Calls are growing for Mayor Mike Bloomberg to apologize for his role in the New York Police Department’s long-running warrantless surveillance of area Muslims, which has seen renewed scrutiny since Bloomberg announced his candidacy for Democratic presidential nominee.

A coalition of leading Muslim advocacy organizations sent a letter to Bloomberg this week demanding he apologize for the blanket surveillance in the decade after 9/11 and condemn the use of similar spying programs.

Bloomberg apologized for his controversial stop-and-frisk policy since launching his campaign but has continued to defend the secretive surveillance program that launched in 2003 and lasted until after he left office in 2013.

“I’m the biggest supporter of the Muslim community…The police only went in when the mosque, when the imam asked us to go in,” Bloomberg told one activist in December at the opening of his Milwaukee campaign offices, per a video recording of the encounter. “Period. End of story.”

But, according to a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation series by The Associated Press, the NYPD surveilled minority neighborhoods, mapped hundreds of mosques and Islamic organizations as well as bookstores and bars, monitored sermons, eavesdropped on conversations and placed paid informants in places of worship and Muslim student organizations.

Source: Religion News Service