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Chronology of Islam in America (2012)
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
November 2012
U.S. judge dismisses suit linking Arab Bank to Hamas shooting attack
Nov 6: A U.S. federal judge on today threw out a lawsuit brought by an American man wounded in Israel, who sought to hold Arab Bank liable for providing material support to the Palestinian group Hamas. U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein in Brooklyn, New York, held that Mati Gill could not prove Arab Bank was responsible for injuries he sustained in 2008 from gunshots fired from Gaza into Israel. At the time of the attack, Gill was serving as an aide to Israel's then-public security minister, Avi Dichter, according to the complaint. Gill was wounded by sniper fire while touring Israel's border with a delegation from the Canada-Israel Committee, the complaint said. In court papers, Gill said an individual purporting to represent Hamas, which has governed in Gaza since 2007, claimed responsibility for the shooting on a Hamas-run website. Gill, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen, sued Jordan-based Arab Bank in 2011, claiming it provided financial support to Hamas and coordinated payments to family members of group members killed in action. He sought monetary damages under the U.S. Anti-Terrorism Act, which allows victims of attacks by U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations to seek compensation. The U.S. State Department designated Hamas as such an organization in 1997. "Moral blame should only follow if the harm caused by providing bank services to terrorists is foreseeable," Weinstein wrote, saying he found insufficient proof Arab Bank had knowledge its actions would lead to a U.S. citizen being harmed. "Hamas is not the defendant; the bank is," Weinstein wrote. "And the evidence does not prove that the bank acted with an improper state of mind or proximately caused plaintiff's injury." [Reuters]
Voters reject Islamophobic candidates
Dec. 7: The seven-million strong American Muslim community has welcomed the rejection of Islamophobic candidates by voters nationwide. In Florida, Rep. Allen West (R), who claims Islam is not a religion but is instead a “totalitarian theocratic political ideology” that is a “very vile and very vicious enemy,” was defeated by a narrow margin. Also in Florida, State Representative Adam Hasner (R) was defeated in his bid for Congress. Hasner once co-hosted an event featuring Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders that was also sponsored by Anti-Muslim hate group leader Pamela Geller. In 2009, Hasner attempted to block a “Florida Muslim Capitol Day.” In 2007, he sponsored a screening of the anti-Muslim film “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West” for state legislators. A third Florida anti-Muslim candidate, Terry Kemple, lost his bid for the Hillsborough County School Board. Kemple’s main issue in the race was seeking to keep Muslim speakers out of local schools. In Illinois, Rep. Joe Walsh (R) was defeated in his re-election bid. Earlier this year, when a town hall meeting attendee told him that he was “looking for some godly men and women in the Senate, in the Congress, who will stand in the face of the danger of Islam,” Walsh left the door open for suspicion of every Muslim living in Illinois when he responded saying radical Islam is more of a threat “now that it was right after 9/11″ and “It’s here. It’s in Elk Grove. It’s in Addison. It’s in Elgin. It’s here.” In Arkansas, Rep. James McLean defeated Republican Charlie Fuqua, a candidate who advocated the deportation of all Muslims in a self-published book. In Minnesota, Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN) lost his seat. Cravaack was a key supporter’s of Rep. Peter King’s (R-NY) series of anti-Muslim hearings. [AMP Report]
After 17 years: Arab American activist removed from terror list
Nov 7: The U.S. Treasury Department has de-listed Muhammad Salah as a “specially designated terrorist,” lifting onerous restrictions on the Palestine-origin American now living in Bridgeview, the Chicago Tribune reported. The move comes two months after Muhammad Salah filed a federal lawsuit in Chicago challenging the constitutionality of the economic sanctions and on the eve of a deadline for the Treasury Department to file an answer to the lawsuit in court, according to the paper. In September last, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) joined a lawsuit challenging the federal government’s restrictions on their First Amendment rights to engage in “coordinated advocacy” with Salah, whose situation cried out for public attention, advocacy and resolution. The lawsuit also asserted that Salah’s Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights had been violated and requested relief. Just prior to the government’s s November 6 deadline for responding to the legal challenge, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFCA) quietly announced his removal from the list. The suit challenged the government’s power to impose arbitrary restrictions on the groups’ First Amendment rights to follow their conscience and raise public awareness about government actions they believe to be unjust.
