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Chronology of Islam in America (2005)
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
April 2005
Survey: U.S. media censors Iraq reporting
April 5: The news media are self-censoring reports about Iraq because of concern for public reaction to graphic images and details about death and torture, according to a survey of 210 U.S. and international journalists, the United Press International reported. Many reporters and editors chose less-graphic images and explicit details, or made them less noticeable, according to an online, anonymous survey conducted between September and October 2004 by two American University professors. Michael Hoyt, executive director of the Columbia Journalism Review, a magazine that monitors the media, said the U.S. media has to think about the sensibility of its audience, but was concerned that media self-censorship compromised accuracy.
Arizona: Text pulled after uproar over Islam
April 6: A world history textbook used by seventh-graders at Scottsdale's Mohave Middle School (Arizona) was pulled from classrooms mid-semester amid growing criticism of the book's portrayal of Islam. The removal came on the heels of a slew of angry emails to Scottsdale Unified School District officials and entries on conservative Internet Web logs. Janie White is a Scottsdale parent who complained about the "History Alive! The Medieval World and Beyond" textbook, which was being used on a trial basis at her daughter's school. In an email to Superintendent she objected to what she believed was "religious bias, dogma, and proselytizing." "I received a significant number of e-mails saying (the book) was Islamic propaganda and we shouldn't use it," said district governing board member Christine Schild. The textbook covers history from the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century to the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century. It devotes 33 pages to Christianity and 42 pages to Islam. Bredin explained the book is meant to serve as the second in a two-part series. The previous book in the series does not mention Islam, which was founded in the seventh century. Yet it devotes 19 pages to Judaism, 13 pages to Christianity and more than 20 pages to Buddhism and Hinduism.
Lawmaker targeted for 'looking Muslim'
April 6: A Houston lawmaker thinks he may have been the target of ethnic or religious profiling at George Bush Intercontinental Airport on Palm Sunday as he prepared to fly to Washington, D.C., according to Houston Chronicle. Al Green, a Democratic congressman, was pulled out of line by airport security officers March 20 as he waited to enter the primary security area. "It could have been (a random security search), but I cannot say that it was random," Green said. Officers escorted him to a separate area, where he was questioned and searched before being permitted to enter the main security area. The experience left him with a feeling that he was targeted the way Muslims say they have been profiled since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "Whether it is real or imagined, I can tell you the perception exists that there is profiling taking place," he said.
Two 16-year-old Muslim immigrant girls arrested as terrorist threats
April 9: Two sixteen-year-old Muslim girls - one born in Bangladesh, the other in Guinea - were detained in New York on immigration violations and shipped to a detention center in Leesport, Pennsylvania, the New York Times reported . According to a government document obtained by the paper, the FBI claims the girls present "an imminent threat to the security of the United States based upon evidence that they plan to be suicide bombers." In a statement the Council on American-Islamic Relations said that despite the continuing protests by immigrant and civil rights communities following 9/11, the Federal government’s implementation of ethnic and religious profiling and its use of immigration proceedings to circumvent the constitutional protections of the criminal justice system persist. Today, it appears that the profiling of Muslim men has grown to include Muslim women and children. In this case, two minors are being linked to terrorism based at least in part on their interest in and observance of the Islamic religion. In one of the cases, a girl was questioned by FBI agents, at one point posing as youth counselors, without the advice or presence of an attorney.
Three Muslims elected in Illinois local elections
April 10: Community Builders Chicago (CBC) congratulates three of its members on their recent successes at the polls. Mir Shamsuddin, a board member of CBC, easily won his seat to the Skokie Board of Education, School District 73, for a 4-year term. He was the second highest vote getter in a race with 7 candidates. Moin Moon Khan, founder President of DuPage Minority Caucus won a closely fought election to become the first minority candidate to win as Trustee in suburban York Township. There were 8 candidates with 4 positions to fill. Safa Zarzour, president of CAIR Chicago's Board of Directors, won a seat as commissioner of Bridgeview Park district for the next 4 years.
Palestinian presidential candidate and activist bank account closed in Northern Virginia
April 12: The Branch Banking &Trust Bank recently closed the account of Dr. Abdelhaleem Ashqar and his wife, Mrs. Asma Ashqar, according to the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation. Dr. Ashqar is a well-known Palestinian political activist who was a candidate for the Palestinian presidency during their last election. He resides in Northern Virginia. MAS Freedom Foundation believes that the closing of Dr. Ashqar’s account raises serious concerns with regard to civil liberties and the right to due process for all Americans. Several financial institutions, i.e. Fleet Bank, American Express, Western Union, etc., in the past have targeted Muslim activists, mosques leaders, and members of their community.
