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Chronology of Islam in America (2011)
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
September 2011 - Page Three
Brooklyn College faculty condemn NYC police spying
Sept 19: Brooklyn College faculty passed a resolution condemning the New York Police Department's infiltration of Muslim student groups, complaining that it threatens intellectual freedom and the civil rights of both pupils and teachers, the college said today. The college's Faculty Council voted unanimously to condemn the practice, part of a broad intelligence-gathering operation that the NYPD has built in the last decade with the help of the Central Intelligence Agency. The collaboration was a focus of an Associated Press investigation, prompting the CIA to probe whether its actions violated laws that bar the agency from spying on Americans. "The use of undercover police agents and the cultivation of police informers on campus has a chilling effect on the intellectual freedom necessary for a vibrant academic community," the resolution said. The Faculty Council passed the resolution on Sept. 13. It was first reported on Monday by NYPD Confidential, a blog run by reporter Leonard Levitt. A spokesman for the college, Jeremy Thompson, confirmed the resolution's passage and said today that college President Karen Gould shared the professors' concerns.
The AP's investigation revealed that the CIA helped the NYPD set up a unit to monitor mosques, cafes and restaurants frequented by Muslims. It also placed undercover officers in student groups to listen to discussions. "That's what's so troubling here: that it seemed like ... this was a giant fishing expedition," said Alex Vitale, a sociology professor who drafted the faculty resolution. "That seemed to be really beyond the pale of acceptable behavior, especially on a college campus." A 2006 document obtained by the AP listed a Muslim student association at Brooklyn College as one of seven college groups "of concern" in the city. It cited "militant paintball trips" and fundamentalist speakers. The other groups were at Hunter College, La Guardia Community College, Baruch College, St. John's University, City College of New York and Queens College. The documents say police had undercover agents in the Muslim student associations at Brooklyn College and Baruch College. Brooklyn College has about 16,900 students and is part of the City University of New York. [Associated Press]
More cases of NYPD spying of Muslims exposed
Sept 22: The New York Police Department put American citizens under surveillance and scrutinized where they ate, prayed and worked, not because of charges of wrongdoing but because of their ethnicity, according to interviews and documents obtained by The Associated Press. The documents describe in extraordinary detail a secret program intended to catalog life inside Muslim neighborhoods as people immigrated, got jobs, became citizens and started businesses. The documents undercut the NYPD's claim that its officers only follow leads when investigating terrorism. It started with one group, Moroccans, but the documents show police intended to build intelligence files on other ethnicities. Undercover officers snapped photographs of restaurants frequented by Moroccans, including one that was noted for serving "religious Muslims." Police documented where Moroccans bought groceries, which hotels they visited and where they prayed. While visiting an apartment used by new Moroccan immigrants, an officer noted in his reports that he saw two Qurans and a calendar from a nearby mosque.
It was called the Moroccan Initiative. The information was recorded in NYPD computers, officials said, so that if police ever received a specific tip about a Moroccan terrorist, officers looking for him would have details about the entire community at their fingertips. The documents show how New York's rich heritage as a place where immigrants traditionally have blended in and built their lives now clashes with today's New York, where police see blending in as one of the first priorities for would-be terrorists. To prevent attacks, police monitored the path that generations of immigrants followed: getting an apartment, learning English, finding work, assimilating into the culture. Activities such as haircuts and gym workouts were transformed from mundane daily routines into police data points. A U.S. citizen in Queens, for example, starts work each day at what police labeled "a known Moroccan barbershop." The AP previously revealed the secret operations of the NYPD intelligence division as it mapped the Muslim community in and around New York, monitored life in ethnic neighborhoods and scrutinized mosques. The Moroccan Initiative was one of the division's projects.
The documents obtained by the AP, many of which were marked "secret," include a list of "Moroccan Locations," a virtual tour of the city's Moroccan neighborhoods. Photos of local businesses were accompanied by notes from plainclothes officers, known as rakers, who quietly kept tabs on ethnic neighborhoods and eavesdropped on conversations. "A lot of these locations were innocent," said an official involved in the effort, who like many others interviewed by the AP spoke only on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive police operations. "They just happened to be in the community." Sometimes the notes recorded in police files were detailed, such as the officer who reported that a local sandwich shop was close to a mosque and said the store was closed during Friday prayers. "The restaurant serves only Halal meat," the document said. "The majority of the customers are religious Muslims." Halal meat is prepared under religious rules similar to kosher food. Other businesses were described with fewer details. But in every case, the officers noted the ethnicity of the owners. "In America, you don't put people under suspicion without good reason," said Rush Holt, a Democratic congressman from New Jersey, who reviewed some of the documents obtained by the AP and has urged the Justice Department to investigate. "The idea that people in a group are suspect because of being members of a group is profiling, plain and simple."
The documents on the Moroccan businesses were compiled by a secretive team called the Demographics Unit, which police originally denied existed. After the AP obtained police documents describing the unit as a team of 16 officers with a mission to map and monitor ethnic neighborhoods, the department said the Demographics Unit used to exist but actually never had more than eight officers. Browne, the department's spokesman, has said the unit only followed leads. There is no indication in the documents, however, that police were only investigating criminal leads. Information about crimes was included in the Moroccan Initiative files, but these do not appear to be the program's focus. "The Demographics Team was instructed by me to re-canvas the city for any new locations and they came across a newly identified hotel that is referred to Moroccan tourists," an unidentified supervisor wrote in an undated update on the initiative.One police document, for example, lists taxi companies and Dunkin Donuts and Subway franchises known to hire Moroccans and other Arabs. A local gym and barber shop also are mentioned. The end of the document includes a section about criminal activity and identifies four businesses believed to be involved in marriage and document fraud and drug dealing. Another document describes 14 restaurants, two travel agencies and a meat market catering to the Moroccan community. Another said the NYPD produced a list of every Moroccan cab driver in the city. Officers tried to interview them, but many were unavailable to be questioned because they were out working 12- to 14-hour shifts, the document said. [CBS News]
Why did the CIA pull ads from a Muslim paper in Detroit?
Sept 23: It's likely not the kind of public relations within the Muslim community that the CIA was aiming for, but when the Arab American News published a recent wire story that was critical of the agency and some of its believed operations in the community, something strange happened. "We received an email from the advertising agency which handles the CIA's account," publisher Osama Siblani said. "The agency sent an email saying that the CIA wanted to remove their ads immediately for undisclosed reasons. I said 'OK, capture the front page in a picture and let's make the request to the webmaster to remove it.' They would not even wait. They want the ads to be removed immediately without a delay." The ads seeking linguists interested in working for the agency were undoubtedly strategically placed in the Dearborn, Michigan, newspaper, which serves greater Detroit's Muslim community. No official explanation was given, though the same article had been published by numerous other news agencies around the world. Siblani smelled a conspiracy and the following week, published his own blistering editorial expressing his discontent. "If displeasure with one story the newspaper publishes causes a government agency to pull all its ads in retribution, then we assume everyone should be afraid of the CIA - and maybe the whole government - because it's obviously 'my way or the highway' with them. For us they can pull advertising and satisfy their thirst for revenge," Siblani wrote.
Without much explanation, the agency restored the advertising deal within days. An agency spokesperson issued a statement saying: "The CIA has a long history of advertising with the Arab American News, and we regret any misunderstandings in this instance. We resubmitted our recruitment ads - for linguists - to the outlet. Freedom of the press is one of the many American values that CIA officers work to defend every day." [CNN - September 23rd, 2011]
Even those cleared of crimes can stay on F.B.I.’s Watch List
Sept 27: The Federal Bureau of Investigation is permitted to include people on the government’s terrorist watch list even if they have been acquitted of terrorism-related offenses or the charges are dropped, according to newly released documents. The files, released by the F.B.I. under the Freedom of Information Act, disclose how the police are instructed to react if they encounter a person on the list. They lay out, for the first time in public view, the legal standard that national security officials must meet in order to add a name to the list. And they shed new light on how names are vetted for possible removal from the list. Inclusion on the watch list can keep terrorism suspects off planes, block non-citizens from entering the country and subject people to delays and greater scrutiny at airports, border crossings and traffic stops. The database now has about 420,000 names, including about 8,000 Americans, according to the statistics released in connection with the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. About 16,000 people, including about 500 Americans, are barred from flying.
The 91 pages of newly disclosed files include a December 2010 guidance memorandum to F.B.I. field offices showing that even a not-guilty verdict may not always be enough to get someone off the list, if agents maintain they still have “reasonable suspicion” that the person might have ties to terrorism. “If an individual is acquitted or charges are dismissed for a crime related to terrorism, the individual must still meet the reasonable suspicion standard in order to remain on, or be subsequently nominated to, the terrorist watch list,” the once-classified memorandum says. Ginger McCall, a counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said: “In the United States, you are supposed to be assumed innocent. But on the watch list, you may be assumed guilty, even after the court dismisses your case.”
The December memorandum lays out procedures for police officers to follow when they encounter people who are listed. For example, officers are never to tell the suspects that they might be on the watch list, and they must immediately call the federal government for instructions. In addition, it says, police officers and border agents are to treat suspects differently based on which “handling codes” are in the system.
The documents show that the F.B.I. is developing a system to automatically notify regional “fusion centers,” where law enforcement agencies share information, if officers nearby have encountered someone on the list. The bureau also requires F.B.I. supervisors to sign off before an advisory would warn the police that a subject is “armed and dangerous” or has “violent tendencies.” The F.B.I. procedures encourage agents to re-nominate suspects for the watch list even if they were already put on it by another agency — meaning multiple agencies would have to be involved in any attempt to later remove that person. The procedures offer no way for people who are on the watch list to be notified of that fact or given an opportunity to see and challenge the specific allegations against them. [New York Times]
Florida County Republican Party appeases Islamophobes:
Denies Muslim Republican a spot on executive committee
Sept 27: Nezar Hamze is both a Muslim American who is the executive director of the South Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and a self-identified Republican. As a way to further his activism in the Republican Party, Hamze campaigned for a position on his local Republican party’s executive committee in Broward County, Florida. During a “raucous meeting” of the party, Hamze’s bid for committee membership was rejected by a vote of 11-158, as he was attacked with offensive questions about his faith and even compared to a terrorist by Islamophobic attendees. Before the vote even took place, the local party changed its rules to require that each new applicant to the executive committee answer questions for five minutes, a rule change Hamze jokingly told a reporter could be called the “Hamze rule.” And as audience members stepped up to interrogate Hamze, he was told that his organization CAIR was identified as a terrorist organization and asked if he supported terrorism. Following the lead of GOP audiences who have booed gays and condemned the uninsured, one attendee yelled out “terrorist!” as Hamze was trying to speak. At times, when he addressed the packed room at the Sheraton Suites in Fort Lauderdale, a few members shouted out among the crowd of about 300. “Terrorist!” said one man. [Think Progress]
Presidential candidates ignore Frank Gaffney’s new anti-Sharia pledge
Sept 27: Three weeks ago, Frank Gaffney released a new pledge asking presidential candidates to swear they will fight the non-existent threat of Sharia if elected president. Yet, as of publication time, none of the 10 major Republican presidential candidates have signed Gaffney’s anti-Sharia pledge. Gaffney, one of the leading anti-Muslim misinformation experts profiled in the Center for American Progress’ recent report on Islamophobia in America, has spent years fighting what he sees as “creeping Sharia” in the United States. His efforts culminated in the release of a report last year entitled “Sharia: The Threat To America.” In an effort to whip up support for his anti-Sharia campaign, the Center for Security Policy president released the “Twelve for ’12” policy platform earlier this month, which implores candidates to, among other things, “preserve and protect the Constitution” by “repudiat[ing]” Sharia. It’s understandable that even presidential candidates as extreme as Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum don’t want to associate themselves with Gaffney. Beyond his absurd notion that Sharia law is a threat to the United States, Gaffney has made a name for himself with one outlandish claim after the next. He has accused Gen. David Petraeus of “submission” to Sharia law, claimed that the Muslim Brotherhood has “infiltrated” the federal government, and even argued that the government’s Missile Defense logo is further evidence of creeping Sharia law.