According to the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR): “The lawsuit stemmed from events in 1995, when Mr. Salah was classified by the Treasury Department as a “specially designated terrorist,” under Executive Order 12947, signed by then President Bill Clinton and designed to target groups and individuals considered to be interfering with the Middle East peace process. Mr. Salah received no notice of any charges against him, nor any opportunity to defend himself. There was no trial or hearing of any kind. In fact, Mr. Salah and his family only learned of the imposition of the designation when Mr. Salah’s wife, Maryam, attempted to withdraw funds from her bank account and was told that the account was frozen at the U.S. government’s direction. The designation runs to perpetuity and, but for this litigation, there is no way to overturn the arbitrary restrictions they impose on Mr. Salah’s basic life activities. At the time of the Treasury designation, Mr. Salah was incarcerated in an Israeli military prison, charged by an Israeli military court with providing support to Hamas in the early 1990s. At the time, no law barred Americans from supporting Hamas. Following 55 days of intense interrogation, including sleep deprivation and physical brutality, Mr. Salah pled guilty to the charge and entered into a plea agreement. He was released in 1997 and returned to his home in the United States. When, in 2005, the U.S. government charged Mr. Salah in a criminal trial with supporting Hamas, a jury acquitted him. Despite his acquittal, his designation as a “specially designated terrorist” remained. [AMP Report]
Anti-Islam movie maker sentenced to one year imprisonment
Nov 7: The man behind an anti-Muslim YouTube video that has been blamed for riots and deaths in Benghazi, Libya, and has been discussed by President Barack Obama was sentenced today to a year in prison. The Associated Press reported that U.S. District Court Judge Christina Snyder sentenced Mark Basseley Youssef after he admitted to four of the eight violations he had been accused of, including using multiple names in violation of parole and obtaining a fraudulent California driver's license. Youssef, who allegedly also goes by the names Sam Bacile and Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, gained notoriety as the "filmmaker" behind The Innocence of Muslims, a 14-minute "trailer" that popped up on YouTube. However, Youssef's one-year prison sentence had nothing to do with the content of the video, but focused on probation violations stemming from his conviction in 2010 of bank fraud. [Media Reports]
U.S. Muslim again barred from flight to visit sick mother in Oklahoma
Nov 8: The Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-OK) today said that a Muslim citizen and military veteran who is currently stranded overseas apparently because he has been placed on the government's no-fly list was again barred from a flight to return to Oklahoma to visit his terminally-ill mother. Saadiq Long was unable to board his November 8 flight leaving Qatar to return to the United States. When Long arrived at the airport, he was denied a boarding pass by KLM airlines and told to follow up with the American embassy. Those were the same instructions provided to Long in April, and he is still waiting for a reply from U.S. officials. Long will now re-book his ticket to make yet another attempt to fly back to the United States before the Thanksgiving holiday. "It is frustrating that after six months and no response from the Department of Homeland Security that they still will not allow me to fly back to my own country," said Long. "No US citizen should be denied the right to return to his or her own country," said CAIR-OK Executive Director Adam Soltani. "Saadiq Long is an American-born, U.S. Air force veteran and there is no excuse for denying him the right to visit his terminally ill mother." [CAIR]
MPAC's Tarin Testifies at US Commission on Civil Rights
Nov 9: Today, the United States Commission on Civil Rights held a timely briefing on Federal Civil Rights Engagement with the Arab and Muslim American Communities Post 9/11. The briefing was prompted by anti-terrorism programs post 9/11 which have proven to be problematic and ineffective with real concerns on their intrusion of civil rights and civil liberties. Panelists providing testimony were asked to evaluate the “successes and failure of the federal government in engaging the Arab and Muslim American community post 9/11” and to address the discrimination faced by those communities by national security programs.
