(Image source: City of New York/Kristen Artz)  

BY EMILY SPAIN

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg got snubbed at his interracial faith breakfast Friday morning.
The missing guests?
Some of the city’s key Muslim leaders -- who hoped to send a message by not dining-in.

The Muslims chose not to attend because of reports that hit the headlines in August claiming the NYPD is eavesdropping on businesses, mosques and taxi drivers. The group’s frustrated because it claims the mayor hasn’t done anything.

The NYPD insists it has done nothing wrong, but some Muslim leaders disagree and didn’t come to the breakfast to stand up for their civil rights. Here’s Nihad Awad from the Council on American-Islamic Relations:

 “To be engaged in wholesale ethnic and religious profiling that’s wrong... The mayor when he knew about this he should have condemned it, he should have investigated it. The leaders in the community there communicated with his office and brought him a letter respectfully declining the invitation because it is an opportunity to send a message that this is wrong.”

15 leaders in the Muslim community signed this letter, which says:

“We believe with heartfelt conviction that during times when a community’s rights are being flagrantly violated its leaders cannot in good conscience appear at a public gathering with the government official who is ultimately responsible and smile for the cameras as if all is well, when we know full well that it is not.”

But a writer for the New York Daily News suggests the Muslims’ breakfast boycott was a big mistake, calling the group’s claim a “big misrepresentation.”

“...the NYPD’s counterterrorism unit has done no more than use census data to develop a portrait of Muslim New York and then follow leads, some sent the city’s way from abroad via the CIA, when they demanded investigation. Many a plot has been disrupted by this type of perfectly proper nonintrusive vigiliance [sic]... The next letter from the boycotters ought to be one of polite apology. We won’t hold our breath.”

Mayor Bloomberg continues to defend local authorities work in the city and told CBS New York:  

“The city’s police department has worked very hard to bring crime down and prevent terrorism... We’ve done it in a ways that is consistent with making sure that we obey the law and don’t target anybody.”

But a former FBI director told CNN, even if city officials think they did nothing wrong, they still have to address the issue.

“Obviously, it’s a public relations almost nightmare for the city, they have to undo that... Depending how they handle it, depending on what happens in the subsequent investigations now will determine really what kind of relationship they have in the community, but they absolutely need the cooperation of the community.”

The Associated Press reports Mayor Bloomberg did not directly address the boycott at the breakfast, but did say “We have to keep our guard up, but if we don't work together we won't have our own freedoms."