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Chronology of Islam in America ( August 2006-II)
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
August 2006 - Page II
Muslim doctor forced off plane
August 17: Three young Winnipeg (Canada) doctors -- one a Muslim -- were kicked off a flight home from Denver today after a passenger falsely identified them as a terrorist threat. Dr. Ahmed Farooq, a fourth-year radiology resident, and two physician friends want an apology from United Airlines and assurances staff will be better trained to identify genuine threats. Farooq, 27, and his fellow residents were on their way home from a physics course near San Francisco, Calif., in preparation for an upcoming board exam. They were settling into their connecting flight from Denver to Winnipeg when Farooq asked his friend -- a young doctor of East Indian decent who did not want his name published -- to switch seats. Farooq was looking for some privacy so he could discreetly recite his evening prayers. Shortly before take-off, the two doctors noticed a young man seated a row ahead was giving them distasteful looks and at one point threatened to "pound" Farooq. Farooq and his friends learned later the passenger, who had clearly been drinking, told a flight attendant he had overheard Farooq's friend say "Now, I can control the aisle." The aircraft returned to the terminal and an airline official came to escort Farooq, his seatmate and their female colleague off the flight, an experience Farooq called "humiliating." Within moments, the three were surrounded by Denver police, airport security and an official from the Transportation Security Administration. Their identification was taken from them, they were told not to speak to one another and an FBI agent was consulted via telephone. Meanwhile, their flight to Winnipeg departed with the passenger who lodged the complaint still on board. "Within two or three minutes, the guy from the TSA said he thought the airline staff overreacted and that we never should have been pulled from the plane," said Farooq. United Airlines officials said they are obliged to take any allegations threatening passenger safety seriously, particularly in a period of heightened tension like the one following last week's discovery of a British terrorist plot targeting transatlantic flights. (Winnipeg Free Press)
U.S. Postal Service investigating possible sabotage against Chicago Muslim charity
August 17: The Chicago Office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations announced today that the U.S. Postal Service is currently conducting an investigation into concerns of possible foul play expressed by a Chicago-area Muslim Charity. The Zakat Foundation reported its concerns to CAIR-Chicago earlier today who requested the investigation. The Zakat Foundation sent out approximately 70,000 mailings soliciting donations for the humanitarian crisis in Lebanon. Shortly thereafter, approximately 10,500 of those mailings were returned, in the same sequence they were sent out, with a notice stating "undeliverable as addressed." When the Zakat Foundation took the mailings back to the postal office to have an employee look up the addresses, the addresses were verifiable in the computer system. The employee expressed concerns that an act bigotry may be to blame for this unusual occurrence. The Zakat Foundation reportedly lost about $4,000 in raw materials and postage from the returned mailings, and an estimated $105,000 in projected donations that would have resulted from the mailings. (CAIR Bulletin)
Even now, some afraid to make calls
August 18: In homes, mosques and community centers, Muslims across metro Detroit say they often wonder whether the government is spying on them. Those fears were momentarily assuaged after a federal judge ruled yesterday that the Bush administration's domestic surveillance program is unconstitutional. The impact of the surveillance program has been felt acutely in Michigan, home to the highest concentration of Arab Americans in the United States.
Some residents are afraid to call family members in the Middle East out of fear their words may be monitored and misinterpreted by law enforcement. Others shy away from talking about fund-raising for Arab or Muslim causes. In fact, yesterday some parents warned their kids not to talk on the phone about an upcoming fund-raiser for Lebanon out of fear their calls may be tapped, said Ammerah Saidi of Dearborn. (Detroit Free Press)
NH: Manchester's first mosque still faces uphill battle
August 20: Ever since the Islamic Society of Greater Manchester set out to build its mosque on a Church property, it bought in 1999, it has been greeted with one obstacle after another. Neighbors voiced their opposition early when the project came before the city Planning Board. In 2003, a couple living up the street sued the society for ownership of a small strip of land between their properties, without which the Islamic Society would not have met an essential frontage requirement. Two months later, a neighbor, Frank Scarito, a financial adviser, took the Planning Board to court with a list of 22 complaints about the project. Each challenge was defeated. With equal measures of relief and anticipation, the society began to clear the 3-acre site in May 2006. Its difficulties, however, have persisted. In June, as volunteer crews swarmed the site, neighbors called the Manchester Police Department to complain the crews were violating on-street parking ban. Another time, Scarito called the police to report that the volunteers were violating a city ordinance that bans construction work on nights and weekends. Islamic Society members, who maintain their depleted coffers make it near impossible to complete construction without the night and weekend contributions of volunteers, say their neighbors may not be as concerned with legalities as they would have people believe. "Maybe they don't like Muslims," said Dr. Salman Malik, a member of the Islamic Society's Board of Trustees. "I wouldn't be surprised." When the neighbors sought to block the volunteers from working on nights and weekends, the society's attorney, Andrew H. Sullivan, asked the city building commissioner for an exemption. "It would be disrespectful to Manchester's heritage," he wrote, "to not allow now - in 2006 - the same opportunity that was afforded our grandparents of years ago who built their churches through volunteer labor on the weekends. It is unfair to these present-day volunteers to not be allowed the same opportunity." Sullivan's request has been denied. (Union Leader)
Profiling of Muslims: Latest Republican campaign issue?