Muslim Public Affairs Council Director of the Washington DC office Haris Tarin testified at the Commission and stressed the importance of engaging American Muslim communities with law enforcement agencies to build trust and work together on a diverse range of issues. He discussed the trickle-down effect of public and elected officials who marginalize American Muslims to the subsequent bullying of American Muslim students. Tarin commented on the two approaches taken by government and law enforcement agencies: 1. Treating them as suspect communities or 2. Treating communities as partners. Whereas the NYPD generally uses the first model of engagement, other local law enforcement agencies such as in Los Angeles, Dallas and Chicago, the use of partnering with communities is more prevalent and in turn, shows to be more effective. Tarin also spoke about the civil rights challenges that American Muslims have been facing since 9/11. From intrusive surveillance practices by law enforcement agencies to intimidation of Muslim students about their political views on college campuses, Tarin addressed the importance of oversight from Congress and the administration on many of these issues: The key word here is partnership; it is this partnership that yields results both in making us a safer society and in ensuring that the civil liberties of our communities are preserved so that the foundation of our democracy remains strong.
Testimony from other experts on the panel agreed and went further to say that civil rights and civil liberties issues must be expanded from just Muslim issues to include all faiths and ethnic backgrounds. To that end, the Department of Justice is currently working on including anti-Sikh and anti-Arab statistics in their hate crime reports. This endeavor could not have been made possible without the partnership of DoJ and minority communities. The briefing concluded with the Commissioners asking a series of questions to the panelists in order to further understand the problems and possible solutions and opportunities for improvement and redress. As we continue to deal with post 9/11 programs, the very real concerns of the cross section between civil liberties and national security must be addressed. With the re-election of President Barack Obama comes the expectation that these issues and more will be discussed and eventually addressed as our nation continues to move forward. The fact that the US Commission on Civil Rights, an entity created to “inform the development of national civil rights policy and enhance enforcement of federal civil rights laws,” commenced this public briefing is a big step forward in recognizing that serious reforms need to be made when it comes to safeguarding our nation and upholding our civil liberties. [MPAC]
85 percent Muslims voted for President Obama
Nov 10: More than 85 percent of American Muslim voters picked President Obama in Nov 6 election, according to an exit poll released Friday by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's leading Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization. It may be recalled that a similar CAIR exit poll in 2008 showed that 89 percent of American Muslim voters picked then-candidate Barack Obama. Two percent of respondents said they voted for Sen. John McCain. The CAIR's informal survey of more than 650 American Muslim voters indicates that just four percent of respondents cast their ballots for the Republican presidential hopeful, Mitt Romney. The Poll findings indicated that 95.5 of the registered Muslim voters went to the polls on November 6. 85.7 percent cast their ballots to re-elect President Obama while only 4.4 percent of respondents said they voted for Mitt Romney. Just over two percent (2.2) of respondents said they voted for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson while the same percentage (2.2) voted for Green Party candidate Jill Stein. According to the poll, states with the highest number of survey respondents (in descending order) were California, New York, Texas, Virginia, Illinois, Florida, Michigan, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Ohio. On the party affiliation, the poll found 41.5 percent considered themselves Democrats. A similar number, 40.6 percent, consider themselves politically independent. Only 7.4 percent said they are Republican. [AMP Report]
Montgomery County Maryland declines to close schools on Islamic holidays
Nov 13: Montgomery County (Maryland) school board effectively turned down a request today from leaders of the county’s growing Muslim community to recognize an Islamic holy day next school year with an official day off. Saying they could not simply add a school closing for a religious occasion, board members asked that student and staff attendance be monitored closely on future Muslim holidays to determine whether there is sufficient absenteeism to warrant such a move. Students who miss school for the religious holidays are excused, but many students attend classes anyway, worried they will fall behind. At today’s meeting and afterward, several Muslim leaders called for fairness as they noted Montgomery’s lineup of Jewish and Christian school holidays, including Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, Christmas and Good Friday. Their testimony followed several months of effort to push for greater recognition of the Islamic holidays, particularly Eid al-Adha, which falls in mid-October next year and honors the prophet Abraham for his willingness to sacrifice his son for God. [Washington Post]
Islamic prayer banned from vet service in Michigan
Nov 17: A community concert planned as part of a Veterans Day celebration in Traverse City Michigan caused deep divisions when an Islamic prayer that was scheduled to be sung by a joint choir was deleted at the last moment. Pastor David Walls and others at First Congregational Church wanted nothing to do with the Islamic Call to Prayers portion of the performance. They said they did not want to offend their congregation and military veterans they planned to honor, church leaders said. The 180-member choir was told the day before the concert about the change, although they'd been forewarned about a difference of opinion.
