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Chronology of Islam in America (2005)
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
August 2005
Brooklyn's Little Pakistan has lost plenty of residents since 9/11
Aug. 2: While in some ways, life goes on as usual in Brooklyn's Little Pakistan, in many other ways, much has changed. Probably no ethnic enclave, in a city chockablock with them, has drawn as much FBI and immigration-service investigation since 9/11. Merchants say the neighborhood is still staggering from the attention, while many residents fearfully anticipate a new wave of scrutiny by U.S. authorities in light of the recent terror attacks in London. In the tense weeks after 9/11, federal agents began pounding on doors in the middle of the night and detained hundreds of Pakistanis in the Little Pakistan area. Thousands of people, gripped with fear, soon bolted. Many of them went to other states, back to their homeland, to Canada or even Western Europe. Few have returned, by all accounts. (Newsday – August 2, 2005)
DC radio host claims Quran teaches Muslims to lie
Aug. 3: The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today called on a Washington, D.C., radio station to address the incitement of anti-Muslim hatred caused by its talk show hosts. CAIR issued that call after a replacement for a talk show host suspended for anti-Islam remarks made similarly Islamophobic comments. On Friday, July 29, WMAL-AM replacement host Geoff Metcalf stated: "And by the way, let me just add a sidebar here that's significant, and everybody forgets this, but according to the Quran, believers in Islam are not required to tell infidels, and that's us, the truth. So they apparently have permission to lie when it is appropriate." Most callers to the program expressed similar hostility to Muslims and to the faith of Islam.
Metcalf was replacing host Michael Graham, who was suspended without pay by the station for stating repeatedly that "Islam is a terrorist organization." Graham was suspended when CAIR initiated a public campaign against WMAL and the station's advertisers after receiving complaints from Muslim listeners. (CAIR)
Government targeting Iranians Americans, rights coalition says
Aug. 3: An increasing number of calls for legal advice from Iranian Americans sent up red flags for a coalition of civil rights organizations monitoring the treatment of Muslims and natives of two dozen countries in North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. Iranians are increasingly seeking aid after being questioned by the FBI, put on government watch lists and losing their jobs or security clearances. "Over the past year or so there are increasing numbers of Iranian Americans who are being discriminated against across the board," Dalia Hashad of ACLU told a news conference at the offices of the National Legal Sanctuary for Community Advancement in San Franciso. (Mercury News - August 3, 2005)
Off Duty CBP Officer Charged with Killing Arab American
Aug. 4: An off-duty Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer who shot to death a young Arab-American man was finally indicted, on July 6 2005, under state manslaughter charges, after initially being released. A federal investigation of the incident continues. On February 5, Officer Douglas Bates, shot and killed Bassim Schmait following an altercation outside his Los Alisos Boulevard apartment in Orange County, California. Reports on the incident vary; with the Sheriff's Department reporting that the officer apparently committed no crime when he came out of his apartment to investigate a disturbance. Bassim’s friends however, contend that Bates had pistol-whipped one of them, and that when Bassim tried to intervene, he was brutally shot and killed. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) had taken an active role in raising the issue at various meetings with CBP and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) representatives, stressing the importance of a thorough investigation in building trust between government agencies and the Arab-American community. (American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee)
Pakistani Community in California was taped
Aug. 5: Federal officials disclosed that they secretly tape-recorded Pakistanis in the agricultural community of Lodi for nearly three years before bringing terror-related charges against a father and son and seeking to deport two Islamic leaders. Fifty tapes in Urdu and Pashto were turned over this week to lawyers for Hamid Hayat, 22, and his father, Umer Hayat, 47. The son is charged with lying to the FBI about attending a terrorism camp in Pakistan in 2003 and 2004. His father is charged with lying when he denied his son had attended such a camp. The tapes are among scores of recordings made by an informant or undercover investigator starting in August 2002, prosecutors and defense attorneys said during a preliminary hearing in Sacramento, CA, Friday. (Washington Post - August 5, 2005)
Wayne County law fines for fake Islamic diet ads