August 21: Mark Flanagan, a congressional candidate in Florida today became the fourth Republican office-seeker to call for profiling of Muslim airline passengers since the alleged airline bombing plot in Britain announced on August 10. "It is a fact that over the past 34 years, starting with the Munich Olympics, the majority of terrorist attacks have been carried out by Muslims," said Mark Flanagan, a candidate in the 13th District of Florida, in a statement. Flanagan's political consultant, David Johnson explained that under the proposal, passengers who appear to be Arab or Muslim would be pulled out of security lines for additional screening. Flanagan claimed that he was the only congressional candidate calling for profiling of Muslim passengers. But he was wrong. There were at least three other Republican politicians who called for profiling of Muslims last week. Declaring that airport screeners shouldn't be hampered by "political correctness," House Homeland Security Chairman Peter King also endorsed last week requiring people of "Middle Eastern and South Asian" descent to undergo additional security checks because of their ethnicity and religion. Paul Nelson, a Republican running in the third district of Wisconsin, also endorsed the idea last week on a local radio show. Asked on the show how screeners would spot a Muslim male, Nelson said, "If he comes in wearing a turban and his name is Muhammad, that's a good start." The GOP gubernatorial candidate in New York, John Faso also has supported profiling of Muslims. In light of alleged UK plot, Faso said law enforcement officials should be able to question a Muslim man without fear of being slapped by an ACLU lawsuit. “Looking for Muslims for participation in Muslim jihad is not playing the odds. It is following an ironclad tautology." (AMP Report)
Muslim-Americans say profiling is up
August 21: On three occasions in a nine-day stretch, a total of five Arab-American men and a Pakistani woman formerly of Jackson were tagged as potential terrorists. Each of the cases eventually unraveled. But not before damage was done. "In the minds of the public, they are now terrorists," said Imad Hamad, Midwest regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. "They are cleared of charges, but they are doomed." Hamad and others are certain that none of the six would have been questioned had they not been of Middle Eastern or Pakistani descent. [On Aug. 8, two Dearborn men are arrested in southeastern Ohio after being caught with a dozen prepaid cell phones and $11,000. On Aug. 11, three Texas men of Palestinian heritage are arrested near a Wal-Mart outlet in Caro after buying 80 cell phones. Police said the men also had videos and photos of the Mackinac Bridge and 1,000 more cell phones in their van. On August 17, a terminal at the Tri-State Airport in West Virginia was shut down for nine hours after an airport security screener grew suspicious of two bottles of liquid inside the carry-on bag of a Pakistani woman traveling to Detroit to visit her mother in Jackson. Chemical tests of the bottles' contents turned up no explosives.] (Lansing State Journal)
Profiling of Muslims: Latest Republican campaign issue
August 22: Mark Flanagan, a congressional candidate in Florida has become the fourth Republican office-seeker to call for profiling of Muslim airline passengers since the alleged airline bombing plot in Britain announced earlier this month. "It is a fact that over the past 34 years, starting with the Munich Olympics, the majority of terrorist attacks have been carried out by Muslims," said Mark Flanagan, a candidate in the 13th District of Florida, in a statement on August 21. There were at least three other Republican politicians who called for profiling of Muslims last week. Declaring that airport screeners shouldn't be hampered by "political correctness," House Homeland Security Chairman Peter King also endorsed requiring people of "Middle Eastern and South Asian" descent to undergo additional security checks because of their ethnicity and religion. Joining the fray, Paul Nelson, a Republican running in the third district of Wisconsin, also endorsed the idea on a local radio show. Asked on the show how screeners would spot a Muslim male, Nelson said, "If he comes in wearing a turban and his name is Muhammad, that's a good start." The GOP gubernatorial candidate in New York, John Faso also joined the chorus of profiling. In light of alleged UK plot, Faso said law enforcement officials should be able to question a Muslim man without fear of being slapped by an ACLU lawsuit. “Looking for Muslims for participation in Muslim jihad is not playing the odds. It is following an ironclad tautology." (Profiling of Muslims: Latest Republican campaign issue By Abdus Sattar Ghazali)