The church's decision to ban the prayer sparked protests by choir and community members. Northwestern Michigan College officials said the college would withdraw as an official supporter of the event. Kamran Memon, president of the Chicago-based Muslims for Safe America, countered that many Muslim Americans are veterans, too. An estimated 20,000 Muslim Americans serve in the U.S. military, he said. "American soldiers have fought and died side-by-side with Afghan and Iraqi troops fighting against a common enemy," he said. [The Clinton Herald, Clinton, Iowa]
Canada Jewish school urged to remove anti-Muslim textbook
Nov 19: The Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CAN Ottawa) has issued an open letter calling on Jewish organizations and the Ontario Ministry of Education to investigate anti-Muslim literature found in at least one Toronto Jewish school. According to the syllabus at the Joe Dwek Ohr HaEmet Sephardic School in Thornhill, Ontario, a textbook titled 2000 Years of Jewish History: From the Destruction of the Second Bais Hamikdash Until the Twentieth Century, published by Feldheim Publishers, is being used in Grade 7 and Grade 8 girls’ classes. The open letter was sent to Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center For Holocaust Studies, and The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, as well as the Ministry of Education. A private letter of concern was also sent to the school. Both letters indicate that the textbook uses inflammatory and hateful terms in describing Muslims, such as “rabid fanatics” with “savage beginnings” (page 45). The entire chapter devoted to Islam presents a pernicious and extreme portrayal of Muslims and the Islamic faith (pages 41 – 46). The material further denigrates the Prophet Muhammad as a “rabid Jew-hater” (page 41) and falsely portrays Islam as inherently anti-Semitic and devoted to hating Jews. Further, the descriptions refer to an ongoing attitude – not one that is static in history – defined as being “a combination of wildness and civility […] towards the Jews throughout history” (page 44). “Overall, this teaching material undeniably leaves impressionable young Jewish readers with a sense of suspicion and even intolerance towards their fellow Canadians,” reads the open letter.
The call for cooperation comes on the heels of an investigation into curriculum at a Toronto school that was allegedly promoting hate through anti-Semitic descriptions of Jewish people in historical narrations. The school moved quickly to remove the offensive material and launched its own internal review. Investigators subsequently ruled that the references were “not deemed criminal”, though they “suggested intolerance.” “We look to Jewish organizations to join us again in speaking out against the harmful stereotypes that can creep into curricula and which we would all agree must be expunged,” says Ihsaan Gardee, Executive Director at CAIR-CAN. “As our private letter of concern to the school stated, we are ready to engage in dialogue with the school to offer accurate information about Islam and Muslims in a spirit of understanding and goodwill. “The Ministry of Education also has a role to play to call on all schools to examine their materials to ensure they fall within acceptable parameters of the retelling of history and stay far away from vilifying any faith or cultural group,” says Mr. Gardee. [CAIR-CAN]
Where Liberty Lies: Civil Society and Individual Rights after 9/11
Nov 20: During the last decade when the civil rights of citizens were violated in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the Congress has proved to be a source of law violations and abuse of the civil rights, says Professor David Cole of the Georgetown University Law Center. In a paper titled “Where Liberty Lies: Civil Society and Individual Rights after 9/11” Prof. Cole argues that while after September 11, all three branches of government compromised in their commitments to liberty, equality, dignity, fair process, and the “rule of law” civil society groups dedicated to constitutional and rule-of-law values and consistently defended constitutional and human rights—and in so doing reinforced the checking function of constitutional and international law. Prof. Cole named the following civic advocacy groups: the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the American Bar Association (ABA), the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BRDC), the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the Constitution Project (CP), the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), Human Rights Watch (HRW), Human Rights First (HRF) and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). These groups issued reports identifying and condemning lawless ventures and provided material and sources to the media to help spread the word, he said adding: they “filed lawsuits in domestic and international for a challenging allegedly illegal initiatives; organized and educated the public about the importance of adhering to constitutional and human rights commitments; testified in Congressional hearings on torture, illegal surveillance, and Guantánamo. Prof. Cole also highlighted the civil advocacy groups’ coordination with foreign governments and international nongovernmental organizations to bring diplomatic pressure to bear on the United States to conform its actions to constitutional and international law.