Aug. 5: Wayne County (Michigan) butchers selling bogus blessed meat soon could find themselves in trouble with the law. Acting on a string of complaints, the County Commission has made it a misdemeanor for food sellers to falsely claim their meat is halal or kosher. When the ordinance takes effect in 44 days, violations will be punishable by $500 fines or 90 days in jail. Although it applies to kosher and halal food, the ordinance was prompted because of the popularity of halal food. Once hard to find, the blessed meat now is available at Metro Detroit chain supermarkets, Asian restaurants and even two McDonald's restaurants in Dearborn. It's so ubiquitous now that some of southeast Michigan's 100,000 Muslims have trouble trusting the meat that claims to be halal. "You wonder if they're just saying it's halal," said Bushra Alawie of Dearborn, who shops at a small butcher in the city's south end. "It's a gut instinct. You wonder if those huge supermarkets are really following the Islamic way." The ordinance requires stores making the halal or kosher claim to post conspicuous signs identifying the slaughterhouse and wholesaler. County health inspectors would respond to complaints about scofflaws and issue citations, said county Executive Robert Ficano. (The Detroit News - August 5, 2005)
Maher Arar case: U.S. defends detentions at airports
Aug. 10: Foreign citizens who change planes at airports in the United States can legally be seized, detained without charges, deprived of access to a lawyer or the courts, and even denied basic necessities like food, lawyers for the government said in Brooklyn federal court yesterday. The assertion came in oral arguments over a federal lawsuit by Maher Arar, a naturalized Canadian citizen who charges that United States officials plucked him from Kennedy International Airport when he was on the way home on Sept. 26, 2002, held him in solitary confinement in a Brooklyn detention center and then shipped him to his native Syria to be interrogated under torture because officials suspected that he was a member of Al Qaeda. Syrian and Canadian officials have cleared Mr. Arar, 35, of any terrorist connections, but United States officials maintain that "clear and unequivocal" but classified evidence shows that he is a Qaeda member. They are seeking dismissal of his lawsuit, in part through the rare assertion of a "state secrets" privilege. The case is the first civil suit to challenge the practice known as "extraordinary rendition," in which terror suspects have been transferred for questioning to countries known for torture. (New York Times - August 10, 2005)
Auburn prison imam receives probation for violating sanctions against Iraq
Aug. 13: An imam at Auburn state prison hopes his probation sentence will persuade the state to let him start earning the paycheck he's been collecting for a year while he sat home doing nothing. U.S. District Judge Norman Mordue sentenced Osameh Al Wahaidy to two years' probation, fined him $5,000 and ordered him to perform 100 hours of community service for violating U.S. sanctions against Iraq by sending aid there without a license through the Syracuse charity Help the Needy. Al Wahaidy said he's optimistic that because the sentence didn't include jail time, officials at the state Department of Correctional Services will reverse their decision to ban him from the prison. The state's been paying Al Wahaidy his $57,000 annual salary since July 2004, but ordered him to stay home. "I'm optimistic to go back to work," said Al Wahaidy, 43, of Fayetteville. "I want to do my work." (The Post-Standard - August 13, 2005)
Nation of Islam leader calls for unity among races
Aug. 14: A decade after the Million Man March focused on the plight of black men and racial divisions in America, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan visited Milwaukee to promote another march in Washington, D.C. Encouraging a capacity crowd at a north side church that they should be part of "something that is bigger than us all," Farrakhan said African-Americans and people of other races should join the reunion of the march that drew hundreds of thousands of people, mostly men, to the nation's capital in October 1995. "Why should we have a Millions More Movement? The United States is the greatest nation in the world," Farrakhan told an audience at Mercy Memorial Baptist Church. "But today America is losing friendship all over the world." Milwaukee was the first of several cities Farrakhan is planning to visit to promote the Millions More Movement, scheduled for Oct. 15 on the National Mall in Washington. Hundreds of thousands camped out on the mall 10 years ago for the original daylong Million Man March, which included speeches by Farrakhan and Jesse Jackson. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - August 14, 2005)
Young Muslims caught between two worlds
