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Chronology of Islam in America (2008)
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
October 2008
23rd Alex Odeh Day observed
Oct 11: Today marks the 23rd commemoration of the killing of Alexander Michel Odeh, ADC Western Regional Director, in a powerful pipe bomb at the Santa Ana, California, office of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC). The bomb tore through Odeh’s body as he unlocked and opened his office door. The bomb blast blew out office windows, injured passersby on the street below, and severely damaged the building. The FBI investigation into the murder of Alex Odeh remains open and there is currently a $1-Million reward for information leading to conviction. No arrests have ever been made in the case though press reports state that the FBI has identified suspects. A year ago, on October 11, 2007, the Los Angeles Times reported that officials have uncovered new evidence in the investigation that may help investigators eventually bring charges in the case. Within days of Odeh’s murder, the FBI announced that based on the explosive devices used, it believed the militant Jewish Defense League (JDL) was behind the bombing, as well as two earlier attacks on the East Coast. The JDL is listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The reaction of the JDL in the days following Odeh’s assassination stoked the fires of resentment in the Arab-American community. According to the Washington Post, JDL chairman Irv Rubin announced at the time, “The person or persons responsible for the bombing deserves our praise for striking out against the murderers of Americans and of Jews.” Rubin was also quoted in the Washington Post as saying, “I have no tears for Mr. Odeh. He got exactly what he deserves.” Four JDL members, Keith Fuchs, Andy Green and Robert and Rochelle Manning, emerged as suspects, though none were ever charged or prosecuted in connection with the bombing. All four fled to Israel, where Fuchs and Greene reside in Kiryat Araba, a Jewish settlement near Hebron in the West Bank, Palestine. (ADC Bulletin)
Muslim charity to get its day in court
Oct 11: In response to a request filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the ACLU of Ohio and several civil rights lawyers on behalf of KindHearts for Charitable Humanitarian Development, Inc., Judge James G. Carr in New York this week blocked the government from branding the organization as a "specially designated global terrorist" "without first affording KindHearts with constitutionally adequate process," including notice and a meaningful opportunity to contest the basis for such a designation. The judge ruled that the government's proposed action prior to a judicial review will cause KindHearts to "suffer serious and irreparable injury in the form of loss of reputation and goodwill." Lawyers for the Ohio-based charity charged that it was effectively shut down without due process -- "without notice of the basis for the freeze, hearing, finding of wrongdoing, or meaningful opportunity to respond to the freeze." One of the lawyers representing the charity, Professor David Cole, a constitutional law expert at the Georgetown University Law Centre, told IPS, "The legal regime employed in the name of cutting off terror financing gives the executive branch a 'blank cheque' to blacklist disfavoured individuals and groups, imposes guilt by association, and lacks even minimal attributes of fair process." "With our return to a 'preventive paradigm' of preemptively weeding out threats to national security, guilt by association has been resurrected from the McCarthy era," he said. "While it was illegal in the 1950s to be a member of the Communist Party, it is now a crime to support an individual or organization on a terror watch list, although the government can designate and freeze assets without a showing of actual ties to terrorism or illegal acts." (IPS)
Chicago College rallies in support of Muslim student attacked by masked man
Oct 12: Tensions that had been boiling at Elmhurst College spilled over this week amid reports that a Muslim student had been physically assaulted by a masked gunman. The 19-year-old sophomore said she was hit with a gun in a bathroom in the college's science center. Anti-Muslim graffiti was written on the wall similar to a threat written on the same student's locker the week before that said: "Die Muslims, Rid us of your filth." As officials at the private college affiliated with the United Church of Christ called the incident a hate crime, hundreds of students rallied to show solidarity with their Muslim peers, who are about 25 of the school's 3,300 students. (Chicago Tribune)
Chicago Transit Authority buses carry ads from Islamic group
Oct 15: A Chicago-area Muslim group called Gain Peace has spent $29,900 to place signs on 25 Chicago Transit Authority buses serving the North Side in a month long campaign organizers hope will help dispel misconceptions about Islam. Gain Peace says the campaign has been a success. "We've had eight conversions, close to 400 calls and we've had close to 75,000 hits on our Web site in one week," said Sabeel Ahmed, the director for Gain Peace. In fact, it's going so well, the group just bought six more weeks of ads. (Chicago Tribune)
Prayer leads to work disputes
Oct 16: Requests by Muslims to pray at work have led to clashes with employers who say they cannot accommodate the strictly scheduled prayers. The conflicts raise questions about religious rights on the job. Muslims say they are being discriminated against and are taking their complaints to the courts and the federal government. Employers say the time out for prayer can burden other workers and disrupt operations. Disputes boiled over at two JBS Swift & Co. meatpacking plants in September during the holy month of Ramadan. In Grand Island, Neb., Muslim workers, most of them Somali immigrants, wanted their regular break to coincide with the sunset prayer and the end of the daily Ramadan fast. After they walked out, managers agreed to move the break time. When non-Muslim workers protested what they called preferential treatment, the plant returned to its original schedule. On Sept. 19, 76 workers — most of them Muslims — were fired because they left work without authorization to pray or protest, JBS Swift says. In Greeley, Colo., 96 workers were fired under similar circumstances, the firm says. The United Food and Commercial Workers union has different figures: 81 in Grand Island and 108 in Greeley. Last year, 2,880 complaints of religious discrimination were filed with the EEOC, which enforces federal employment discrimination laws. Muslims filed 607 of them, more than double the annual number a decade ago. The agency had 82,792 complaints of workplace discrimination of all kinds in 2007. The Muslim complaints allege violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which says employers must make a "reasonable" attempt to accommodate religious practices "unless doing so would pose an undue hardship," the EEOC says. "Undue hardship" means the accommodation would pose more than a minimal cost or burden to the employer, the commission says. (USA Today)
FBI takes step back on civil rights
Oct 16: The guidelines issued by Attorney General Michael Mukasey's Department of Justice permit FBI agents to use criteria such as national origin, travel history, race or ethnic background as part of opening an investigation. These new guidelines, set to take effect Dec. 1, represent a danger to the Arab- and Muslim-American community in particular, but to all Americans as well. But, to all Americans, the danger of this new policy is less romantic than that. The reality is that little or no scientific evidence supports the idea that racial profiling actually works. This alone should make every American concerned about the massive inefficiencies in the use of resources by the FBI in national security, an area in which we cannot afford to misappropriate one cent. (By Yousef Munayyer, special assistant to the president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.)
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