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Chronology of Islam in America (2008)
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
July 2008
Seattle Police Memo on Religious, Ethnic Profiling
July 7: The Council on American-Islamic Relations today welcomed an internal memorandum from Seattle’s police chief cautioning against the use of religious or ethnic profiling in training programs. Chief Kerlikowske’s memo comes after CAIR-WA called on Port of Seattle Police to ensure that a recent two-day training course, titled “The Threat of Islamic Jihadists to the World,” offered a balanced perspective on Islam and Muslims. Local Muslims leaders had expressed concerns that the course would promote stereotypes and religious and ethnic profiling. CAIR-WA President Arsalan Bukhari said an incident in which apparently innocent travelers in the state were profiled for their "Middle Eastern" appearance points to the need for training that deals with issues of profiling and bias. He added that Muslims nationwide are concerned about the information law enforcement authorities are receiving on the subject of Islam. In May an emergency preparedness drill in Illinois, in which a fake "mosque" was stormed by law enforcement authorities. This sent the wrong message that all Islamic houses of worship may be potential security threats. An official later apologized for using the "mosque" in the drill. (CAIR Bulletin)
The FBI's plan to "profile" Muslims
July 10: The U.S. Justice Department is considering a change in the grounds on which the FBI can investigate citizens and legal residents of the United States. Till now, DOJ guidelines have required the FBI to have some evidence of wrongdoing before it opens an investigation. The impending new rules, which would be implemented later this summer, allow bureau agents to establish a terrorist profile or pattern of behavior and attributes and, on the basis of that profile, start investigating an individual or group. Agents would be permitted to ask “open-ended questions” concerning the activities of Muslim Americans and Arab-Americans. A person's travel and occupation, as well as race or ethnicity, could be grounds for opening a national security investigation. (Salon)
CAIR, ACLU Seek Records in Muslim Surveillance Case
July 15: Following news reports of a major security breach at the Strategic Technical Operations Center at Camp Pendleton, in which its chief and his staff operated a ring that stole surveillance files to give to local law enforcement, the ACLU Foundation of San Diego & Imperial Counties filed Public Records Act and Freedom of Information Act requests with the FBI, the U.S. Department of Defense, the San Diego Police Department and the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department today. The requests seek information on possibly unlawful surveillance of law-abiding members of the community merely because of their religion, and whether the federal government disclosed information arising from that surveillance to local law enforcement in San Diego County. An investigative article in the San Diego Union-Tribune on May 22, 2008 reported that “a massive number of files were taken from Camp Pendleton,” including “more than 100 FBI and Defense Department files,” and illegally turned over to local law enforcement in Los Angeles. A number of the records concern the Islamic Center of San Diego, which, according to the article, was “monitored by a federal surveillance program targeting Muslim groups.” (CAIR Bulletin)
Muslims Decry Laptop Searches at Border
July 23: Jawad Khaki, a corporate executive from Sammamish, was returning home from a business trip to Ireland and Germany last year when a customs agent at the airport asked him to turn on his cellphone. He already had told the agent in detail where he had traveled and why, so when the agent began looking over the to-do list and calendar in his phone, Khaki was shocked. Khaki's story joins what seem to be growing numbers of similar reports from people — many of them Muslims or of Middle Eastern or South Asian descent — who say that their laptops, cellphones or other electronic devices were searched or seized at airports or U.S. border crossings, and that they've been questioned extensively. In addition to seeing his cellphone searched last year, Khaki said he's been questioned extensively by customs or border agents each of the eight times he returned to the U.S. from abroad in the past year. They've asked about mosques he's attended, birth dates of relatives and whom he met with on his travels. Jameel Hyder, a manager at a technology company who lives in Sammamish, says he also has been stopped each of the five times he returned to the U.S. from various trips over the past two years. On his return from a business trip last November, customs agents asked him to boot up his laptop so they could look through his photos and asked him questions about which mosque he attended and activities he's involved in. "The one thing that's pretty obvious is it's not a random search," Hyder said. A Seattle-area imam, or Muslim prayer leader, said he, too, was asked to turn on his laptop to show photos to customs agents when he returned home last summer. The imam, who asked that his name not be used because he did not want to draw additional attention, also said he was asked to fill out a form asking which organizations he's involved in and what he thought of U.S. foreign policy. Khaki, Hyder and the imam are all U.S. citizens. (Seattle Times)
Professor Desecrates Eucharist, Koran in Anti-Religious Campaign
July 29: Christian groups are calling on the University of Minnesota at Morris to discipline biology professor Paul Z. Myers who has apparently carried out his threat to desecrate both the Eucharist and the Koran. But a Muslim group in the United States, meanwhile, is dismissing the episode as the behavior of a “bigot.” On July 24, he placed a video on his blog in which the Eucharist – the communion wafer that Catholics believe is the body and blood of Christ after it has been consecrated by a priest during Mass – was pierced with a rusty nail. Myers then nailed the Eucharist to pages torn out of the Koran, the Islamic holy book, and then threw everything in the trash. On July 8, Myers had pledged on his blog to “treat that silly book [the Koran] with disrespect” and to desecrate the Eucharist, which he referred to as “that *******d cracker.”“It’s one thing for a crank to say really hateful things, it’s another thing for a respected and educated professor to make such really hateful and vile comments and then link it to the university’s Web site,” said Susan Fani, the Catholic League’s director of communications. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), meanwhile, is not planning to take action, according to its spokesman, Ibrahim Hooper. “These are publicity seekers. They want attention, and they just try to provoke people in any way they can to get attention, and we’re not going to play their game,” Hooper told CNSNews.com. “Being a bigot is not illegal. Being stupid and wrongheaded and anti-Muslim, and intolerant – that’s not illegal.” Myers, an avowed atheist, said he started his campaign to protest what he considered the unfair treatment of a University of Central Florida student who was disciplined after he recently stole the Eucharist from a Catholic Mass to protest student fees that go towards religious services. (CNSNews.com)
Congressman Pascrell defends U.S. Muslims
July 30: Democratic Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. today stated his strong disagreement with statements made by Homeland Security Committee Ranking Member Peter King (R-NY) who expressed his belief that while American Muslims may not support terrorism they are not doing enough as a community to help law enforcement fight terrorism. This exchange occurred during a vital hearing of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk Assessment on the subject: “Reassessing the Threat: the Future of Al Qaeda and Its Implications for Homeland Security.” “America must view the Muslim community as a great asset to our homeland security effort and take real steps to engage them. We cannot risk becoming like Europe where Muslim citizens have been pushed to the margins of society and are looked at as objects of suspicion,” said Pascrell after the hearing. (Media Reports)
OK Muslim Denied Job Because of Islamic Scarf
July 31, 2008: The Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-OK) announced today that it has filed an EEOC complaint on behalf of a Muslim woman who was allegedly denied employment at an Abercrombie Kids store in that state because of the applicant's religiously-mandated headscarf, or hijab. The woman told CAIR-OK that a district manager claimed he could not hire her because her Islamic headscarf "does not fit the Abercrombie image." In a letter to Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Michael Jefferies, CAIR-OK asked the company to 1) offer the Muslim applicant a formal apology; 2) clarify the company's policy on religious accommodation, and 3) institute workplace sensitivity and diversity training. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employers from discriminating against individuals because of their religion in hiring, firing, and other terms and conditions of employment. The act also requires employers to reasonably accommodate the religious practices of an employee, unless doing so would create an "undue hardship" for the employer. (CAIR)
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