Aug. 15: High school, with its pressures to fit in and be cool, can be brutal for anyone. But try wearing a Muslim head scarf, and you'll really see who your friends are. "Nothing had changed, except I just had this piece of cloth on my head," says Zakiya Qadir, now a 19-year-old student at the University of Washington. "When some people saw that, the friendship ended right then." For Muslims, high school is "the most difficult part of ... growing up here," Qadir says. (There are about 7 million Muslims in the United States) Many are young people who've grown up to face a twofold challenge: integrating their faith into their lives as pop-culturally aware young Americans and defending their religious beliefs against misunderstanding, prejudice and, sometimes, hate -- even in relatively accepting cities such as Seattle. People have stopped Qadir to ask if she's sheltered and if her father forces her to wear the scarf. Once, a man told her that Saddam Hussein has been caught, so "you're free now." "People have these glaring misconceptions, these falsehoods, these lies, that are magnified and reflected on the entire Muslim population," said Hanady Kader, 20, president of the UW's Arab Students Organization. Ijaz Khan is a thirty something lawyer and partner at the Seattle law office of Mussehl and Khan, which regularly serves Muslim clients. He says that because of 9/11, young American Muslims "have to confront these issues (of self-identity) a lot sooner than before." "A lot of young people don't know if they're fully American or Middle Eastern," he said. "You feel totally, 100 percent American, but you feel a little bit different because your family's culture and religion is different." (Seattle Post-Intelligencer - August 15, 2005)
Lodi Imam, son back in Pakistan after U.S. deportation
Aug. 17: A Pakistani imam and his son were deported after being arrested for immigration violations during a terrorism probe focused on Lodi, California, U.S. officials in San Francisco said on today.Mohammad Adil Khan, 47, who served as an imam at a Lodi mosque, and his son Mohammad Hassan Adil, 19, agreed last month to the deportation ordered due to immigration violations. They arrived back in Pakistan on a commercial airliner yesterday, accompanied by officials from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency said in a statement. Saad Ahmad, lawyer for the two men, said they had nothing to do with the federal probe focused on Lodi in which a different father and son have been charged with lying about ties to al Qaeda training camps in Pakistan. (News Agencies)
Terror-trial attorneys cite FBI's doubts about informant
Aug. 17: A key government informant in a high-profile terrorism case in Chicago was caught in a lie in an unrelated investigation, prompting the FBI to question the informant's reliability, according to records made public today. Citing the FBI's own concerns, lawyers for Muhammad Salah, a Bridgeview man charged with financing terrorism by Hamas in the Mideast, are seeking to throw out portions of the indictment that rely on the word of the informant. Salah, identified by authorities as a member of Hamas, and two other Palestinians were charged last August in Chicago with laundering and disbursing more than $1 million to support the violent aims of the militant Islamic group. (Chicago Tribune - August 17, 2005)
Diplomatic assurances worthless
Aug. 19: Countries that rely on ‘diplomatic assurances’ that other countries won’t torture transferred prisoners “are either engaging in wishful thinking or using the assurances as a fig leaf to cover their complicity,” a new report from Human Rights Watch (HRW) charges. HRW said, “There is substantial evidence that in the course of the global “war on terrorism,” an increasing number of governments have transferred, or proposed sending, alleged terrorist suspects to countries where they know the suspects will be at risk of torture or ill-treatment.” Recipient countries have included Egypt, Syria, Uzbekistan, and Yemen, where torture is a systemic human rights problem. Transfers have also been carried out or proposed to Algeria, Morocco, Russia, Tunisia, and Turkey, “where members of particular groups — Islamists, Chechens, Kurds — are routinely singled out for the worst forms of abuse”. (Human Rights Watch)
Outraged by government leaks, Muslim leaders underscore value of chaplains
Aug. 19: In a press conference held today in Los Angeles, Muslim leaders and chaplains called upon the Federal Bureau of Prisons to hire more Muslim chaplains to combat potential radicalization among Muslim inmates. The press conference was a joint effort by the Muslim Public Affairs Council, the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California and the Southern California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Fears of prison radicalization arose in light of recent media reports that FBI officials suspect a Pakistani man arrested on unspecified charges and two African American men arrested for a series of gas station robberies were plotting an attack in Southern California. One of the men converted while serving time in Fulsom County Prison, where authorities allege he joined an extremist group called Jamiyyat Ul-Islam Is Saheeh. Law enforcement officials say all three men attended the same mosque in Inglewood, California. "The suggestion by the Rand Corporation, the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, and several legislators that federal prisons are being used as bases for recruiting what they call Islamic terrorists is not true and is unsubstantiated," said Shakeel Syed, who is a contractor chaplain with the Federal Bureau of Prisons. "I have not come across even one instance where such a suggestion is true in the course of my 15 years with the Bureau of Prisons as a volunteer or contractor." (Muslim Public Affairs Council)
