Washington, Sept 25(ANI): The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)'s efforts to recruit Arab Americans have hit a roadblock after it removed the advertisement regarding linguists recruitment from the largest Arab American newspaper's online edition because the paper had published a story about domestic spying on Muslims.
But it restored advertisements to the newspaper after the paper ran an editorial questioning the CIA's commitment to freedom of the press and said it regretted "any misunderstandings", the Los Angeles Times reports.
Subsequently, the CIA withdrew its recruiting and outreach staff from an Anaheim Arab American Day Festival because a protest was planned against the festival's founder, Ahmad Alam whose Arabic-language newspaper, Al-Arabi allegedly supported the Bashar Assad regime, which has cracked down on pro-democracy protesters in Syria.
The CIA has paid about 10,000 dollars annually to help sponsor the fair for the last four years.
The series of incidents highlight some of the challenges the CIA faces in recruiting Americans from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds to reach out to intelligence targets in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
Former CIA director Leon Panetta had earlier said the CIA has about 25,000 employees, out of which 22 percent are non-white, and only 13 percent are proficient in a language other than English.
The CIA has tried to recruit Arabic-speakers and Muslims to ease concerns about the agency's role in some of the most controversial episodes of the war against Al Qaeda.
"It's part of our larger outreach efforts and strategy of outreach to the Middle Eastern community. What we're trying to do is ... increase awareness in the communities about the work that we do, and dispel some of the myths of what we're all about," CIA's Community Outreach Chief Cindy Lodge said.
"The trust ... has been damaged a great deal" by the ad flap at his newspaper," Arab American News publisher, Osama Siblani said. (ANI)
|
|
Read More: East Godavari | Sibla | English | Syria
Comments:
