A Syrian diaspora conference in a meeting room in a House office building was abruptly canceled on Monday after a lawmaker raised concerns about the group and its leadership, sources familiar with the situation told Jewish Insider.

The group, the Alawites Association of the United States, which presents itself as a representative of the Alawite religious minority group whose members have been targeted by forces aligned with the new Syrian government, hosted the event in coordination with other Syrian-American organizations. The event initially began as planned on Monday.

A member of Congress reserved the room on the group’s behalf, but that member withdrew their sponsorship on Monday after the event had begun, a source said. Per House policy, the group would have been required to leave the room once it lost that sponsorship.

The Alawites Association denied that the event had been canceled and told JI in a message that the conference had adjourned as planned to hold meetings with members of Congress. The group said that additional sessions were scheduled for Tuesday morning, but those events took place off of Capitol Hill.

In the days before the conference, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) wrote to the chair and ranking member of the Committee on House Administration urging them to intervene to cancel the event.

Wilson argued in his letter that the leadership of the Alawites Association was “seeking to exploit” the situation of religious minorities in Syria and would ultimately undermine efforts to address it.

He highlighted that the president of the group had volunteered with a charitable group sanctioned by the European Union and Switzerland for its relationship with Assad regime-aligned militias. The charity was led by former President Bashar al-Assad’s wife.

Wilson also noted that the group’s counsel had shared Facebook posts claiming that an Israeli hostage had been safer in Hamas’ hands and describing the Houthis as the “ONLY people fighting for Palestine.” 

“In the past events by antisemitic guests have been stopped from receiving a platform in the U.S. Capitol complex, I urge you to look into this event,” Wilson wrote.

The Alawites Association pushed back over the weekend against efforts to shut down the conference. It posted a statement on Saturday condemning “the coordinated incitement campaign targeting our participation” in the Capitol Hill conference and decrying “false and defamatory accusations … attempting to smear AAUS and its members as remnants of the fallen regime or agents of division. These lies are not merely slander—they are veiled threats, aimed at silencing American voices through fear and intimidation.”

They claimed the supposed campaign bore “all the hallmarks of jihadist and extremist efforts to intimidate Syrian minority groups.”

They also claimed that there had been “deliberate efforts to create confusion about our organization by publicly associating AAUS with individuals who have no affiliation with us” to “mislead the public and distort the nature and mission of our work.”

The group has also clashed with Wilson directly in the past over his meeting with a different Alawite leader whom the Alawite Association described as a terrorist affiliate who did not represent the community.