Secret FBI report highlights domestic terror: experts warn of future Timothy McVeighs
April 19: A secret FBI report, obtained by ABC News, identifies 22 domestic terror organizations as the current subjects of 338 active FBI field investigations. The Aryan Nations, and other white supremacist groups, are cited in the report for hate crimes, fire bombings, threats via mail, as well as robberies and murders. The National Alliance, one of the largest neo-Nazi organizations in the world, is subject to 51 FBI investigations alone, according to the report. In fact there are "ticking time bombs," said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, "who have the capacity, skill and hatred to carry out acts worse than what Timothy McVeigh carried out 10 years ago."
American Muslims welcome election of new Pope
April 19: American Muslim organizations welcomed the election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany as Pope Benedict XVI and expressed the hope that the new Pope would continue his predecessor's unprecedented policy of talking to the Muslim world. In their statements, the American Muslim Voice, Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other organizations while welcoming the election of Pope Benedict XVI said they look forward to working with him and other representatives of the Roman Catholic Church to advance the cause of peace and justice for people of all faiths. ”Muslim leaders who expressed sympathy after his death did not do so simply because the pope opposed the invasion of Iraq or spoke out against the wall of separation in the Israeli-occupied territories, they did so because the pope believed firmly that Christianity should engage in a dialogue with Islam which will further the cause of world peace,” the AMV pointed out.
Muslims detained at border sue Homeland Security
April 20: Five American Muslims detained at the border as they returned from an Islamic conference in Toronto sued the Department of Homeland Security alleging they were targets of ethnic and religious profiling. They told a news conference that customs officials detained dozens of others returning from the conference in December, subjecting them to interrogations, fingerprinting and photographing. The lawsuit seeks to prevent government agencies from detaining, interrogating or photographing Muslims returning to the United States from religious conferences. The five Muslims want their fingerprints and photographs taken at the border destroyed or expunged. The lawsuit, which seeks no monetary damages, asks the U.S. District Court to: declare that the Department of Homeland Security violated the constitutional rights of the five American Muslims, stop border agents from detaining Muslims merely because they are returning from a religious conference, and order the government to return or destroy all fingerprints and photos of these people. The five American Muslims traveled separately and arrived at the checkpoint throughout the afternoon and night. Travelers who told agents they had attended the conference titled "Reviving the Islamic Spirit" were held for questioning, and women wearing hijab were asked whether they had attended the conference, according to the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court by the New York Civil Liberties Union and the Council for American-Islamic Relations.
HR bodies demand inquiry against Bush, Rumsfeld, Tenet
April 23: Prominent human rights groups – the American Civil Liberties Union abd Human Rights Watch - urged Congress to launch an independent and bipartisan probe to determine the roles of senior US leaders in prison abuses in Iraq. One of them — Human Rights Watch — named President George W. Bush, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and former CIA director George J. Tenet among the people it wants investigated. The group said that an independent commission could compel evidence that the government has continued to conceal, including the directives reportedly signed by President Bush authorizing the CIA to establish secret detention facilities and facilitating the ‘rendition’ of suspects to brutal regimes. Rendition is the practice of transporting prisoners to a third country where they can be tortured for extracting information. The Human Rights Watch reported that since the Sept 11 attacks, US agents have secretly transported up to 150 detainees to countries that practice torture.
Jurors convict Muslim leader in terrorism case
April 25: A prominent Muslim spiritual leader from Fairfax County was convicted of inciting his followers to train overseas for violent jihad against the United States. The jury in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, decided that Ali Al-Timimi's words, coming shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, were enough to send him to prison for what prosecutors said will be a mandatory life sentence. The heart of the government's case against Timimi was a meeting he attended in Fairfax on Sept. 16, 2001 -- five days after the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center. Timimi told his followers that "the time had come for them to go abroad and join the mujahideen engaged in violent jihad in Afghanistan," according to court papers. The conviction, after seven days of deliberations, reignited a debate that played out in the courtroom over whether Timimi was committing a crime with his often-incendiary rhetoric or was a Muslim scholar exercising his rights to free speech. Mahdi Bray, Executive Director, Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, said that the verdict in Dr. Al-Timimi's case is a sad day for American Muslims and the U.S. Constitution. It bodes ill for the Bill of Rights, and especially the First Amendment (Freedom of Speech). I agreed with many of America's lawyers and constitutional scholars that Dr. Al-Timimi's speech is constitutionally protected, even if others find it repugnant and inflammatory.