ADC withdraws lawsuit against Rumsfeld & Rice
August 22: As a ceasefire is being implemented, today the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) announced its withdrawal of the lawsuit it filed against Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld regarding their failure to fulfill their constitutional and professional obligations and protect US citizens in a crisis or time of war. In the lawsuit ADC requested a ceasefire to hostilities, the ceasefire has now been in place for over a week. ADC believes the goal of the lawsuit has been achieved. (ADC)
Civil right groups protest profiling at JFK airport
August 23: Civil right groups today held a news conference in New York to express the Muslim community's concerns about allegations that people of Middle Eastern and South Asian heritage have been "profiled" at JFK Airport. The Council on American-Islamic Relations New York President Omar Mohammedi stated that law enforcement agencies should focus on behavioral profiling as opposed to racial profiling. Dennis Parker, director of racial justice at the ACLU, stated: "Targeting people without particularized suspicion squanders law enforcement resources, subjects individuals to humiliation, increases alienation, and undermines the legitimacy of the criminal justice system. Profiling decreases law enforcement ability to gather information by worsening relations between targeted groups and law enforcement." Udi Ofer from the NYCLU said that those detained had for all practical purposes been arrested for six hours at JFK and that their constitutional rights as citizens had been suspended for that period of time. Katherine Metres Abbadi, executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, stated that racial profiling is ineffective, un-American, unwise and a distraction for governments and security from their responsibilities. (CAIR Bulletin)
Study: 9/11 Hurt Arab and Muslim Men's Wages
August 23: Wages and weekly earnings for Arab and Muslim men living in the United States fell 10 percent following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, a new study shows. In addition, the adverse affects of Sept. 11 on wages were greater in areas that reported high rates of hate crime related to religious, ethnic or country of origin bias, according to the upcoming study in the Journal of Human Resources. Evidence also suggests the terrorists' attacks reduced intrastate migration, making Arab and Muslim men more reluctant to seek better opportunities in new destinations due to the uncertainty of their reception. The study measured changes in wages of first- and second-generation immigrants from countries with predominantly Arab or Muslim populations between September 1997 and September 2005 and compared them to changes in wages of first- and second-generation immigrants with similar skills from other countries. There is some evidence that the adverse wage and earnings effects are dissipating, concluded the study, scheduled to appear in the journal's spring 2007 edition. Figures from the most recent period available (2005) indicated a rebound in wages and earnings for Arab and Muslim men. (Newswise)
ISNA elects first woman president
August 23: Ingrid Mattson has been elected President of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) in the newly held general election of ISNA, the ISNA announced today. The incumbent President of ISNA, Muhammad Nur Abdullah, said that "ISNA's General Election has been completed, and the Election Committee has reported the results to the Majlis Ash-Shura in a conference call on August 22. Dr. Ingrid Mattson is the first woman elected President of ISNA. She was elected Vice President in the last election. Dr. Ingrid Mattson, born in Canada, is Professor of Islamic Studies and Director of Islamic Chaplaincy at the Macdonald Center for Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations at Hartford Seminary in Hartford, CT. (ISNA)
AAI members make their voices heard
August 24: Arab American Institute members were successful in contacting local and national media to express their opinions about the violence in the Middle East. Whether in an interview with reporters, letters to the editor or more expansive op-ed pieces, AAI members made the case for more active, balanced U.S. engagement in the Middle East that more closely reflects American values. Meanwhile, building on the momentum built in organizing National Arab American Lobby Day, AAI members continue to plan and hold meetings with their Members of Congress. Among those responding to the AAI call to get politically involved were members Pam and Ali El Ahmadiyyah, who met with Democrat Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey in Marin County, California. (AAI Newsletter)
Arsonists strike Minneapolis mosque
