Muslim Congressman Keith Ellison (MN-D) weeps at terror hearing

story by MSNBC News Service/AP

WASHINGTON — Minnesota Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison (photo left), the first Muslim congressman, gave emotional testimony Thursday to a House of Representatives committee hearing on radicalization in the U.S. Muslim community.

Tearfully describing the story of a Muslim-American first-responder paramedic who died on September 11, 2001, Ellison criticized New York Republican Rep. Peter King for leading the controversial hearings that have reignited a national debate over how to combat a spate of home grown terrorism.

"Mohammed Salman Hamdani was a fellow American who gave his life for other Americans," Ellison said, his voice trembling. "His life should not be defined as a member of an ethnic group or a member of a religion, but as an American who gave everything for his fellow citizens."

"This committee's approach to violent extremism is contrary to American values and threatens our security," Ellison said.

But King said the hearing was the logical response to Obama administration warnings over a very real threat.

"To back down would be a craven surrender to political correctness and an abdication of what I believe to be the main responsibility of this committee — to protect America from a terrorist attack," King said in his opening remarks.

Critics have compared the hearing to overly zealous investigations of communism in the 1950s that led to false accusations that destroyed careers.

The Obama administration has tried to frame the discussion around radicalization in general, without singling out Muslims. King said that is just political correctness, since al-Qaida is the main threat to the United States.

Security concerns

Additional security will be around King as he conducts the hearing, he told The Associated Press on the eve of the session. The U.S. Capitol Police will help secure the hearing room in Congress and the surrounding area as well as his office because of the attention the controversial event has received, he said.

King said his office requested the additional security from the Capitol Police. He says he already has a security detail of New York Police Department and Nassau County police officers.

Despite the protests, there is nothing in the prepared testimony that indiscriminately labels Muslims as terrorists, as critics had feared.

The witnesses include family members of young men who were inspired into terrorism, with deadly consequences. They plan to tell Congress that the young men were brainwashed by radical elements in the Muslim community.

Melvin Bledsoe, whose son, Carlos, is charged with killing an Army private at a recruiting station in Little Rock, Arkansas, is scheduled to testify about his son's conversion to Islam and his isolation from his family.

"Carlos was captured by people best described as hunters. He was manipulated and lied to," Bledsoe says in his prepared remarks.

"I have other family members who are Muslims, and they are modern, peaceful, law-abiding people," Bledsoe's remarks say.

He blames "the Islamic radicals who programmed and trained my son Carlos to kill."

'Chasing their American dream'

The committee is also scheduled to hear from Abdirizak Bihi, the uncle of a young Somali-American who was recruited by the terrorist group al-Shabab and was killed shortly after returning to Somalia.

Bihi says "99.9 percent of Muslim Somali-Americans are good citizens who are very grateful for the opportunities they have and are very busy in chasing their American dream."

King said Muslims should not feel threatened by the hearings.

"If there is going to be animosity, I would blame it on my opponents," King said Wednesday in a nationally broadcast interview.

At the White House, spokesman Jay Carney said, "We welcome congressional involvement in this issue."

"In the United States, we don't practice guilt by association," Carney added. "We believe Muslim-Americans are part of the solution."

Elsewhere at the Capitol, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper also was scheduled to address the threat of homegrown terrorism Thursday. In his prepared remarks, Clapper says 2010 saw more plots involving homegrown Sunni Muslim extremists ideologically aligned with al-Qaida than in the previous year.

"Key to this trend has been the development of a U.S.-specific narrative that motivates individuals to violence," Clapper's remarks say.