MARYLAND: Maryland State Assembly, elected members have urged Muslims to activate in regional and national politics so that their voice can be heard and their problems can be taken care of.
These remarks were expressed by the elected members of State Assembly at “Muslim Lobby Day” held at the premises of State Assembly where more than 12 elected members visited to hear the problems of issues of Muslims.
“Muslim Lobby Day is an annual event where we spent the whole day with the elected members of the state and try to create awareness about the issues of Muslims residing in Maryland”, President of United Maryland Muslim Council and organizer of the event Rizwan Siddiqui told local media.
He said we want to educate the members regarding our issues like Muslim Ban, Immigration Policies, Religious Freedom and others.
Siddiqui added that right now we are working on Police Reforms and also changing the some part of language in different bills.
Secretary of State for State of Maryland John Wobensmith while speaking on the occasion said he often interact with the community to listen their concerns and suggestions but see very few Muslims that concerns him as there were about more than 300,000 Muslims living in different cities of the State.
“We have wonderful people in our State, I lived in Turkey for four years and very much part of community there, I enjoyed the people, I enjoyed the food, had the opportunity to learn about the Islamic culture”, he maintained.
“I bring back all those memories here in Maryland and wanted to focus on all the communities of all the religions, race and color”, he said.
Robert Mc Cord, the Secretary Planning for the State of Maryland while speaking to the local media said that census in the Maryland is going to start in April this year, first time we are building census online, the forms will come out in March so every one should participate in the census.
“Maryland is about 6 million people, but we have to have an accurate count to project how much money we need for schools, hospitals and others”, he added.
Responding to a question Robert said the Muslim population in State of Maryland is about under 400,000. “We need to know what Maryland looks like, we need to know an accurate picture how it looks like so we can respond not for just funding but with policy, he said.
On the occasion Ms Regina T Boyce, delegate for District 43, Baltimore City in her remarks said that problems of Muslim community are our problems and we are here to solve them but for that they (Muslims) have to actively participate in the politics and should interact more with the elected representatives.
Muslim communities from all over the state participated in the event and termed it an important gathering to bring all the communities together for the solution of their issues.
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