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Chronology of Islam in America (2007)
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
March 2007 Page II
Washington Times refuses to publish responses to biased coverage
March 15: Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today called the right-wing Washington Times newspaper "beyond hypocritical" for claiming to support a "robust media" while refusing to publish responses to alleged anti-Muslim bias in its reporting and commentary. The newspaper made that claim in an editorial today attacking the Washington-based group. In its editorial, the paper also falsely portrayed American Muslims as recent immigrants, despite the fact that the Islamic community has deep historical roots in this nation, beginning with the Muslim slaves who were brought to America from West Africa. The Times editorial stated: "This is a lesson [about a robust media] our Muslim brothers will learn sooner or later as they become accustomed to life in America." As evidence of the Washington Times' refusal to publish editorial responses from Muslims, CAIR cited a letter to the editor it sent to the paper earlier this week. That letter, headlined "Washington Times Seeks to Silence American Muslims," has not appeared in that newspaper. (CAIR Bulletin)
Chertoff & Senate committee discuss positive role of and challenges to Muslim Americans
March 16: The Muslim Public Affairs Council today commended the Department of Homeland Security for offering testimony before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, in which officials discussed the positive role of Muslim American communities. DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff and Daniel Sutherland, Officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, stressed the need for enhanced engagement between the government and American Arab, Muslim, Sikh and South Asian communities as a key toward improved security. Homeland Security Committee Chairman, Joe Lieberman (ID-CT) and Ranking Member Susan Collins (R-ME) presided over the hearing Wednesday, which was entitled "The Threat of Islamic Radicalism to the Homeland." Secretary Chertoff began his testimony by making the point that while extremism and radicalization is a large concern among European Muslim communities, this is not a phenomenon that we are observing in the United States. He explained that the American Muslim community is a strength for the United States. (MPAC Bulletin)
Cheap shot at Pascrell
March 16: Rep. Bill Pascrell is a New Jersey Democrat whose 8th District includes Passaic and Paterson, cities with significant Islamic communities. The other day, Pascrell arranged for a national Islamic civil liberties group to use a room in the Capitol basement for a panel discussion on relations between Muslims and the West. The House Republican Conference went ballistic.The conference provides policy research and other support services to GOP House members, and it said no way the new Democratic majority should be hosting meetings of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a group it called "apologists for suicide bombers." Those are tough words, and they did fit a few individuals who have been associated with CAIR over the years, one of whom was convicted of conspiring to train terrorists in Virginia. But the federal government doesn't think that troubling description of a few bad apples accurately portrays the group in general. The FBI and other agencies have repeatedly used CAIR to build bridges with the Muslim community, and the "apologist" tag certainly wasn't shared by the high-ranking Republican who met with the group at an Islamic center after 9/11: President Bush. (New Jersey Star-Ledger)
“The Secular Muslims” summit
March 17: a small group of self-proclaimed secular Muslims from North America and elsewhere gathered in St. Petersburg, Florida, recently for what they billed as a new global movement to correct the assumed wrongs of Islam and call for an Islamic Reformation. Across the state in Fort Lauderdale, Muslim leaders from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Washington-based advocacy group whose members the "secular" Muslims claim are radicals, denounced any notion of a Reformation as another attempt by the West to impose its history and philosophy on the Islamic world. The self-proclaimed secularists represent only a small minority of Muslims. The views among religious Muslims from CAIR more closely reflect the views of the majority, not only in the United States but worldwide. Yet Western media, governments and neoconservative pundits pay more attention to the secular minority. The St. Petersburg convention is but one example: It was carried live on (Islamophboe) Glenn Beck's conservative CNN show. Some of the organizers and speakers at the convention are well known thanks to the media spotlight: Irshad Manji, author of "The Trouble With Islam," and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the former Dutch parliamentarian and author of "Infidel," were but a few there claiming to have suffered personally at the hands of "radical" Islam. One participant, Wafa Sultan, declared on Glenn Beck's show that she doesn't "see any difference between radical Islam and regular Islam." (Washington Post)
Invitation to Islamophobe upsets Muslim
