The Global Rally for Humanity is organizing protests against Islam across approximately 20 American cities over the weekend, which has put mosques across the country on high alert.
The group has asked its supporters to create a Facebook page for each protest planned, and the page of the group had more than 2680 "likes" as of Sunday, according to Newsweek.
"Standing up against Islam does not mean you're a racist or a bigot, it simply means you're not an idiot and can see the reality of Islam around the world. The world is saying no to Islam," the organizers wrote on their Facebook page.
The demonstrations come as the U.S. is working on accepting an influx of refugees from Syria, which has created tensions among U.S. Muslims.
"In one of their emails, they said they were going to bring 3,000 people to Washington, D.C., in front of our mosque, and they instructed them to bring their weapons. Well, we consider that kind of a threat," said Ibrahim Mumin, director of community relations for Masjid Muhammad mosque, USA Today reported.
In Dearborn, Mich., which lists more than 40 percent of the population as being of Arab descent, rally organizers requested protesters to bring their weapons for an "open carry, anti-mosque, pro-America rally."
The Mayor requested the residents of the town to stay away from the demonstrations. "As we have learned from experience in the past, the best way for the average person in our community to handle these incidents is to ignore them. The demonstration is not really a forum for honest dialogue, and anything that intensifies emotions will only intensify conflict," Dearborn Mayor Jack O'Reilly wrote Friday on the city's website, according to USA Today.
Dearborn residents heeded the request and stayed away, with counter-protestors out numbering the protestors.
"The counter-protesters look to be about two-to-one. None of these people live in Dearborn. I'm really proud of our community for staying away," Dearborn Police Chief Ronald Haddad said, according to the Dearborn Patch.
"Islam and Muslims here in Dearborn, we work hard every day; we're not radicalized at all. So the way we look at it and the way they look at it is a little different, but they have their right to come and protest peacefully," Dearborn resident Ali Naji said, explaining that while he respected the protesters' First Amendment rights to demonstrate, they had a mistaken perception of Islam.
