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Chronology of Islam in America (2013)
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
May 2013
CAIR files lawsuit against Michigan Department of Corrections for failure to accommodate Muslim inmates
May 2: The Michigan Chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations, CAIR- MI, filed a lawsuit last week against the Michigan Department of Corrections for not providing adequate nutrition for Muslim inmates throughout the month of Ramadan, during which Muslims are religiously required to refrain from consuming food and beverages from sunrise to sunset. The case also challenges the authorities for not providing halal food to Muslim inmates. Muslims are mandated by their religion to only eat halal meat, obtained from animals slaughtered in accordance with Islamic tradition. Michigan law requires correctional facilities to provide inmates with a diet that contains 2600 to 2900 calories daily. But the lawsuit claims that "upon information and belief," meals offered to Muslim inmates during Ramadan do not fill the nutritional quota required by the State. "The daily caloric intake on the 'Ramadan Bagged Meal' menu ranges, from approximately 1,100 calories to approximately 1,400 calories, depending on the day," reads the lawsuit filed by CAIR-MI on behalf of many Muslim prisoners."Forcing Muslim inmates to sacrifice half of their diet amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, which is prohibited by the Constitution," said CAIR-MI attorney Lena Masri.She added that the case targets both policies that concern the Ramadan diet and halal meat, but the two issues are compounded during Ramadan, when Muslim prisoners are forced to eat the non-halal meat served by their facilities to maintain a somewhat healthy diet.... A Muslim inmate had similarly challenged the lack of halal food in Ohio prisons in 2011. The case was settled in January 2012, but no change was made in the policy regarding food preparation in the State's prisons. According the Associated Press, the State of Ohio argued that serving halal food "could bankrupt the State's food service system, because thousands of inmates have declared themselves Muslim." [Arab American]
Number of names on U.S. counter-terrorism database jumps
May 2: The number of names on a highly classified U.S. central database used to track suspected terrorists has jumped to 875,000 from 540,000 only five years ago, a U.S. official familiar with the matter said. Among those was suspected Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, whose name was added in 2011. The increase in names is due in part to security agencies using the system more in the wake of the failed 2009 attack on a plane by "underpants bomber" Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in Detroit. Intelligence and law enforcement officials acknowledged in Congress that they had missed clues to that attack despite Abdulmutallab's name appearing in the main database, known as TIDE. Maintained by the National Counterterrorism Center, the highly classified database is not a "watchlist" but instead is a repository of information on people whom U.S. authorities see as known, suspected or potential terrorists from around the world. The "Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment" is a master database which agencies use to build other catalogs of possible terrorists, like the "no-fly" list which prevents people who feature on it from boarding airplanes. The official familiar with the latest statistics said that even though the number of TIDE entries has grown substantially, this does not mean that the data is less manageable as intelligence agencies have gotten better at figuring how to extract information from the oceans of data. However, Karen Greenberg, an expert in counter-terrorism policy at Fordham University, questioned whether the growth in the database's size made it easier for officials to spot threats before they materialize. [Reuters]
Muslims in Maryland petition schools to close on Eid, like on Christmas, Yom Kippur
May 2: Schools (in Maryland) are usually closed on Easter Monday and Rosh Hashanah—why not Eid al-Fitr? That’s the question Mimi Hassanein, a resident of Brinkow, Maryland., asks herself every time the Eids fall on a school day. The two most important Islamic holidays —Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha —are traditionally spent praying and feasting with family and friends. But Hassanein says that every year, her grandchildren and other Muslim youth in her school district are forced to choose between their religion and their grades. “Of course it’s hard when they miss a class and have to make up an exam,” the grandmother told the New York Daily News. “But it’s like asking them to go to school on Christmas.”Hassanein says the debate is an old one in the Montgomery County Public School (MCPS) system. It echoes similar discussions brought up by Muslim activists across America. Public schools need a valid secular reason to institute a new holiday — otherwise, they would appear to be favoring a specific religion. But the fact remains that many American school districts have historically scheduled breaks around religious holidays. Following state mandates, MCPS closes for Christmas, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah and Passover. After immigrating to America from Egypt 42 years ago, Hassanein sent three children through the MCPS school system. She now has 15 grandchildren in the school and worries that they are losing their Muslim identities. The grandmother, along with several other Muslim activists in her state, has started an Equality 4 Eid campaign, hoping to add the two Eids to the list of holidays. Six American school systems with significant Muslim populations do close down for Eid, according to Maryland’s branch of the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MD). As Montgomery County’s Muslim population continues to grow, activists at CAIR-MD say the unequal treatment is getting difficult to hide. [New York Daily News]
Anti-Islam bill dies in Florida Senate
May 3: The Florida Senate today dropped a controversial anti-Islam bill that Muslim, Jewish and civil rights leaders criticized as "unconstitutional and unnecessary." The bill was based on a template promoted by an anti-Muslim extremist. The Tampa Bay Times reported today: "The bill was scheduled for a third reading Friday (5/3/2013), but it would have taken a unanimous vote to advance the bill in the Senate. The bill's sponsor, Sen. Alan Hays, R-Umatilla, decided not to try for a unanimous vote because on Thursday, the bill (SB 58) failed to get the two-thirds vote needed to bring it to the Senate floor and the vote was 25-14, one vote short. The bill passed the House April 18th by a vote of 79-39." [AMP Report]
Greeting card turns veiled Muslim doll into terrorist doll
May 5: In the latest sign of rising Islamophobia in the country, the seven-million strong American Muslim community was shocked at the fabrication of a birthday card that depicts a veiled girl doll as a suicide bomber who’ll “Blow Your Brains Out.” Featuring a photo of a Muslim doll with a Hijab, the talking bubbles placed on top of the doll’s photo read, “The Talking Doll, Pull string for message, if you dare,” and “She’ll Love You To Death! She’ll Blow Your Brains Out!” “The unmistakable message behind the “humor” is that even the most peaceful looking Muslims are synonymous and exchangeable with terrorists,” according to Ahmed Rehab, Executive Director of the Chicago office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The controversial card was available until it sold out Friday at a Chicago card and novelties store. The store’s owner credited the Boston Marathon bombing for boosting sales and said Saturday he plans to reorder the $2.95 suicide bomber card “because they’re selling well.” The controversial card is based on an actual doll designed by Desi Doll Company called “Aamina, the Muslim Doll.” The doll teaches kids religious greetings and sayings in Arabic and Urdu with messages like “Assalamu Alaikum" (the Muslim greeting that means peace be upon you) and “Let’s play together insha’Allah," (meaning if God wills it.) The doll was the brainchild of an entrepreneurial mother of three in the hopes of better teaching her kids Urdu and Arabic. “The joke is that if you wear a hijab, you’re a terrorist — it’s that primitive,” said Ahmed Rehab. “It’s an ugly stereotype. Muslim women who wear the hijab face dirty looks, catcalls and even abuse — and it’s connected to irresponsible ‘jokes’ like this.” In an op-ed for The Chicago Monitor, Rehab wrote that the mother of three who founded Desi Doll Co. probably would never imagine her “laudable endeavor could be twisted into such a bigoted excuse from humor to by another entrepreneur who does not seem as concerned with the message he would be conveying to his own children.” [AMP Report]
Muslim development plans meet resistance in rural Maryland
May 5: A Muslim group’s effort to move its campus from College Park to Maryland’s rural Howard County is being met with opposition from local residents, who say dense construction plans for the site would spoil the quiet character of the area. Although both sides insist that the debate turns solely on setting zoning precedent, it marks the latest in a series of disputes across the country in which locals have resisted the introduction of Islamic centers to their communities. The Maryland debate began last summer, when the Dar-us-Salaam community proposed replacing its overcrowded facility. The center would be built on about 66 acres of land once home to a Catholic school 45 miles north of the District. Bordered by thoroughbred horse farms, the property is about a 15-minute drive to the nearest Starbucks, Wal-Mart or McDonald's. Islamic center planners initially talked about sweeping renovations to the former Catholic school, with a massive five-sided mosque and cultural center. Early reports indicated plans to construct underground parking and build dormitories to accommodate 5,000 worshippers, though the community’s representatives have dismissed those suggestions.
