{City of Coral Springs}
Coral Springs officials said Thursday they have no legal authority to cancel an upcoming conference organized by the South Florida Muslim Federation after meeting with the Florida Attorney General’s Office and confirming the group is not a designated terrorist organization.
In a statement issued by the city, Coral Springs said its City Attorney’s Office met in person Monday in Tallahassee with the office of Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier to discuss the controversy surrounding the Federation’s annual Florida Muslim Conference, scheduled for Jan. 30-31 at the city-owned, taxpayer-supported Coral Springs Center for the Arts.
During Monday’s meeting, the attorney general’s office confirmed that the Federation has not been declared a terrorist organization, according to the city. Coral Springs said that conclusion aligns with its prior communications with federal, state, and local law enforcement partners.
CAIR’s Florida chapter was a member of the Federation until this week, when the Federation cut ties with the group. CAIR was legally designated a terrorist organization in December by Gov. Ron DeSantis, who cited alleged previous links between the nonprofit, terrorist financing, and the extremist Muslim Brotherhood organization.
City officials on Thursday also addressed Uthmeier’s Jan. 23 post on X warning that local resources may not be used by any organization affiliated with CAIR. The attorney general’s office reiterated that the state terrorist designation applies to CAIR, not the Federation, the city said Thursday.
CAIR is a national, anti-Israel nonprofit founded in 1994 that describes itself as a Muslim civil rights organization focused on combating anti-Muslim discrimination. The organization has been the subject of longstanding controversy over alleged ties by some of its leaders to networks associated with the Muslim Brotherhood and the now-defunct Holy Land Foundation, once the largest Islamic charity in the United States, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which tracks Jew-hatred.
During the 2007-2008 federal prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation and its executives — sometimes referred to as the “Holy Land 5” case — Justice Department filings described CAIR as part of a broader Hamas-support infrastructure in the U.S., an allegation CAIR has denied and for which it was never charged with a crime. CAIR has rejected all allegations of links to terrorist financing and extremist groups.
According to the ADL, some of CAIR’s leaders, such as Nihad Awad, CAIR’s current executive director, were previously involved in a now-defunct organization that openly supported Hamas and, according to the U.S. government, functioned as its “propaganda apparatus.”
Awad also met with several members of the Muslim Brotherhood as recently as 2022, the ADL said. In an April 2024 Facebook post, Awad eulogized the late Sheikh Abdul-Majid al-Zindani, who the U.S. and UN designated as a recruiter and fundraiser for al-Qaeda. According to The New York Times, al-Zindani was a “one-time mentor of Osama bin Laden.” The U.S. Treasury designated him a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) in 2004, accusing al-Zindani of recruiting for al-Qaeda training camps.
Following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, many of CAIR’s leaders defended or justified the unprecedented terror attack, and argued it was a “legitimate right” of the Palestinians to “resist the occupation,” ADL leaders said. Awad claimed that Israel did not have a right to defend itself after the attack and that he had been “happy” on October 7 “to see people breaking the siege.”
After Uthmeier warned Coral Springs over the Federation’s ties to CAIR, the Federation issued a public statement saying it had removed all associations with the nonprofit. The attorney general’s office recognized the significance of that move and understood the city had no legal basis to cancel the conference, according to Coral Springs officials.
“As the South Florida Muslim Federation is not a declared terrorist organization, and it has removed its associations with CAIR, the city cannot legally cancel the conference,” the city’s statement said. “The city has no legal authority to cancel the conference based on viewpoint discrimination for a valid 501(c)(3), non-terrorist organization.”
City officials added that their position is consistent with established legal precedent from state and federal courts, including rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Florida Muslim Conference has drawn criticism from some Jewish residents and community activists who allege that past events connected to the Federation platformed speakers or groups they say promoted anti-Jewish rhetoric and hateful speech about Jews, Israel, and Zionism, and Zionists. They called on the city to cancel its hosting of the conference, but Coral Springs officials say their decision must rest on legal standards rather than the content of viewpoints expressed, so long as the organizing group is a lawful nonprofit and not a designated terrorist entity.
In its own statement, the South Florida Muslim Federation said CAIR-Florida has been a member organization since the Federation’s founding and has played what it described as an important role in protecting the civil rights of Muslims. The Federation said it has never observed conduct by CAIR-Florida that resembled terrorism.
At the same time, the group acknowledged DeSantis’ executive order designating CAIR-Florida a “foreign terrorist organization” and noted that CAIR-Florida has challenged that designation in federal court.
“While the issue is still pending in Federal Court and in an abundance of caution, we have removed all associations of SFMF with CAIR-FL,” the Federation said. “And we look to our courts to provide guidance on this in the future.”
The city’s clarification Thursday followed days of debate over whether Coral Springs could cancel the conference, which was also held at the city’s arts center last year.
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