America is spending millions to change the very face of Islam
April 25: U.S. News and World Report says: the U.S. government has embarked on a campaign of political warfare in the Muslim world unmatched since the height of the Cold War. From military psychological-operations teams and CIA covert operatives to openly funded media and think tanks, Washington is plowing tens of millions of dollars into a campaign to influence not only Muslim societies but Islam itself. The White House has approved a classified new strategy, dubbed Muslim World Outreach, that for the first time states that the United States has a national security interest in influencing what happens within Islam. The CIA is revitalizing programs of covert action that once helped win the Cold War, targeting Islamic media, religious leaders, and political parties. The agency is receiving "an exponential increase in money, people, and assets" to help it influence Muslim societies, says a senior intelligence official.
Ann Coulter says “Arabs lie”
April 25: In an article published in the Time Magazine about an extreme rightist columnist Ann Coulter, entitled Ms. Right, John Cloud quotes her as saying: "Liberals are about to become the last people to figure out that Arabs lie." The magazine added that Coulter actually favors discrimination based on skin color in airports. She argues that airports should establish a separate line for men and boys whose complexion suggests they could be from the Middle East; they would be screened more thoroughly than other passengers.
Domestic terrorists seen as viable U.S. threat
April 27: Domestic terrorism remains a clear and present danger to the United States, rights groups and government agencies warn amid a number of fresh reminders of homegrown terrorism's toll on the U.S. public, according to IPS. In recent weeks, people throughout the country have witnessed Eric Rudolph's sentencing to four life sentences without parole for the deadly 1996 Olympic park bombing in Atlanta and attacks at two abortion clinics and a gay nightclub. Homegrown terrorism appears to be resurging as extremists have added Islam to their list of targets. Since the Sep. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, Justice Department reports a dramatic increase in hate crimes directed against people perceived to be Arabs. Sikhs and Hindus frequently are attacked because to their attackers, they look like they might be of Middle Eastern descent.
Discrimination against Muslim students: Bus company settles suit
April 28: A Florida company accused of discriminating against Muslim students on a Duval County school bus in October 2003 admitted no wrongdoing but agreed to establish new antidiscrimination training policies and make monetary payments of about $35,000, according to settlement documents. Allegations that an employee of First Student Inc., who was driving a Duval County school bus, forcibly removed the Muslim students from a bus and made derogatory statements on Oct. 29, 2003, were investigated by Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist's Office.
Sgt. Hassan Akbar sentenced to death for Kuwait attack
April 28 — A military jury sentenced Sgt. Hasan Akbar to death for the 2003 grenade and rifle attack that killed two of his officers and wounded 14 others at an army camp in Kuwait during the opening days of the Iraq war. The same jury last week took 2 1/2 hours to convict him of two counts of premeditated murder and three counts of attempted premeditated murder. The sentence will be the subject of an automatic appeal. Prosecutors said Akbar, 34, launched the grenade attack on members of the 101st Airborne Division in March 2003 at Camp Pennsylvania because he was concerned about US troops killing fellow Muslims in the Iraq war. Akbar’s father, John Akbar, said his son complained in vain to his superiors about religious and racial harassment before the attack.
Immigrants wary of complaining of bias
April 30: Discrimination cases involving Muslims in the workplace, at school and in airports increased markedly after Sept. 11 but are most commonly brought by American-born Muslims because immigrants are reluctant to take legal action, the New York Times quoted lawyers and civil rights advocates as saying. A fear of retaliation by employers or more extreme outcomes, like deportation, drives many Muslim immigrants to stay quiet. The cases, some of which have been settled by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, cover a spectrum of harassment and discrimination claims. Children have been barred from boarding airplanes because their names resembled those on a terrorist watch list; longtime female employees were suddenly told, after 9/11, to remove their hijabs.
Muslim converts face discrimination
April 30: In the wake of 9/11, Muslim immigrants from Pakistan, Egypt and other countries have found themselves living in a newly suspicious America, the New York Times reports. Many of their businesses and mosques have been closely monitored by federal agents, thousands of men have been deported and some have simply been swept away - "rendered" in the language of the C.I.A. - to be interrogated or jailed overseas. But Muslim immigrants are not alone in experiencing the change. It is now touching the lives of some American converts: men and women raised in this country, whose only tie to the Middle East or Southeast Asia is one of faith.
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