The relocation hinges on a change to zoning restrictions — being sought by the foundation that operated the Catholic Woodmont school to enhance the value of the property — that limit the size and scope of development. Even if the change is approved by a five-member planning board and upheld by the County Council, another tenant — a school, a nursing home or an office park — could sweep in to outbid the religious community and develop the land. At planning commission meetings, marathon public hearings and in conversation, residents who say they chose to live in the area because of its pastoral character talk about water and sewer capacity and site density. Opponents number in the hundreds and have an attorney. Although they are vehement that their views are not based on anti-Muslim sentiment, a sensitivity to the perception of religious discrimination is never far from the discussion. [The Washington Times]
Mayoral candidates spar over NYPD's surveillance Of Muslims
May 5: City Controller John Liu called the NYPD’s surveillance of Muslims unconstitutional at a forum dedicated to Muslim and Arab American issues today. Asked whether the NYPD’s surveillance program was unconstitutional, Liu was the only major candidate to say it is. “No offense to you guys here - how can anybody think that it’s OK to surveil or spy on people just because they’re Muslim?” Liu said. The NYPD’s program has involved monitoring mosques, cafes and bookstores in Muslim neighborhoods, and Muslim student association. Former Controller Bill Thompson stopped short of calling the surveillance unconstitutional, but strongly condemned it. “Is it right? Absolutely not. Should it be done? Positively not. Would I allow it? Definitely not,” he said. “To single any group out because of what they believe in, the religion that they worship, and who they are, that isn’t New York City, that isn’t this country, that isn’t what we believe in.”’ The six Democratic candidates, plus Independence Party favorite Adolfo Carrion, all said that as mayor they would add two Muslim holidays as days off on the public school calendar. The City Council passed a resolution in favor of adding the days, Id al-Fitr and Id al-Adha, but Mayor Bloomberg balked saying there was no room for more time off. [New York Daily News]
American Islamic Congress and pro-Israel funders promote Islamophobes
May 7: On 18 April, three days after a bombing killed three and left many more wounded at the Boston marathon, a figure unknown to most Americans stepped suddenly into the national spotlight. At a nationally broadcast interfaith service addressed by President Barack Obama, a Mauritanian-born social media activist named Nasser Weddady appeared on stage as the designated representative of Boston’s Muslim community. Introduced as the chairman of the New England Interfaith Council and the civil rights outreach director for the American Islamic Congress (AIC), Weddady delivered a well-received sermon referencing Jewish and Islamic scripture on non-violence. Unlike the notable Jewish, Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Protestant religious figures chosen to speak at the service, Weddady was not an ordained clergy member, nor was he known to many members of the community he claimed to represent. In fact, he was a last-minute replacement for Suhaib Webb, a Muslim educator and imam of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, the largest Muslim house of prayer in New England. Commenting on Twitter that the office of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick “made the call” to replace him, Webb said the governor chose “Muhammad Weddady,” misidentifying Nasser Weddady. When another Twitter user asked Webb who Weddady was, he responded, “No idea.”
A report by the right-wing, pro-Israel website JNS.org suggested that Webb’s replacement by Weddady was politically motivated (“Muslim Brotherhood-linked mosque’s imam replaced as speaker at service for Boston Marathon attack victims,” 21 April 2013). According to the article, groups including self-styled “terror expert” Steven Emerson’s Investigative Project on Terrorism, the anti-Muslim outfit Americans for Peace and Tolerance created by David Project founder Charles Jacobs, and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) claimed Webb’s mosque “has an anti-Semitic and anti-Israel history that started with its founding by members of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, the parent organization of Hamas.”The allegations stemmed from a failed campaign directed by Jacobs and assisted by the ADL, Emerson and other anti-Muslim elements to block the construction of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center. In May 2010, after the dust cleared, Governor Patrick appeared at the mosque, seemingly rebuking the cast of Islamophobes that smeared it as a terrorist front. Patrick told the congregation, “Yours is a peaceful faith, and I know that … .” Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley also offered support for the mosque, dispatching a staffer to attend Patrick’s speech and earmarking $50,000 in state funds to “sensitivity training for law enforcement officials” (“‘Yours is a peaceful faith’,” Boston Globe, 23 May 2010).
Despite its claim to promote tolerance, the American Islamic Congress has depended on substantial support from the very same elements that fought tooth and nail to sabotage the Islamic Society of Boston, and which seem determined to undermine Muslim communal organizing efforts across the country...According to Internal Revenue Service 990 information filings, the AIC is funded largely by a pool of right-wing donors responsible for bankrolling key players in America’s Islamophobia industry, from Charles Jacobs to Emerson’s Investigative Project on Terrorism and Daniel Pipes’ Middle East Forum. [ by Max Blumenthal - Electronic Intefada]
ADC urges DHS to grant Abu Ghraib victims access to the US
May 8: Today the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) requested that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) permit three Iraqi nationals entry into the United States. The three individuals, all of whom were tortured at Abu Ghraib, were to arrive to the United States to testify to the atrocities they suffered at Abu Ghraib. The three individuals are plaintiffs in a lawsuit against CACI Premier Technology, Inc., a contracting firm which is alleged to have tortured the victims. The plaintiffs are represented by ADC Michigan Advisory Board Member, Attorney Shereef Akeel of the law firm Akeel & Valentine.
Despite being granted valid visas, the plaintiffs were not permitted to board a flight to the US on March 15, 2013. As a result of the circumstances, the defendant has filed multiple motions, moving for dismissal of the pending case, and sanctions against the individuals. In a letter to Secretary Napolitano, ADC expressed, “American law allows for the doors of our federal courts to be opened to Aliens to come to America to seek legal redress against those who committed crimes against humanity. The plaintiffs have the right to bring this action, and provide their testimony. Preventing the plaintiffs from exercising this right, by barring them from flying to the US, would be adverse to American law, and public policy.”
The case, Suhail Najim Abdullah Al Shmari et. al., v. CACI International Inc., et. al. (Case Number 08-cv-0827 GBL-JFA), is on docket at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division. Multiple hearings are scheduled for Friday May 10, 2013. The plaintiffs are represented by ADC Michigan Advisory Board Member, Attorney Shereef Akeel of the law firm Akeel & Valentine. ADC requested that the torture victims be given the right to come to the United States and seek accountability for the atrocities that happened in Abu Ghraib. The victims should have their day in court and be permitted to testify against those that are allegedly responsible for the atrocities. [ADC]
National Household Survey shows Muslim population fastest-growing religion in Canada
May 8: Ottawa - The Islamic centre in Saskatoon is experiencing growing pains. Friday services have been split into two, so local streets aren’t clogged with traffic. City officials and nearby residents are working with the centre to answer questions such as: where to put more parking? “We have been experiencing this kind of steady increase for a while,” said Amin Elshorbagy, president of the Canadian Islamic Congress and a Saskatoon resident. “We can see this in terms of the need to expand our infrastructure. Most of our Islamic centres are becoming very crowded.” Statistics released today confirm what can already be seen: more mosques with busier prayer services and the increasing prevalence of women dressed in hijabs and niqabs in all walks of life. Islam is the fastest-growing religious group in the country. Across Canada, the Muslim population is growing at a rate exceeding other religions, according to Statistics Canada. It is even growing faster than the number of Canadians who identify themselves as having no religion, though just barely, according to the National Household Survey released today. The Muslim population exceeded the one-million mark in 2011, according to the survey, almost doubling its population for the second-consecutive decade. Muslims now represent 3.2 per cent of the country’s total population, up from the two per cent recorded in 2001. The majority of growth in the Muslim population is the result of immigration, as it is with Sikhs, Hindus and Buddhists, with the largest share coming from Pakistan over the past five years, according to Statistics Canada. Muslims are also the youngest religious group in the country with a median age of about 28 years old. [canada.com]
The FBI Doesn't Think It Needs a Warrant to Read Your Email
May 9: You may think your email is private, but federal investigators may not agree. Documents uncovered via Freedom Of Information Act requests by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) suggest the FBI is not obtaining warrants to read email, citing an outdated federal computing law from the 1980s. According to an excerpt from the 2012 FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide: “In enacting the [Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA)], Congress concluded that customers may not retain a “reasonable expectation of privacy” in information sent to network providers….. If the contents of an unopened message are kept beyond six months or stored on behalf of the customer after the e-mail has been received or opened, it should be treated the same as a business record in the hands of a third party, such as an accountant or attorney.In that case, the government may subpoena the records from the third party without running afoul of either the Fourth or Fifth Amendment.” ECPA, the law governing access to email and cloud stored data, was passed at a time when the cost of online storage was so high it seemed unthinkable that anyone would store data there indefinitely, so anything left on networked storage for longer than 180 days was considered abandoned and required only an administrative subpoena to access. But in the time since it became law, the price of online storage went down and many people started to rely on free cloud based email solutions like Gmail or Yahoo! Mail as digital storage lockers.