Talk show host fired over Islam remarks
Aug. 23: Washington radio station WMAL-AM fired talk show host Michael Graham yesterday after he refused to soften his description of Islam as "a terrorist organization" on the air last month, Washington Post reported today. Graham had been suspended without pay from his daily three-hour show since making his comments July 25. The station had conditioned his return to the midmorning shift on reading a station-approved statement in which Graham would have said that his anti-Muslim statements were "too broad" and that he sometimes uses "hyperbole" in the course of his program. WMAL also asked Graham to speak to the station's advertisers and its employees about the controversy. But Graham refused both conditions, prompting the station to drop him. According to WMAL, Graham said "Islam is a terrorist organization" 23 times on his July 25 program. On the same show, he also said repeatedly that "moderate Muslims are those who only want to kill Jews" and that "the problem is not extremism. The problem is Islam." (Washington Post - August 23, 2005)
Robertson’s assassination remarks condemned
Aug. 24: The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today condemned remarks made by Christian televangelist Pat Robertson advocating the assassination of Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez. In addition to his advocating assassination, Robertson falsely claimed that Venezuela is now "a launching pad for Communist infiltration and Muslim extremism all over the continent." In a statement today, CAIR said: "True to form, Pat Robertson has crossed the line yet again. Not only has he advocated violating federal law and international treaties by calling for the assassination of a head of state, he somehow manages to show his clear hatred of Muslims by stating that somehow Islam is involved in the whole Venezuela issue.” The Canadian Islamic Congress added its voice to a swelling North American denunciation of televangelist Pat Robertson's endorsement of assassination to eliminate Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. Calling Robertson's utterances "bloodthirsty, evil and an advocacy for terrorism," a CIC statement called on moderate Christians to repudiate far right extremists "who abuse their religion as a blunt instrument to further their personal agendas and diminish all humans who do not think as they do."
Muslims seek days off school
Aug. 24: Muslim parents around the nation are lobbying school districts to add Islamic holidays to the school year, or at least persuade schools not to penalize students for missing school to observe their religion. Others are asking school districts to let children off early on Fridays or have some time designated during the school day for students to get together for Juma'ah, the most important Muslim prayer of the week. In Baltimore County, Md., Muslim groups have engaged in a yearlong effort to add the Islamic sacred observances of Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha to the school's calendar. Schools in the district close for the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur and for the traditional winter break that coincides with Christmas, but the Islamic holidays are not recognized. So far, the quest has not been fruitful. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution - August 24, 2005)
Three funding members of Progressive Muslim Union resign
Aug. 24: The Progressive Muslim Union of North America (PMU) suffered a major setback when three of its four founding members resigned from the PMU Board of Directors today saying that “the PMU is not a forum that will allow us to successfully pursue the agenda we envisioned at its founding.” The three founding members, who resigned in an open letter, are: Omid Safi, Hussein Ibish and Sarah Eltantawi. Ahmed Nassef, Executive Director of the PMU and Editor-in-Chief of the controversial website Muslimwakeup.com, is the fourth founding member.One of its board member, Dr. Muqtedar Khan, quit the PMU board on July 1, 2005 saying that he found the environment with Progressive Muslims Union extremely oppressive, abusive and hateful. In an open resignation letter Dr. Khan said: “I have found both PMU and MWU (Muslimwakeup.com) extremely intolerant of difference and disagreement. This is the only Muslim group where people who believe in the teachings of the Quran are ridiculed and those who express ambivalence about it even about the existence of God are celebrated.” (AMP Report)
Muslims in Lodi believe mystery man who spoke of jihad was a federal mole in terror investigation
