Michigan’s Democratic Senate nominee, Abdul El-Sayed, has drawn attention due to his involvement in a protest at a University of Michigan event. This event featured three speakers who identified themselves as former terrorists and discussed their conversion to Christianity.
El-Sayed, known for his progressive stance, is competing against GOP nominee Mike Rogers for the Senate seat in a highly scrutinized race. The protest, reported by the Michigan Daily, targeted speakers Walid Shoebat, Zachariah Annani, and Kamal Saleem. These individuals previously claimed affiliations with groups like the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Muslim Brotherhood before changing their religion.
At the gathering, students were seen staging a walkout. El-Sayed expressed support for their actions, remarking, “We’ve done something good today, and we need to keep that going in the future.” His campaign spokesman, Cole Wozniak, stated that El-Sayed had consistently denounced terrorism. Wozniak further cautioned against misinformation, saying the speakers had faced criticism for fabricating their histories.
Questions have emerged surrounding the credibility of Shoebat, Annani, and Saleem. In 2008, criticism surfaced when they spoke at the Air Force Academy, with some Arab-American civil rights groups questioning why they hadn’t been arrested or deported given their terrorism claims. Event organizers clarified that their aim was to alert attendees to the hazards of Muslim extremism, avoiding a blanket portrayal of Muslims.
At the time of the protest, El-Sayed served as vice president of the Muslim Students Association (MSA), an organization some allege has links to the Muslim Brotherhood. The group became embedded in the U.S. by the 1960s, operating predominantly through campus student unions.
Lara Burns, a senior fellow at George Washington University’s extremism research program, presented written testimony last month. She noted that the Muslim Brotherhood had established itself in America during the 1960s, mainly through college student unions like the MSA.
The Trump administration pursued classifying some Muslim Brotherhood chapters as terrorist entities, citing their associations with Hamas and ties to attacks on Israel.