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Chronology of Islam in America (2013)
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
February 2013
Bias probe urged of shooting attack on Muslim family's home in Oklahoma
Feb 1: The Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-OK) today called on state and federal law enforcement agencies to investigate a possible bias motive for an alleged drive-by shooting attack last night on a Muslim family's home in Oklahoma City. CAIR-OK said a Muslim family of Iranian origin reported that multiple shots from an apparently high-caliber weapon or weapons hit the walls and windows of their home just after 8 p.m. last night. The attack occurred just days after the family's son was approached by an individual who asked him about his religion. A sign in front of the family's home shows a mosque and an Arabic inscription of the Muslim greeting "as-salaamu alaykum," or "peace be to you." No one was hurt in the shooting and police are investigating. CAIR-OK has contacted the Oklahoma City Police Department's Criminal Intent Unit and asked for a hate crime investigation. "Any time the home of a family belonging to an ethnic or religious minority is attacked in a potentially deadly manner, it is only prudent to investigate a possible bias motive," said CAIR-OK Executive Director Adam Soltani. Soltani said this incident comes following a rise in hate attacks targeting American Muslims and their institutions in the second half of 2012. [CAIR]
Masjid Al Noor reaches a historic settlement with the City of Lomita, CA
Feb 1: The Justice Department today announced a settlement with the city of Lomita, Calif., resolving allegations that the city violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA) when it denied the Islamic Center of the South Bay’s application to build a new mosque on its property. The settlement, which still must be approved by the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, is in the form of an agreed order and resolves a lawsuit filed today by the United States against the city. The case arose from the Lomita City Council’s 2010 denial of an application by the Islamic Center to take down the aging, separate structures on its property, which it has been using for worship and various other religious activities since 1985, and construct a single building that would serve its needs. The government’s complaint, which was filed with the court along with the agreed order resolving the lawsuit, alleges that the structures currently being used by the Islamic Center are insufficient to enable the community to come together for worship and fellowship or to perform religious rituals properly. The lawsuit alleged that the city’s denial of the Islamic Center’s application to construct a new center in place of these inadequate facilities imposed a substantial burden on the religious exercise of the Islamic Center and its members. “Religious freedom is among our most fundamental rights, and there are few aspects of that right more basic than the ability of a religious community to come together for worship and fellowship in a decent and appropriate setting on its own property,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “With RLUIPA, Congress has sought to ensure that this basic right is protected from encroachment by unjustified local zoning actions.” “The right to religious freedom includes the ability to build places of worship and to assemble at those places,” said U.S. Attorney André Birotte Jr. “This settlement will ensure that worshippers at the Islamic Center will be able to exercise their rights and enjoy the cherished freedoms in our Constitution.” As part of this settlement, which incorporates portions of a related agreement between the city and the Islamic Center, the city has agreed to consider a renewed application by the Islamic Center on an expedited schedule. The city also agreed that its leaders and employees who make land-use decisions will attend training on the requirements of RLUIPA. In addition, the city periodically will report to the Justice Department. RLUIPA prohibits land use decisions that discriminate based on religion or impose substantial and unjustified burdens on religious exercise. [Department of Justice - Office of Public Affairs]
Occupy unveils new 'debt clock' that shows how much the 1% owe the US
Feb 1: On January 30, members of Occupy Wall Street joined together with seniors, union members and community groups to challenge the influential Wall Street front group known as "Fix The Debt" that has been pushing for increased austerity measures in the US in the name of reducing the national deficit. The protesters marched to the famous "National Debt Clock" near the IRS building on 44th and 6th Ave and unveiled their own colorful debt clock that said, "Hey 1%! Want to Fix The Debt? Pay Your Damn Taxes!". This alternative debt clock displayed the total amount that the 1% and corporations have stolen from the US budget by exploiting tax loopholes, tax havens and tax cuts. The number? A staggering $2.3 trillion. The protest action, called Flip The Debt, aims to "flip the debate" over the national debt on and shift the focus onto who is actually responsible for the massive national deficit: global corporations and super wealthy that have rigged the system to avoid paying their fair share.
In coordination with the protest, the group launched an animated version of the Debt Clock on-line which shows the massive debt of the 1% growing in real time. Within two days, their facebook page already had recieved over 3,000 facebook 'likes' and photos of the protest had received hundreds of shares. These actions were part of a nationwide day of action happening in 50 cities. A simultaneous action in Boston included a street performance featuring a finely dressed wall street executive with a pig's head, dancing to a parody of Kanye West's "Gold Digger". The “Fix the Debt” Campaign is the latest incarnation of a multi-decade effort by wealthy Wall Street investors to cut back core social support programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Ironically, many of its members–General Electric, Bank of America, Verizon, Boeing–are themselves guilty of not paying taxes. "It's incredible that these super wealthy CEOs are demanding we balance the budget on the backs of working people, when they won't even pay a fair share of taxes themselves," said Ben Master of United NY, one of the organizations calling for the actions. "But I guess the sheer gall of Wall Street shouldn't surprise anyone anymore."
The $2.3 trillion figure that the group is using comes from two numbers. First, the US has had to borrow over $1 trillion to pay for the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts for people with incomes incomes over $250,000. Second, since 2001 global corporations (many of them members of Fix The Debt) have dodged about $100 billion in taxes a year, using loopholes and offshore tax havens. The $2.3 trillion they have evaded is actually larger in size than the total number of cuts, $1.6 trillion, that Congress is debating and Fix the Debt is arguing for. Meanwhile, the $100 billion a year that corporations have evaded in taxes continues to grow daily. "There's two problems. First, these corporations are trying to avoid taxes. Second, the taxes we do have are being wasted on war." Said Joe Therrien, a member of Occupy Wall Street. "If we going to make cuts anywhere, it should be to wasteful pentagon spending, not basic services." [Occupy Wall Street.Net]
Chicago is ground zero in U.S. Muslim renaissance
Feb 5: Religious affiliation may be on the wane in America, a recent Pew study asserts, but you wouldn’t know it walking into the storefront near the corner of West 63rd Street and South Fairfield Avenue (Chicago). Inside a former bank in a neighborhood afflicted with gang violence, failed businesses and empty lots, a team of volunteers drawn by their religious faith is working to make life better for Chicago’s poorest residents. The free medical clinic has expanded its hours; 20-something college graduates are clamoring to get into its internship program; rap stars swing by its alcohol-free poetry slams; and the budget has increased tenfold in the past decade. The storefront belongs to Chicago’s Inner-City Muslim Action Network (IMAN) and it is part of a wave of new Muslim institutions emerging at an unprecedented pace. More than a quarter of the nation’s 2,106 mosques were founded in the last decade, according to a recent University of Kentucky study, and new social service organizations, many of them run by 20- and 30-something American-born Muslims, are thriving as never before. This surge in new Muslim institutions, led by a nationwide network of young activists, “is the most important story in Islam in America right now,” said Eboo Patel, founder of the college campus-based Interfaith Youth Core. Young Muslims “are going about the process of institution building in concretely American ways,” said Kambiz Ghanea Bassiri of Reed College, author of “A History of Islam in America,” adding that the 9/11 terrorist attacks shaped a generation of young Muslim activists. “The sheer numbers are absolutely new and the funding available for these organizations is absolutely new.” Chicago may be ground zero of this trend: The city’s 15-year-old IMAN is one of several young Muslim organizations inspiring young Muslims to connect with their faith. “Charity is an important part of our religion,” said Dr. Adiba Khan, an IMAN staff member. Other organizations include