Though anti-Sharia sentiment had been fairly common in recent Republican rhetoric, the public outcry against presidential candidate Herman Cain’s declaration that he will not appoint Muslims in his administration was deafening. Cain’s campaign was dogged by the story for months until July when the candidate met with Muslim leaders outside Washington, DC and issued a public apology to all Muslim-Americans. Cain’s newfound tolerance did no harm to his standing among Republican primary voters; this past weekend, the former pizza executive enjoyed an overwhelming victory in Florida’s presidential straw poll. Republican presidential candidates like Cain have clearly concluded that Gaffney’s anti-Sharia pledge is a political loser. Even a pledge stipulating that black families were better off during slavery than today earned signatures from Bachmann and Santorum. Gaffney’s flop is further evidence of Islamophobia’s waning influence in politics. [Think Progress]
Targeting Muslims: Does Anyone Care?
Sept 27: Where's the outrage? Where's the concern? Where's the lawsuit? For the past month, the Associated Press (with an assist from NYPD Confidential) has spotlighted a secret NYPD spying operation that targets hundreds of Muslim mosques, schools, businesses, student groups, non-governmental organizations and individuals. It seems no exaggeration to say that the NYPD has infiltrated every level of Muslim life in NYC. Last week, the AP described how the NYPD has spied on the city's Moroccan communities. The police watched Moroccan restaurants, gyms, barbershops, meat markets and taxi companies -- and compiled a list of every known Moroccan taxi driver, the AP reported.Dubbed the "The Moroccan Initiative," this police operation placed both Moroccan immigrants and Moroccan-Americans "under surveillance and scrutinized where they ate, prayed and worked, not because of charges of wrongdoing but because of their ethnicity," the AP said. The Intelligence Division's Demographics Unit assembled all this information so that if police received a tip about a Moroccan terrorist, officers would know details of the community, the AP said.
Authorities need evidence or mere suspicion of criminality before they can legally spy on people or groups, much less unleash a unit of the NYPD on an entire community. Such widespread NYPD spying on a particular ethnic group without such evidence or suspicion is probably against the law. So what has been the response to this ethnic profiling and possible law-breaking? Let's start with the city's newspapers. Unless we missed some two-paragraph item on page 85 somewhere, no paper has written a story about this sweeping police action. Both the News and the Post have published editorials, however, supporting the police. "New Yorkers understand that counterterror folks need to be aggressive about pre-empting attacks to protect them," said the Post. "Survival Comes First." Said the Daily News after the AP's Moroccan Initiative story: "The Associated Press has added, unintentionally, to its flattering profile of the NYPD's anti-terror squad with a report on how a first-rate intelligence unit does business." The New York Times is as yet silent, as though pondering whether or how to report an obviously important story.
It's also hard to accept the NYPD's justifications for the spying, given the troubling questions about the only anti-terrorism case the NYPD initiated and developed entirely on its own. That highly publicized case led to the conviction of Pakistani-American Shahawar Matin Siraj, a man of apparently limited intelligence who was convicted of plotting to blow up the Herald Square subway station on the eve of the Republican National Convention in 2004. Siraj, who worked in a Bay Ridge bookstore, was recorded over several months by a well-paid police informant, Osama Eldawoody. Testimony at the trial revealed the NYPD paid Eldawoody $100,000 to egg Siraj on. Whether Siraj, who is currently serving a 30-year prison sentence for the crime, had the wit to carry out such a plot by himself remains an open question.