March 18: The decision by the FBI's Indianapolis office to bring in author Robert Spencer to talk to its anti-terrorism task force has a Plainfield-based Muslim organization concerned that the bureau is listening to an "Islamophobe" who distorts its faith.The FBI had planned to bring in Spencer this week to speak to Indiana's Joint Terrorism Task Force. His appearance was postponed because he had a scheduling conflict. Both Spencer and the FBI hope to reschedule. Louay Safi, director of leadership development with the Plainfield-based Islamic Society of North America, said bringing Spencer in to talk of Islam is akin to bringing an anti-Semite to talk about Jews or a Ku Klux Klan member to talk about race. (Indianapolis Star)
Court declines to hear case involving Maine Muslim
March 19: The Supreme Court refused today to consider the case of a Muslim immigrant from Maine found by a jury to have suffered workplace harassment. Abdul Azimi asked the justices to take his case after a federal jury declined to award compensation despite concluding that he was subjected to an oppressive and hostile work environment at Jordan’s Meats Inc. in Portland, Maine. After a six-day trial last year, jurors found that harassment from co-workers created a work environment that "was hostile to his race, religion or ethnic origin." But those same jurors declined to award damages because they said he was not harmed by the conduct. (Associated Press)
ADC Supports Bill to Combat Hate Crimes
March 21: The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) welcomes today's introduction of H.R. 1592, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007 (LLEHCPA) in the House of Representatives. This bill, commonly referred to as, “the hate crimes bill,” was introduced by Judiciary Chairman John Conyers and already has 137 cosponsors. The Senate will soon introduce an identical bill. LLEHCPA would provide increased protection for all Americans, including Arab-Americans, from being the victims of hate crimes. Arab-Americans have experienced a surge in hate crimes directed against them over the past several years. Immediately following the September 11 terrorist attacks, the FBI documented a 1,600 percent increase in hate crimes against those perceived to be Muslim or Arab and a 130 percent increase in incidents directed at individuals on the basis of ethnicity or national origin. (ADC Press Release)
Anti-Muslim bias on Capitol Hill
March 21: Bigotry shows its ugly face, not only on Main Street, but now in the halls of Congress. A recent target is Eighth District Congressman Bill Pascrell, Jr., D-Paterson, who represents a district where an increasingly large number of assertive Muslims and Arabs live. Indeed, this is the place often described by the congressman as "the most ethnically and religiously diverse area in the United States." Pascrell is now being criticized for facilitating a conference room for CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relations. The room is located in the Capitol basement. The aim of the panel discussion was to discuss relations between Muslims and the West ? a most timely topic. This courtesy is routinely extended to groups of various political affiliations and issues. CAIR reports that it held similar meetings in Congress in the past. Pascrell said of the incident that the building is "open to all Americans and should be available to encourage dialogue on the most relevant domestic and international issues of the day." (Herald News)
Six hate crimes reported in Hawaii during 2006
March 22: Six hate crimes were reported throughout Hawaii state in 2006, according a report by the state attorney general. The tally is the highest in the five years the state has been preparing the report. In 2002, two hate crimes were reported and just one crime followed each year thereafter. Those incidents included a group of young men who shouted anti-white epithets at another group in Waikiki. One member of the first group, a 21-year-old Hawaiian, tried to kick and punch one of the victims. In the other case, two servicemen assaulted three men leaving a downtown bar after shouting anti-Arab and anti-Muslim epithets. The victims suffered facial cuts, cracked teeth and bruises. (Associated Press)
Non-Muslims wear scarves in solidarity
March 23: Scarves for Solidarity, an event organized by the women of the Muslim Student Organization at MU, took place on Missouri University campus. The event encourages non-Muslim women to cover their hair for a day to show solidarity with Muslim women and to learn a little about life as an American Muslim. Similar events have been organized across the country, including one called “Wear a Hijab/Turban Day” in Fremont, Calif., organized in response to the 2006 killing of an Afghan woman in the community. The first Scarves for Solidarity event was organized in 2001 in Washington, following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. (Missourian)
ADC Calls for Congressional Inquiry into Bolton Remarks
