CAIR Denies Connections to Turkey Amid Ongoing Scrutiny Over Muslim Brotherhood Links

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has denied that its recently launched political arm, CAIR Action, has any institutional ties to Turkey, following questions about the origins of the organization’s social media presence.

In a statement provided to The Algemeiner, CAIR said that speculation about foreign influence or overseas coordination is categorically false and that “their director regularly visits his family in Turkey and set up CAIR Action’s account while he was there using a local phone.” 

Questions surfaced after observers noted that CAIR Action’s social media activity appeared to originate outside the United States. A new feature on the social media platform X unveiled this past week weekend now reveals the locations behind all accounts. Users quickly pointed out that CAIR Action’s page originated in Turkey, despite the group purporting to be rooted in the United States to advocate on behalf of American Muslims. Some online commentators suggested the possibility of foreign links or influence, a charge CAIR rejects.

CAIR has been under fire in recent weeks. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott last week announced the state-level designation of the Islamic group as a terrorist organization. Abbott’s proclamation described CAIR as a “successor organization” to the Muslim Brotherhood, a global Islamist network that the governor also designated as a terrorist group.

“The Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR have long made their goals clear: to forcibly impose Sharia law and establish Islam’s ‘mastership of the world,'” Abbott said in a statement. “These radical extremists are not welcome in our state and are now prohibited from acquiring any real property interest in Texas.”

Following Texas’s decision, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing his administration to determine whether to designate certain chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist organizations and specially designated global terrorists.

According to analysts, the Turkish government maintains close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and supports its ideology, likely fueling much of the online scrutiny this week of CAIR Action’s social media page originating in Turkey.

The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas has also long been affiliated with the Brotherhood, drawing both ideological inspiration and even personnel from its ranks. For years, US authorities have scrutinized CAIR for alleged ties to Hamas.

In his state-level proclamation, Abbott note that CAIR officials “publicly praised and supported Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack against Israel,” a charge which CAIR denied. 

However, as The Algemeiner previously reported, multiple top CAIR officials expressed public support for Hamas’s Oct. 7 invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.

The head of CAIR, for example, said he was “happy” to witness Hamas’s rampage of rape, murder, and kidnapping of Israelis in what was the largest single-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.

“The people of Gaza only decided to break the siege — the walls of the concentration camp — on Oct. 7,” CAIR co-founder and executive director Nihad Awad said in a speech during the American Muslims for Palestine convention in Chicago in November 2023. “And yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land, and walk free into their land, which they were not allowed to walk in.”

About a week later, the executive director of CAIR’s Los Angeles office, Hussam Ayloush, said that Israel “does not have the right” to defend itself from Palestinian violence. He added in his sermon at the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City that for the Palestinians, “every single day” since the Jewish state’s establishment has been comparable to Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught.

CAIR has filed a lawsuit claiming that Abbott’s proclamation threatens its free speech rights. 

Abbot called out the group on X on Monday.

“CAIR’s X account is routed through the Turkish App Store. This sure seems like an international operations link between CAIR and a country tied to the Muslim Brotherhood. I designated CAIR a terrorist and transnational criminal organization because of ties like this to that group,” Abbott posted.

CAIR’s X account is routed through the Turkish App Store.

This sure seems like an international operations link between CAIR and a country tied to the Muslim Brotherhood.

I designated CAIR a terrorist and transnational criminal organization because of ties like this to that… pic.twitter.com/CpiIBtI2Tr

— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) November 24, 2025

On its official website, CAIR Action claims that it “is dedicated to enhancing the civic engagement, political participation, and impact of the American Muslim community in local, state, and federal elections.” The group purports to “engage, educate, and mobilize Muslim voters, train emerging leaders, and champion policy priorities that enhance the well-being and representation of Muslim communities.”

CAIR Action launched earlier this year as a separate advocacy entity aimed at increasing Muslim civic engagement, supporting candidates aligned with its priorities, and promoting policy initiatives. Although the organization considers itself legally and financially distinct from CAIR’s charitable arm, both groups are closely associated and share overlapping goals.

Notably, in comments made to The Algemeiner, CAIR denied ever suffering legal blowback due to alleged ties to Hamas and other extremist groups and sent this outlet a link to a webpage which attempts to explain the allegations.

“There is no legal implication to being labeled an unindicted co-conspirator, since it does not require the Justice Department to prove anything in a court of law,” the webpage reads. 

In the 2000s, the advocacy group was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing case. Politico noted in 2010 that “US District Court Judge Jorge Solis found that the government presented ‘ample evidence to establish the association'” of CAIR with Hamas.

According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “some of CAIR’s current leadership had early connections with organizations that are or were affiliated with Hamas.” CAIR has disputed the accuracy of the ADL’s claim and asserted that CAIR “unequivocally condemn[s] all acts of terrorism, whether carried out by al-Qa’ida, the Real IRA, FARC, Hamas, ETA, or any other group designated by the US Department of State as a ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization.'”