About the role of Congress in protecting the civil rights, Prof. Cole said that “during the last decade the legislature has, if anything, proved a source of law violations and abuse, and has provided little or no enforceable check on executive overreaching.” In this regard he cites the following legislation: “It passed the USA Patriot Act shortly after the attacks, and while it did not give the President all that he asked for, the Act expanded his authority to conduct surveillance, gather intelligence, detain and deport foreign nationals on grounds of political association and belief, and freeze assets based on secret evidence, while relaxing judicial oversight and other constraints on these powers. ….. when the Supreme Court declared the President’s military commissions illegal, Congress made them legal by authorizing them in the Military Commissions Act of 2006. When the Court held that the habeas corpus statute extended to persons held without charge at Guantánamo, Congress repealed that portion of the statute in the Detainee Treatment Act. It granted retroactive immunity to telecommunications service providers who, at the executive’s request, engaged in illegal warrantless electronic surveillance. And Congress has repeatedly obstructed President Obama’s efforts to close Guantánamo by barring the expenditure of any funds to transfer detainees to the United States, even to stand trial in a criminal court, and requiring certifications for any transfer to a foreign country that are so onerous that transfers ceased for fifteen months.
The one exception to Congress’ otherwise abject deference was its reaffirmation, in the “McCain Amendment” to the Detainee Treatment Act, that the prohibition on cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment found in the Convention Against Torture (CAT) applied to all persons held by U.S. authorities, anywhere in the world, regardless of their nationality.” [AMP Report]
U.S. dominates list of world’s “500 Most Influential Muslims’
Nov 28: There are more Muslims from America than any other country on this year’s "Muslim 500: The World’s 500 Most Influential Muslims," compiled by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre, a respected think tank in Jordan, including two in the top 50. Sheik Hamza Yusuf Hanson, a California-born convert who founded Zaytuna College, an Islamic college in Berkeley, Calif., and is a leading Islamic authority in America, ranked No. 42, two places ahead of Seyyed Hossein Nasr, an Islamic studies professor at George Washington University known for his work in Islamic philosophy. America’s roughly 2.6 million (read 7 million) Muslims are a tiny fraction of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims, but they took 41 spots on the 500 list. Countries with the next highest number of names were Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom, with 25 Muslims each, followed by Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, with 24.
The fourth annual compilation lists the winners according to 13 categories, including spiritual guides, Quran reciters, scholars, politicians, celebrities, sports figures, radicals and media leaders. Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah took the list’s No. 1 spot. Other Americans to make the list include: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, all-time NBA scoring leader, and boxing legend Muhammad Ali; Umar Faruq Abdullah, a convert who founded the Nawawi Foundation, an educational nonprofit organization in Chicago; Azizah Al-Hibri, chairwoman of Karamah: Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights, appointed in 2011 by President Barack Obama to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom; Sheik Muhammad Bin Yahya Al Husayni Al-Ninowy, imam at the Masjid al-Madina in Atlanta, and a descendant of Prophet Muhammad’s daughter Fatima. [OMAR SACIRBEY - Religion News Service]
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