There have been numerous efforts to update ECPA to be more in line with current consumer behavior and the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unwarranted searches and seizures, but none as of yet have succeeded. The most recent attempt to update the law to clearly require a probable cause warrant hit a major milestone in April when S.B. 607, a standalone fix, was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Rep. Matt Salmon (R-AZ) introduced a companion bill to the House, although a similar proposal was already introduced by Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Ted Poe (R-TX) and Suzan DelBene (D-WA) earlier this year. But while the law has not yet been updated, the courts and tech companies are adapting to the way consumers use these services in the modern era. In the 2010 case United States v. Warshak, a Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals panel including two Republican-appointed judges ruled email providers cannot be compelled to turn over the content of messages without a probable cause warrant regardless of how long it has been stored in the cloud, but that ruling only applies to the four states in the Sixth Circuits’ jurisdiction. Earlier this year a number of tech companies including Google ,Microsoft, Facebook, and Yahoo announced they go beyond ECPA and require warrants for email content data on Fourth Amendment grounds. [Alter Net]
A word of truth on Jihad and Islam
May 9: There is a growing attempt by some commentators to label the recent bombings in Boston as "jihad" and to blame the deadly blasts on a non-existent concept they call "radical Islam."I call "radical Islam" non-existent because radicalism or extremism is not permissible in Islam. Islam prohibits extremism and an essential part of the faith is moderation. A more accurate term might be "Al-Qaeda ideology." The Quran, Islam's foundational holy text, states clearly: "We made you to be a community of the middle way, so that (with the example of your lives) you might bear witness to the truth before all mankind." (Quran, 2:143) The Quran also states: "O you who believe! Stand out firmly for justice, as witnesses to God, even against yourselves, or your parents, or your kin, and whether it be (against) rich or poor: for God can best protect both." (Quran, 4:35) There is no such thing as radical Islam, but there are radical Muslims -- just as there are extremists of every other religion or belief. But there's a huge difference between the existence of radical individuals and a religion that permits radical beliefs or actions. These radicals certainly do not represent the teachings of Islam or the behavior or beliefs of mainstream Muslims.
In recent years, we have seen the term "jihadist" come to be used as if it means a person who kills people out of a religious motivation, but this is terribly inaccurate. "Jihad" does not mean "holy war." Literally, jihad means to "struggle," strive and exert effort. It is a central and broad Islamic concept that includes struggle against evil inclinations within oneself, struggle to improve the quality of life in society, struggle in the battlefield for self-defense (e.g., - having a standing army for national defense), or fighting against tyranny or oppression. For the sake of accuracy and to avoid spreading false information about a major world religion, extremist Muslims who commit crimes should be called criminals or, in cases where the definition fits, terrorists. We should not legitimize their actions by calling them jihadists, even if they attempt to call themselves by that label and seek a false religious connection or justification. These criminals should not be honored with a religious label.
Islam allows legitimate self defense, but prohibits the killing of innocent people, even in times of war or conflict. Aggression is never permitted. "And fight in the cause of God those who fight against you, and do not commit aggression. Indeed God does not love those who are aggressors," (The Quran, 2:190). So yes, there are some Muslims who have extreme views, or mental illnesses, or political grievances, or a host of other reasons that lead them to kill people, and this is not only a tragedy and a crime but an egregious violation of the principles of Islam. The difference between Muslim killers and killers from other backgrounds is often the way they are described by the media and viewed by the public: with Muslim killers, the crime is almost always attributed to their religion. Because the word "terrorism" is used almost exclusively to describe crimes whose perpetrators are Muslims, you might think that a majority of mass killings and acts of terrorism in the U.S. were committed by Muslims. But when we look at the facts, that perception does not hold up.
