DETROIT – A Michigan Muslim civil rights leader is among many worldwide insisting that Islamic State extremists don't speak for his religion.
Dawud Walid said Friday that headlines about the group's beheadings and other atrocities committed in the name of Islam frustrate his work as director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' Michigan chapter.
Walid says he gets criticized for calling out excessive police force in the United States by people who think he should be stopping the Islamic State. He says his primary responsibility "is to try to make America more of a just place" and doesn't know what he can do when Iraqis and Syrians "can't even fix their own problems."
Moderate Muslims are speaking out and defending their faith in tweets, street gatherings and in open letters.