Academic silence
Meanwhile, NYPD spies have been busy throughout the City University system. NYPD Confidential has previously reported that the police infiltrated Muslim Student Associations at Brooklyn, Baruch, City, Hunter, Queens and LaGuardia colleges. The NYPD sent undercover officers to spy on student groups at Baruch and Brooklyn College and used operatives called "secondary" undercovers at City College, Hunter, Queens and LaGuardia, according to Intelligence Division documents. Police documents called two Brooklyn College students "Persons of Interest," one of whom "expressed desire to be a suicide bomber in Pakistan." The NYPD documents also cited a Brooklyn College lecturer, described as a "2nd generation American of Pakistani lineage; Computer Science Degree from Baruch University; strong following among young Muslims in NYC. ... Following 7/7 London attacks, subject stated 'we Muslims do not condemn terrorism...'" In describing Baruch College's Muslim Student Association, the NYPD said that "students are politically active and are radicalizing." At Hunter, the police also claimed to find "radicalization of students." What has been to the response to the campus spying of City University officials? While the Brooklyn College Faculty Council has condemned it, there has been silence higher up the educational and political chain. [Huffington Post]
The GOP has declared war on American Muslims
Sept 27: If you type GOP or Republican into the search engine of The American Muslim site, you will come up with a lot of articles about the GOP and most involve Islamophobia. Here are just a few of the incidents over the past few years: 1. There was State Senator Greg Ball (R-NY, chairman of the Veterans, Homeland Security & Military Affairs Committee) who held a hearing titled “Reviewing our Preparedness: An Examination of New York’s Public Protection Ten Years After September 11”, and invited known Islamophobes to testify. 2. There was the Southwest Broward Republican Organization in Florida that sent out an anti-mosque protest email. 3.There was the June GOP Presidential Candidates’ Debate in New Hampshire in which Herman Cain Herman once again discussed a test that will show which American Muslims are loyal to the United States and the Constitution. Newt Gingrich suggested that all Muslims should be suspect until they prove their loyalty and they deserve higher scrutiny, like Communists or Nazis. 4.There was Rep. Sue Myrick’s hearing on the Muslim Brotherhood and her support for the hate group ACT for America. 5.There were the statements made by four conservative Republicans — Reps. John Shadegg (Ariz.), Paul Broun (Ga.), Trent Franks (Ariz.) and Sue Myrick (N.C.) in the halls of the lawmakers of this country about Muslim interns on Capitol Hill. 6.There was Rep. Adam Hasner (the head of Florida’s House Republicans) who co-sponsored a so-called “Free Speech Summit” in Delray Beach, Florida along with Pamela Geller of SIOA (designated a hate group by the SPLC). One of the speakers at this event was Geert Wilders who said Islam should not be recognized as a legitimate faith and Muslims should not have religious freedom. Hasner also sponsored a showing of the hate film “Obsession” for Florida State Legislators. 7. There was Rep. Virgin Goode Rep. Virgil Goode’s hateful rhetoric about the the use of a Qur’an for the ceremonial swearing-in of Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress. 8. There is a long list of GOP elected officials who have called on known Islamophobes to provide “expert” testimony on Islam and Muslims. For example: — Rep. Carl Gatto (R-AK), Rep. Sam Johnson (R-TX), Ralph Hall (R-TX) and State Rep. Jerry Madden (R-TX) who called on Pamela Geller, and Rep. Steven King (R-Iowa) who defended Geller, — Rep. Michelle Bachmann who has sought advice from Frank Gaffney and Pamela Geller, — Rep. Allen West, (R-FL) who met with Brigitte Gabriel head of anti-Muslim group ACT! for America, — Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) who invited David Yerushalmi of SANE to testify at a hearing on Capitol Hill.? 9. There is a long list of GOP representatives actively pushing anti-Sharia legislation in at least 23 states now.