Aug. 27: In the days after federal agents arrested five residents of Lodi, CA in a terror investigation in June, a clean-cut young man who had befriended the suspects and had spent nights at their homes vanished. He hasn't been seen in town since, and now members of Lodi's Muslim community suspect they know why: The man, who called himself Nasim Khan, was a government mole, they believe, an informer whose surreptitious tape recordings of one of the suspects are at the heart of the federal probe. Federal prosecutors last week revealed they had a "cooperating witness" in Lodi. Without naming him, they said he had recorded scores of conversations with Hamid Hayat, a 22-year-old man accused of lying when he denied participating in a terrorist training camp in Pakistan. His father, 47-year- old Umer Hayat, is charged with lying about the same thing. Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Lapham, one of two prosecutors trying the Hayats in federal court in Sacramento, said the "witness" will testify at the trial of the father and son, which has been postponed until at least October. (San Francisco Chronicle - August 27, 2005)
Post-9/11 work bias claims persist
Aug. 27: Nearly four years after the terrorist attacks, Muslim, South Asian and Arab-American employees continue to report discrimination on the job. Compared with the first two years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the number of employees saying they have been discriminated against as a form of backlash because of the attacks has declined. But charges continue to come in, indicating that Arab-American and other workers still feel discriminated against. ''People are being called 'terrorist' at work, things of that sort,'' says Arsalan Iftikhar, national legal director at Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations. ''A lot of cases continue to go on. People have been called Osama bin Laden, told they are going to mosque to learn how to build a bomb.'' (Salt Lake Tribune – August 7, 2005)
Palestinian Authority's US assets are frozen
Aug. 30: A Rhode Island lawyer trying to collect a $116 million terrorism judgment against the Palestinian Authority has obtained a court-ordered freeze on all its US-based assets, severely limiting most Palestinian economic and diplomatic activities in the United States at a critical moment for the fledgling government. The frozen assets include US holdings in a $1.3 billion Palestinian investment fund meant to finance economic development as well as bank accounts used to pay Palestinian representatives in Washington, according to lawyers and court documents filed in Rhode Island, Washington, D.C., and New York. Also frozen are about $30 million in assets from the Palestinian Monetary Authority, the Palestinian equivalent of the US Federal Reserve. Providence attorney David Strachman, who is representing the orphaned children of a couple killed in Israel by Palestinian militants, has also initiated a court action to seize and sell the Palestinian-owned building in New York that serves as the Palestine Liberation Organization observer mission to the United Nations. (Boston Globe Staff - August 30, 2005)
U.S. Muslims feel sidelined in terrorism fight
Aug. 30: The Bush administration is neglecting American Muslims in the fight against terrorism, undermining a potentially priceless resource that could be used to root out militants at home, major Muslim groups say. Community leaders such as Salam al-Marayati, who heads the Muslim Public Affairs Council advocacy group, say that to isolate terrorists political leaders from President George W. Bush on down must embrace the U.S. Muslim mainstream, rather than exclude them from serious debates on security. "For some reason, it's very difficult to get the high-level officials to come down to the community at this point. I think a decision has to be made: are we going to be partners or are we going to be suspects?" Marayati said. Concern about increased suspicions and alienation of the Muslim American community has grown since the July 7 attacks by home-grown Muslim militants in London in which suicide bombers killed 52 people on underground trains and buses. "It's the position of just about every Muslim leader in the United States that the way you isolate extremists is to engage the mainstream. Unfortunately we haven't seen much of that occurring in this administration," said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations. (Reuters - 30 August 2005)
Muslim prisoner claims beating, abuse of Quran
Aug. 31: A Muslim prisoner claims he was assaulted, was forced to stand naked and was spat upon, and alleges a guard damaged his Quran at the Dauphin County Prison in Pennsylvania in May. William T. Smith II made the allegations in a federal civil rights lawsuit filed against Corrections Officer Roger Lucas, four other guards identified only by last name or John Doe, and a female prison nurse. Smith alleged the incident occurred May 20 after his transfer from the State Correctional Institution at Smithfield for a hearing in Dauphin County court on a motion to withdraw a guilty plea. He contended he was beaten for no reason other than that he is Muslim, and that the Quran was desecrated to insult other prisoners who are Muslims. (The Patriot-News – Aug. 31, 2005)
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