CAMP, the Council for the Advancement of Muslim Professionals; the city’s umbrella Muslim federation, which organizes the nation’s largest political gathering of young Muslims at the Illinois State Capitol each spring; and the Webb Foundation, a five-year-old organization dedicated to shaping a new model of diverse, indigenous American Islam. A new campaign known as ‥MyJihad, in which American Muslims describe their personal faith struggles in advertisements on buses and in transit stations got its start in Chicago before expanding to San Francisco and Washington, D.C. “There are good things happening in many places, but Chicago seems to me to kind of have it all,” said Jane I. Smith, who recently retired as a dean at Harvard Divinity School. “It’s got all different backgrounds represented, and different ways of approaching Islam.” Chicago’s Muslim community is among the nation’s largest and most diverse. About 400,000 Muslims live here, and the 15 new mosques built in the last decade are just one indication of wealth, growth and political connectedness. Smith sees signs of a kind of Muslim reformation here, not in any single watershed moment but in myriad significant movements that are utterly new. [Monique Parsons - Washington Post]
Virginia House of Delegates and Senate Approve Two Year Moratorium on Drones
Feb 5: Richmond, VA – The ACLU of Virginia applauded Virginia legislators as the House of Delegates and Senate today approved by overwhelming bi-partisan votes in both houses legislation that calls for a two year moratorium on the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, by law enforcement and regulatory agencies in the Commonwealth. “We are very pleased that Virginia is the first state in which both chambers of its legislature have approved measures that limit the use of drones,” said Claire Guthrie Gastañaga, Executive Director of the ACLU of Virginia. “We are honored to be working with Delegate C. Todd Gilbert, Delegate Ben Cline, and Senator Donald McEachin, and we are grateful for their leadership on this precedent setting legislation. Virginia legislators are wise to anticipate the potential negative impact on civil liberties and privacy rights unfettered access to drone technology could have and to take the additional time needed to develop sensible and reasonable policies that balance the benefit of such technology with the privacy rights of Virginians. We hope that the Governor will agree with this approach and sign the legislation when it gets to his desk.” “The big policy question is whether we want to live in a free society as envisioned by our Founding Fathers or an Orwellian surveillance society,” said Delegate Gilbert, who introduced HB 1616 regulating the use of drones by law enforcement and regulatory agencies. “I’m glad to see that my colleagues agree with me in our preference for a Commonwealth that values privacy and personal freedom over Big Brother.” “No doubt drones have amazing capabilities,” said Senator Donald McEachin, who introduced SB 1331, the senate version of a bill regulating the use of drones. “But our forefathers understood the value of our freedoms and we must weigh the technological advances against our constitutional rights. Our neighborhoods and communities do not need and shouldn’t be subject to constant government monitoring. I thank my colleagues for putting a hold on using this technology so that we can adequately discuss how and when we use it.”
In addition to the ACLU of Virginia, other organizations in support of legislation regulating the use of drones in the state include the Virginia Tea Party Patriots Federation, the Virginia Campaign for Liberty, the Virginia Agribusiness Council, the Virginia Farm Bureau, and the Virginia Poultry Federation. The ACLU of Virginia and Del. Gilbert announced in July that we were working together on legislation to regulate the use of unmanned aerial drones in the Commonwealth. As introduced, HB 1616 and SB 1331 took a regulatory approach that addressed privacy concerns and the need for public oversight of any use of drones and included usage restrictions, image retention restrictions, public notice requirements, and policies regarding auditing and effectiveness tracking.