According to FBI statistics, of all terrorist attacks on U.S. soil from 1980 to 2005, six percent were committed by Muslims. According to a study from the Combating Terrorism Center at the US Military Academy, since 2011, politically-motivated attacks by Muslim Americans have killed 33 people, while terrorist attacks by white supremacists and other right-wing extremists killed more than 200 people. According to a report by the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security, "66 Americans were killed in mass shootings by non-Muslims in 2012 alone, twice as many fatalities as from Muslim-American terrorism in all 11 years since 9/11." In a well-known hadith, a man asked the Prophet Muhammad, "What is the best jihad?" to which Prophet Muhammad replied, "Speaking a word of truth to an oppressive ruler." The constant misuse of terms like "jihad" and "radical Islam" is offensive to the truth and is counterproductive to our nation's efforts to achieve security. It is time we all speak a word of truth by applying the proper labels to criminals and their acts of violence, no matter their religious background. [by Nihad Awad national executive director for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) ]
Return of the anti-Muslim bigots
May 10: In the years following the (9/11) attack, conservatives from Rush Limbaugh to Commentary magazine’s Jonathan Tobin have insisted with straight faces that there was never any evidence that many Americans blamed all Muslims for the act of a small group of terrorists. Willfully ignored in such analyses was the fact that after 9/11 violent anti-Muslim hate crimes increased by 1,600 percent; Muslim communities have been subjected to mass surveillance in New York (even though, as CUNY’s Diala Shamas notes, “the NYPD still cannot point to a single lead or prosecution that has resulted from this strategy”); mosques have been targeted for attack; polls documented a spike in open prejudice against Muslims (including one showing almost half of the country supportive of curtailing the constitutional rights of Muslim citizens); and Muslims now face a disproportionately high rates of job discrimination. Meanwhile, after 9/11, conservative media outlets became megaphones for Islamophobic rhetoric. Now, unfortunately, the same thing is playing out after the Boston bombing. Limbaugh has insisted that innocent Muslims “will be in no way associated with” the attack and pundits like the Telegraph’s Brendan O’Neill claim that anti-Muslim bigotry is just “a figment of liberals’ imaginations.” Yet, here is but a taste of what’s happened in just the three weeks since the Boston attack:
1. The Boston Globe reports that a Palestinian woman walking with her baby daughter was assaulted in the Boston suburb of Malden by an assailant blaming her for the bombing. 2. The New York Post reports that a Bangladeshi man was beaten nearly unconscious by New Yorkers as retribution for the Boston bombing. 3. The Washington Post reports that a Muslim cab driver, who was also a U.S. Army reservist Iraq War veteran, was assaulted by a passenger who “compared him to the men accused of carrying out the Boston Marathon.”4. U.S. Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, called for Muslims to be subjected to more intensive mass surveillance. 5. Former U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh, R-Ill., appeared on national television to declare that America’s “enemy” are all “young Muslim men.” 6. Abraham Foxman, the head of the Anti-Defamation League (an organization whose mission is to combat rather than foment bigotry), publicly justified proposals for mass surveillance of all Muslims. 7. On national television, Fox News host Brian Kilmeade called for installing listening devices in mosques. 8. Ann Coulter appeared on syndicated radio to declare that all mosques be put under police surveillance. 9. On national television, Fox News host Bob Beckel not only called for barring Muslim students from visiting the United States, but also said that young Muslims already in America on visas “should be sent back home or sent to prison.”10. Conservative comedian Erik Rush said the Boston bombing proves Muslims “are evil — let’s kill them all.”
As evidenced by the pattern after the Boston bombing — and by how the pattern follows pre-Boston bombing trends — these are not isolated incidents. On the contrary, they are part of an unsurprising pattern. As conservative media outlets at once pretend there is no Islamophobia in America but then use the horrible actions of a handful of Muslim extremists as an excuse to vilify all Muslims, Islamophobic bigotry and the threat of hate crimes follow. It is as predictable as it is lamentable. [David Sirota - Salon]
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