a Jewish organization.
The Perspectives on Profiling training program, sponsored by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, has trained 17,900 officers nationwide, the Seattle Times reported.
Some 28 people from the Seattle Police Department have been through the training program.
"The center has an anti-Muslim agenda, to be frank," Arsalan Bukhari, president of the Washington state chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told the newspaper.
The coalition accuses the Wiesenthal Center of spreading fear regarding Islam with its production and promotion of films dealing with extremism in Islam. The Seattle Muslims also object to the center’s Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem, a part of which is being built on top of an ancient Muslim cemetery, according to the Seattle Times.
