MD lawmakers pave way for removal of Muslim activist from hate crimes panel

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State lawmakers have paved the way for Attorney General Anthony Brown to remove American Muslim activist Zainab Chaudry from a state hate crimes commission by requiring that all members’ terms expire June 1.

Brown will decide who on the commission to reappoint and who to replace, and his decisions will be subject to confirmation from the state Senate, under a bill legislators passed on the last day of session. There will also be three additional members on the 22-person commission.

The Office of the Attorney General didn’t specify Monday whether there were plans to remove Chaudry.

“The attorney general is working to establish a rigorous, transparent process for appointing members that will ensure the commission reflects members of protected classes listed in the state hate crimes law,” spokesperson Jennifer Donelan said in a statement.

Brown last year suspended Chaudry — who is the Maryland office executive director for Council on American-Islamic Relations — for two weeks after a series of social media posts that some have said are anti-Semitic, including one in which she compared Israel to Nazi Germany with the comment, “That moment when you become what you hated most.”

Brown chairs the commission, but he didn’t have the authority to remove or suspend a commissioner before the end of their four-year term.

During the 90-day legislative session that ended April 8, three Democrats — each of whom is a member of the Maryland Legislative Jewish Caucus — sponsored a bill that would’ve removed Chaudry.

Top Democrats have opted to instead leave the decision to the attorney general.

They also removed CAIR and other organizations from the commission entirely by requiring that members who aren’t from a state agency are advocates for a protected class of people under the state’s hate crime laws, rather representatives of a specific organization, like CAIR, the NAACP or the Anti-Defamation League.

Both Chaudry and the lawmaker who led the charge to remove her saw the bill that passed as a win.

In a March statement, after House members pivoted from trying to specifically remove her, Chaudry framed the measure as a positive development and thanked her supporters for calling on lawmakers to “reject this bigoted attempt to single out and punish the Muslim community’s chosen representative.”

Chaudry said in her statement that the version of the bill that passed “is not the outcome anti-Palestinian voices were hoping for” and “sends a message that going after groups and individuals who stand for justice can have unintended consequences.”

RELATED: Groups clash over Chaudry’s future on hate crimes panel following anti-Israel posts

Del. Dalya Attar, a Baltimore City Democrat who spearheaded the push to remove Chaudry, said the legislature’s decision to pass her bill “sends a strong message that hate is not tolerated on the commission and there is no room for hate” in the state.

“My intent for the bill was very clear from the moment I filed it — CAIR must be removed,” Attar said in a statement Monday.

She said CAIR is “an organization that spews hate, rather than fighting it.”

The White House in December condemned CAIR’s executive director, Nihad Awad, for posting on social media that he was “happy to see” Gazans invading Israel on Oct. 7, according to a CNN report.

In Montgomery County, CAIR has led rallies in favor of granting parents the right to opt their children out of classes in which teachers read LGBTQ+-inclusive books, according to a report from MoCo360.