Delegate Ben Cline also introduced HB 2012, which proposed a moratorium on the use of drones. As the legislative process moved forward, it became apparent that a moratorium permitting careful consideration of all of the privacy and other interests at stake was a reasonable legislative policy choice at this time. HB 1616 was incorporated into HB 2012 which passed the House of Delegates on a vote of 83-16. SB 1331 was amended to mirror in many respects the House moratorium and was passed by the Senate on a vote of 36-2. The news of the Virginia General Assembly approving the moratorium on drones comes just one day after the Charlottesville City Council adopted what is believed to be the country’s first anti-drone resolution adopted by a locality. [PDA Community.Org Virginia]
Chilling Legal Memo from Obama DOJ Justifies Assassination of US Citizens
Feb 6: The most extremist power any political leader can assert is the power to target his own citizens for execution without any charges or due process, far from any battlefield. The Obama administration has not only asserted exactly that power in theory, but has exercised it in practice. In September 2011, it killed US citizen Anwar Awlaki in a drone strike in Yemen, along with US citizen Samir Khan, and then, in circumstances that are still unexplained, two weeks later killed Awlaki's 16-year-old American son Abdulrahman with a separate drone strike in Yemen. Since then, senior Obama officials including Attorney General Eric Holder and John Brennan, Obama's top terrorism adviser and his current nominee to lead the CIA, have explicitly argued that the president is and should be vested with this power. Meanwhile, a Washington Post article from October reported that the administration is formally institutionalizing this president's power to decide who dies under the Orwellian title "disposition matrix". When the New York Times back in April, 2010 first confirmed the existence of Obama's hit list, it made clear just what an extremist power this is, noting: "It is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, for an American to be approved for targeted killing." The NYT quoted a Bush intelligence official as saying "he did not know of any American who was approved for targeted killing under the former president". When the existence of Obama's hit list was first reported several months earlier by the Washington Post's Dana Priest, she wrote that the "list includes three Americans." What has made these actions all the more radical is the absolute secrecy with which Obama has draped all of this. Not only is the entire process carried out solely within the Executive branch - with no checks or oversight of any kind - but there is zero transparency and zero accountability. The president's underlings compile their proposed lists of who should be executed, and the president - at a charming weekly event dubbed by White House aides as "Terror Tuesday" - then chooses from "baseball cards" and decrees in total secrecy who should die. The power of accuser, prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner are all consolidated in this one man, and those powers are exercised in the dark. In fact, The Most Transparent Administration Ever™ has been so fixated on secrecy that they have refused even to disclose the legal memoranda prepared by Obama lawyers setting forth their legal rationale for why the president has this power. During the Bush years, when Bush refused to disclose the memoranda from his Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) that legally authorized torture, rendition, warrantless eavesdropping and the like, leading Democratic lawyers such as Dawn Johnsen (Obama's first choice to lead the OLC) vehemently denounced this practice as a grave threat, warning that "the Bush Administration's excessive reliance on 'secret law' threatens the effective functioning of American democracy" and "the withholding from Congress and the public of legal interpretations by the [OLC] upsets the system of checks and balances between the executive and legislative branches of government." But when it comes to Obama's assassination power, this is exactly what his administration has done. It has repeatedly refused to disclose the principal legal memoranda prepared by Obama OLC lawyers that justified his kill list. It is, right now, vigorously resisting lawsuits from the New York Times and the ACLU to obtain that OLC memorandum. In sum, Obama not only claims he has the power to order US citizens killed with no transparency, but that even the documents explaining the legal rationale for this power are to be concealed. He's maintaining secret law on the most extremist power he can assert. Last night, NBC News' Michael Isikoff released a 16-page "white paper" prepared by the Obama DOJ that purports to justify Obama's power to target even Americans for assassination without due process (the memo is embedded in full below). This is not the primary OLC memo justifying Obama's kill list - that is still concealed - but it appears to track the reasoning of that memo as anonymously described to the New York Times in October 2011. This new memo is entitled: "Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a US Citizen Who is a Senior Operational Leader of Al-Qa'ida or An Associated Force". It claims its conclusion is "reached with recognition of the extraordinary seriousness of a lethal operation by the United States against a US citizen". Yet it is every bit as chilling as the Bush OLC torture memos in how its clinical, legalistic tone completely sanitizes the radical and dangerous power it purports to authorize. I've written many times at length about why the Obama assassination program is such an extreme and radical threat - see here for one of the most comprehensive discussions, with documentation of how completely all of this violates Obama and Holder's statements before obtaining power - and won't repeat those arguments here. Instead, there are numerous points that should be emphasized about the fundamentally misleading nature of this new memo. [Glenn Greenwald - The Guardian]