There is a long list of GOP representatives
There is a long list of GOP representatives making statements about the proposed Cordoba House/Park 51 project in New York that go well beyond any sourt of civil disagreement. And, the National Republican Trust PAC even ran an anti-Muslim ad against the proposal. There is a long list of hateful anti-Muslim statements that have been made by elected representatives of the United States, and most of these are GOP officials, who have forgotten that Muslims are part of “we the people”. And, we have published a summary of such statements divided into categories ranging from “thoughtless ignorance” to “bigotry” to “expressions of outright hatred” that have been made by members of the GOP.
There was the event sponsored by Rep. Allen West (R-FL) in the Rayburn House Office Building titled “Homegrown Jihad in the USA: Culmination of the Muslim Brotherhood’s 50-year History of Infiltrating America,” presented by Peter Leitner of Citizens for National Security (CFNS), located in Boca Raton, Florida. During this presentation CFNS announced that it would be releasing the names of 6,000 active members of the Muslim Brotherhood. But when the big day came, the group stated that the names would actually be kept under wraps and only released to select “responsible parties.” In a response to a query from Wired’s Spencer Ackerman, Leitner conceded that the people on his list had not necessarily been charged with any crimes. Instead, they were just people who are involved with organizations he had connected to the Muslim Brotherhood—like the Muslim Students Association.
There have been political campaigns
There have been political campaigns like that of Lynn Torgerson vs Keith Ellison, Marvin Scott vs Andre Carson, or Rene Ellmers and Bob Turner and Rae Hart Anderson, Dan Fanelli, Rick Torres, and Jill Holzman Vogel that were based on religious hatred. Ellmers and Turner even ran an anti-Muslim ad. There was the incident in Orange County earlier this year. Congressmen Ed Royce and Gary Miller, and Villa Park Councilwoman Deborah Pauly attended and spoke at the protest rally. Some of those who attended the rally began shouting hateful statements at the families entering the event. Deborah Pauly made a statement during her talk that ”What’s going on over there right now, make no bones about it, that is pure unadulterated evil ... I know quite a few Marines who would be very happy to help these terrorists to an early meeting in Paradise.” After the event, Congressmen Ed Royce (R-Calif.) who chairs the international terrorism subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee defended Pauly’s statement and the event.
There were the Republican members of Congress Trent Franks (AZ), Michele Bachmann (MN), and Pete Hoekstra (MI) who praised Frank Gaffneys bigoted Sharia report. There was the incident when Councilman Don Redman of Jacksonville, FL asked the newly elected Muslim council member, Parvez Ahmed to “say a prayer to your God” at a Council meeting. This followed a particularly Islamophobic campaign against Dr. Ahmed’s appointment to the Council’s Human Rights Commission. There was the incident in which the Republican Jewish Coalition was responsible for mailing the virulently anti-Muslim film “Obsession” to Rabbi’s across the country ahead of the last Presidential election….(And the list of the GOP involvement in Islamophobia goes on.) [Sheila Musaji - The American Muslim]
Students participate in Hijab Week to broaden perspectives of Muslim culture
Sept 28: Before this week, Cadillac freshman Charly Loper could walk through the halls unnoticed. “(Now) I feel like some people stare at me from a distance, then quickly turn away,” Loper said. Loper has decided to wear a hijab, the traditional Muslim head covering, for a week. She has been participating in Hijab Week for her class, HON 100: Introduction to the Honor’s Program. Clinton Township junior Amanda Jaczkowski has been coordinating the project and assisting the other women involved. “Hijab is a very misunderstood part of Islam and I wanted to help the girls understand better what it means,” Jaczkowski said. Throughout the week, about 25 women have been participating in Hijab Week. Jaczkowski created the event this year and said it is only taking place on CMU’s campus. There are three different levels the participants can choose to engage in for the week. The first level requires them to change their physical appearance by covering their skin and hair. They also cannot show public displays of affection or consume alcohol. The second level encompasses the first, as well as eliminating the consumption of pork. The third and final level includes the requirements from the first two, but also removes any sexual relations for those who are not married in addition to forbidding the women from being alone with men. [Central Michigan Life]
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