March 23: The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) today calls on the United States Congress to conduct an investigation into remarks made by former US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton stating that the US deliberately resisted calls for an immediate ceasefire during the summer 2006 war in Lebanon. Bolton was quoted in an interview with BBC saying he was, "damned proud of what we did" to prevent an early ceasefire. In January, the US Department of State issued a preliminary report to Congress indicating that the State Department might have found evidence that Israel violated bilateral weapons agreements when it dropped US-made cluster bombs on civilian populations in Lebanon last summer. According to reports from international human rights organizations, it was determined that Israeli Defense Forces dropped more than 130,000 cluster bombs containing 1.2 million cluster bomblets in 498 locations in villages throughout southern Lebanon. These cluster bombs are in addition to those already present in southern Lebanon from previous Israeli operations. (ADC Press Release)
Al-Arian contempt order upheld
March 23: A federal appeals court has upheld a contempt-of-court finding against a former Florida college professor who admitted to aiding Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Sami Al-Arian. A three-judge panel of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this afternoon that Al-Arian had no grounds to defy a subpoena from a federal grand jury investigating Muslim charities in Northern Virginia. Judges William Traxler Jr., Diana Motz, and Dennis Shedd wrote that they were "unpersuaded" by Al-Arian's argument that a plea bargain he entered into after a six-month trial in Florida on terrorism support charges excused him from having to testify before a grand jury. (New York Sun)
Boston mosque project chills dialogue between Jews & Muslims
March 26: What began more than three years ago as a momentous groundbreaking on a $22 million mosque and Islamic cultural center has turned into a bitter public controversy that has chilled relations between leaders of Boston’s Jewish and Muslim communities. What’s causing the most friction between Jewish and Islamic leaders is a lawsuit filed by the Islamic Society of Boston, or ISB against the David Project, a pro-Israel educational group that has been among the most visible groups raising public questions about the project. Filed in November 2005, the suit charges the David Project, one of its employees, 13 other groups and individuals and two media outlets with defamation and conspiracy to keep the project from completion. The charges allege that the David Project and Steven Emerson of the anti-terrorist Investigative Project, who also is named in the ISB lawsuit, colluded behind the scenes to provide false, highly provocative and defamatory information to media outlets. “I have said, in every forum, this is not a battle between Muslims and Jews but between specific people, and we are dealing with it in court,” ISB assistant director Salma Kazmi says. For the past three years, Kazmi has co-chaired the Center for Jewish-Muslim Relations, a group she co-founded with David Dolev, program director for Temple Beth Shalom in Cambridge, Mass. The center has led discussions among Jewish and Muslim leaders on issues such as the importance of Israel to the Jewish community. But the suit has chilled dialogue with the ISB at the highest levels of Boston’s Jewish leadership, says Nancy Kaufman, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, which publicly backed the David Project after it was sued. (JTA)
ADC launches "End the Shame of NSEERS" ad campaign
March 28: The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) today launched the “End the Shame of NSEERS” Ad Campaign to shed light on the continuing problems faced by thousands of individuals as a result of the discriminatory and poorly constructed and implemented "Special Registration Program." In a specially-designed ad which will appear in periodicals across the United States, ADC calls on President Bush, DHS Secretary Chertoff, and Attorney General Gonzales to completely terminate this program and address its negative residual effects. In late 2002, the Department of Justice's Immigration and Naturalization Service (who has since been merged into the Department of Homeland Security-DHS and its component agency Immigration and Customs Enforcement-ICE) launched a campaign known as the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS) with Special Call-In Registration phases. (ADC Press Release)
Civil rights groups alarmed that census violated privacy in World War II,
urge Congress to ensure similar actions are not happening now
March 30: Following reports in USA Today that the Census Bureau gave American surveillance agencies information on persons of Japanese Ancestry during World War II, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) urged Congress to investigate and ensure that such practices do not occur today. The USA Today article was based on the research of William Seltzer of Fordham University and Dr. Margo Anderson of the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Their paper concludes that in 1943 the Census Bureau provided the Treasury Department with a list of all persons of Japanese ancestry in the Washington DC area. That information, gathered under a promise of confidentiality, was also shared with the FBI and other government agencies. The report also concludes that this action was not illegal, as it was authorized under the Second War Powers Act. (ADC Press Release)
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