2012 US Presidential Campaign Cost $7 Billion - Election Commission
Feb 6: Parties, candidates and other organizations put up about $7 billion in the 2012 presidential election in the US. It was the first presidential vote following the Supreme Court ruling that granted corporations freedom of political speech. And like every American presidential election before it, it set the record for most expensive campaign in history. Political parties – mostly, but not only, the Democrats and Republicans – ended up spending $2 billion, while political committees accounted for $2.1 billion of the spending. Candidate campaigns spent about $3.2 billion. Federal Election Commission (FEC) chairwoman Ellen Weintraub revealed the number at an agency meeting. As a result of the massive cash flow, the FEC had 11 million pages of campaign funding-related documents to process in 2012 alone. Election spending has blown up following Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the 2010 ruling that saw the Supreme Court equate the freedom of speech provision of the First Amendment with political donations by unions, corporations, political action committees and others. The decision means that, for example, even a foreign government's shell corporation would have free rein to influence American elections. [RT]
Okla. Muslim Air Force vet barred from returning to Qatar
Feb 6: The Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-OK) reported today that Muslim Air Force veteran Saadiq Long was barred from returning to Qatar after spending the last three months in the state visiting and caring for his terminally-ill mother. CAIR-OK said Long attempted to check in with Delta Air Lines at Will Rogers Airport this morning and was informed by a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agent that he is still on the no-fly list and would not be allowed to travel at this time. No further details were provided by the TSA agent. "Just as an American citizen should not be prevented from returning to his or her homeland, no citizen should be prevented from leaving the country without due process of law," said CAIR-OK Executive Director Adam Soltani. With the assistance of CAIR-OK, Long arrived in the state on November 19, 2012, after a six-month struggle to return to the United States after being placed on the no-fly list.Long is seeking to return to Qatar where he currently resides with his wife and child. He works in Qatar as a teacher and translator. While in Oklahoma, Long and his family have faced harassment by the FBI. [CAIR]
Michigan gun shop agrees to stop sale of skeleton targets wearing Muslim attire
Feb 7: A local chapter of a national Islamic civil liberties group is praising the decision of a Royal Oak gun shop to discontinue selling targets of a skeleton wearing traditional Muslim attire. The Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI) welcomed the decision by Target Sports in Royal Oak. CAIR-MI Executive Director Dawud Walid met with the owner of Target Sports, to voice concern that a gun range target that depicts a skeleton with a long beard dressed in a turban and robe may provoke gun owners to view local Muslims who wear such garb as enemies. The owner agreed. Walid said he had received a complaint about the targets today, and walked into the gun store and bought two of the targets before introducing himself and expressing his concerns. “He gave us a verbal promise to stop selling the targets,” Walid said. “It was an extremely non-hostile meeting.” The targets, manufactured by Thompson Targets in Canton Ohio, are shipped throughout the country, and Walid was checking with other gun shops in metro-Detroit to see if they are carrying them. “Our concern isn’t primarily being offended,” he said. “It’s a safety issue. In metro-Detroit, there are law abiding, peaceful Muslims walking the streets of Hamtramck and Detroit who are dressed like this in the target. It is problematic. There seems to be a dehumanization of Muslims.” [Detroit Free Press]
29 Anti-Islam Bills Introduced Nationwide in 2013
Feb 13: This year’s batch of bans of sharia/international law use by state courts looks very different than those of the past several years. After criticism that a) past versions would effectively cripple businesses who have to sign international contracts and b) that bans on references to the law and court decisions of other nations would make the judicial determinations of tribal courts in the U.S. enforceable, most such bills have been completely rewritten. Specifically, most now specify the prohibition on the use of foreign law/sharia (1) applies only to a particular case type (such as family law or domestic relations) (2) does not infringe on the right to contract (3) does not apply to not apply to a corporation, partnership, limited liability company, etc. (4) does not apply to recognition or use of tribal court decisions in state courts (5) does not apply to ecclesiastical matters within a denomination. Even with these modifications, as in the past, most such bills are failing to advance in the legislatures. [Gavel to Gavel]
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