August 24: A Minneapolis mosque was targeted with a suspected arson early this morning while prayer was in session. No one was hurt in the incident, but dozens of books and other equipments were destroyed. Sheikh Abdirashid Hassan, the director of Abubakar Assadique Islamic Center, which was bought by Muslims a year ago for $1.7 million, said he believes a hate crime is involved. Fresh graffiti showing the Star of David and what looks like a Menorah, both Jewish symbols, have been painted on the wall facing the street side of the building. Mosque leaders said that they have been receiving weekly – and sometimes daily- fax messages riddled with insults and “go back to your country” rhetoric since they bought the property. (The Daily Planet)
Two Pakistani Americans barred from returning to US
August 25: The US government has barred two relatives of Hamid Hayat, a Pakistani American, convicted of supporting terrorists from returning to the country after a lengthy stay in Pakistan. Muhammad Ismail, a 45-year-old naturalized citizen born in Pakistan, and his 18-year-old son, Jaber Ismail, who was born in the United States, have not been charged with a crime. However, they are the uncle and cousin of Hamid Hayat, 23, who was convicted in April of supporting terrorists by attending a Pakistani training camp. US authorities said that the men, both Lodi (CA) residents, would not be allowed back into the country unless they agreed to FBI interrogations in Pakistan. An attorney representing the family said agents have asked whether the younger Ismail trained in terrorist camps in Pakistan. The men and three relatives had been in Pakistan for more than four years and tried to return to the United States on April 21 as a federal jury in Sacramento deliberated Hayat's fate. But they were pulled aside during a layover in Hong Kong and told there was a problem with their passports, said Julia Harumi Mass, their attorney. The father and son were forced to pay for a flight back to Islamabad because they were on the government's "no-fly" list, Mass said. Muhammad Ismail's wife, teenage daughter and younger son, who were not on the list, continued on to the United States. (San Francisco Chronicle)
Vice Mayor apologizes for Muslim remark cover-up
August 28: Ed Sileo, the recently re-elected vice mayor the city of Lancaster, CA, today admitted to sending an e-mail that was bound to offend Muslim people, then lying to cover it up. The e-mail contained an offhand jibe that was a partial response to a recruitment e-mail to sign up volunteers for an emergency services drill that would train people to respond to an event like a bio-terror attack.Sileo said he was joking around with some friends when he typed into his Blackberry personal data device, "Maybe my friends Muhammed, Omar and Khalid will volunteer." He said he intended to erase the offensive jibe. Instead of erasing it, Sileo pressed send to all, passing the message on to a range of fellow community leaders. "I made a huge mistake," Sileo said today. (Antelope Valley Press)
Americans back racial profiling of Middle Eastners
August 29: Most Americans expect a terrorist attack on the United States in the next few months and support the screening of people who look "Middle Eastern" at airports and train stations, a poll showed today. The Quinnipiac University Polling Institute said 62 percent of Americans were "very worried" or "somewhat worried" that terrorists would strike the nation in the next few months while 37 percent were "not too worried" or "not worried at all." The poll of 1,080 voters, conducted August 17-23, comes as many Americans are jittery after British authorities foiled a plot to blow up planes but is broadly in line with other surveys on expectations for another attack since September 11. By a 60 percent to 37 percent margin, respondents said authorities should single out people who look "Middle Eastern" for security screening at locations such as airports and train stations -- a finding that drew sharp criticism by civil liberties groups. (Reuters)
Judge rules that pig's head roller was racially motivated
August 31: A judge ruled that 33-year-old Brent Matthews violated Maine's Civil Rights Act when he tossed a pig's head into a Lewiston (Maine) mosque earlier this summer. Matthews has never denied that he tossed the pig's head into the Lewiston Islamic Center. He has said all along it was a practical joke. Justice Ellen Gorman said there was nothing remotely funny about what Matthews did and determined that his actions were racially motivated. As a result of the ruling, Matthews must abide by a court order that forbids him from threatening or using physical force against the mosque or it's members. He must also stay at least 150 feet away from the mosque. (WCSH6)
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