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MUSLIMS FACE FIRING OVER MACY’S ‘ENGLISH ONLY’ POLICY - TOP
CAIR-MN seeks probe to ‘ensure that all relevant laws are being followed’

(ST. PAUL, MN, 9/16/08) - The Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MN) today called on a Macy's department store in that state to clarify a new "English only" policy under which Muslim workers were allegedly threatened with termination if they spoke “even one word” of Somali.

CAIR-MN was contacted by six Somali-speaking employees, some of whom have been employed at the store for more than four years, who say the new policy prohibits workers from speaking any language other than English during work hours at the department store's Southdale Mall location in Edina, Minn.

The new policy reportedly applies to employees who work in the warehouse packaging and unpacking merchandise, but not to employees who work in other areas of the store. Somali-speaking workers say the policy is discriminatory and that they have always spoken English with English-speaking co-workers and customers.

A company flier obtained by CAIR-MN announcing the minutes from a staff meeting read in part:

“It is Macy East’s policy that a common language is spoken during work therefore, effective immediately all associates must speak English while working It is a job requirement to speak and read English...”

[Note: A Macy's representative has since denied the existence of an English only policy despite the clear language of the company document.]

Prior to the English only policy, the six employees allege that they were asked by management to train new Somali employees using the Somali language. They say they were also approached in the past by non-Somali-speaking employees for assistance communicating with Somali-speaking customers.

"Federal law and the Minnesota Human Rights Acts state that employers are not allowed to discriminate against employees based on national origin, which includes 'English only' policies in the workplace," said CAIR-MN Civil Rights Director Taneeza Islam. "It is clear that there can be no business-related need for this policy, as these same employees were asked to use their Somali language skills during work hours to assist customers and train other employees."

Ms. Islam added that CAIR-MN is seeking an investigation into the matter to ensure that all relevant laws are being followed.

CAIR offers a booklet called "An Employer's Guide to Islamic Religious Practices" to help corporate managers gain a better understanding of Islam and Muslims in the workplace.

SEE: An Employer's Guide to Islamic Religious Practices


CAIR, America's largest Islamic civil liberties and advocacy group has 35 offices and chapters nationwide and in Canada. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.

CONTACT: CAIR-MN Communications Director Kenya McKnight, 612-483-3245; CAIR-MN Civil Rights Director Taneeza Islam, 651-587-4712, E-Mail: tislam@cair.com; CAIR-MN Board Chair Lori Saroya, 612-327-6700, E-Mail: lsaroya@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202 488-8787 or 202-744-7726, E-Mail: ihooper@cair.com

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CAIR-FL VIDEO: CONTROVERSIAL DVD ABOUT RADICAL ISLAM INCLUDED IN ORLANDO SENTINEL - TOP
WFTV, 9/15/08


Click here to watch the video.


Just weeks before the election, there are questions about a controversial insert published in The Orlando Sentinel. The insert on radical Islam included a 60-minute DVD.

Over 300,000 copies of "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against The West" went out to Orlando residents as an insert in Sunday's Sentinel. Twenty-eight million copies will go out in swing states nationwide by the end of the week.

The Clarion Fund paid millions of dollars to get the DVD out. It's a non-profit organization that claims to focus on national security. Eyewitness News asked the New York-based group and they would not say exactly how many millions they receive or who their donors are. (MORE)

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CAIR-FL: 'RADICAL ISLAM' VIDEO ANGERS SOUTH FLORIDA MUSLIMS - TOP
A DVD about “radical Islam's war against the west,” included with the Sunday Miami Herald and dozens of other newspapers, has caused a stir among the region's Muslims.
Jaweed Kaleem, Miami Herald, 9/16/08


A controversial DVD distributed to millions of Americans during the past week through direct mail and newspapers, including The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald, has angered many Muslims in South Florida.

Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the Westwas packaged as an advertising insert in 70 newspapers, including The Sun Sentinel and The Palm Beach Post. The Clarion Fund, a nonprofit organization that promotes ''national security through education,'' sent the hourlong preview of the documentary to 28 million households, many in election swing states such as Florida, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Readers of The St. Petersburg Times, The Florida Times-Union of Jacksonville and The News-Press of Fort Myers also received the DVDs.

The DVD includes montages of terrorist training camps and suicide bombers paired with narration by commentators such as Daniel Pipes, founder of the conservative Middle East Forum think tank. Many of the film's pundits are known for controversial views on Islam. In one part of the DVD, clips of Muslim children being recruited as suicide bombers are interspersed with images of Nazis.

“My cellphone has been ringing off the hook . . . We feel that it's going to incite more hate and bigotry against our community,” said Altaf Ali, Florida chapter director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The DVD does not do enough to differentiate between terrorists and mainstream Muslims, he said. (MORE)

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ONE NEWSPAPER REFUSES TO DISTRIBUTE 'ISLAM TERROR' DVD - TOP
Greg Mitchell, Editor & Publisher, 9/15/08


As explored here this past weekend, the Clarion Fund has paid dozens of newspapers across the country -- almost solely in "swing" election states -- and The New York Times to distribute the "Islam terror" DVD "Obsession" with their home delivery packages. Among the larger cities where this has taken place: Miami, Philadelphia, Denver and Pittsburgh.

An estimated 28 million copies have been distributed so far, also through the mails and other magazines. An article at the group's site, www.radicalislam.org, all but endorsed John McCain this past week, then was pulled down.

But at least one newspaper turned away the money and refused to distribute it, calling it "divisive."

It's the Greensboro News & Record in North Carolina.. The longtime editor, John Robinson, explained his reasoning in a column yesterday. (MORE)

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HATE MAIL, COURTESY OF YOUR DAILY NEWSPAPER - TOP
Wayne Garcia, Creative Loafing, 9/15/08


Readers of the St. Petersburg Times on Sunday found a little rancid bonus in their newspapers this weekend: a DVD called Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West, which is a hate film ostensibly about Islamic terror. It’s really a thinly veiled attempt to influence the presidential election by flooding anti-Muslim sentiment ahead of the Obama-McCain balloting in November.

Nothing like infusing the voters’ minds with fresh images of terror, especially little children as jihadists, only 50 days away from the day we decide whether to put a man named Barack Hussein Obama into office.

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OBSESSION: A JIHAD-HAPPY DVD DELIVERED TO A NEWSPAPER NEAR YOU - TOP
Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel blog, 9/16/08


The movie Obsession: Radical Islam's War With the West, whose trailer is below, was delivered with your Orlando Sentinel newspaper this AM. And, it is my understanding, the DVD was delivered to households receiving other newspapers around the country today as well. True?
Apparently, Parade Magazine isn't conservative enough for some folks. But hey, they paid to package it with our paper, so glad to be of service! Did the check clear?

Anyhoo, didya watch it? Check out the trailer if you have any questions about what it's about, and those who endorse it. Lots of Fox and Limbaugh plugs for it in that trailer. They're in lock step over its virtues. It's two-to-three years old, and the reason it's being shipped out to newspaper readers across America? Scaring the scareable before an election, apparently. Michael Moore's giving away his latest film on the Internet to do the same thing, but Obsession at least helps a paper's bottom line. More power to'em.

I've seen the Obsession before, but I checked it out again this AM before heading out for a day on the water. It's an alarmist manifesto about what the producers and their unnamed Brit narrator go to pains to label as the threat from "radical Islam." The points seem solid, the massive amounts of video from TV programming all over the Middle East, from Lebanon to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia to Pakistan, is damning. For years (much of the TV news footage from the Middle East, the Imam "death to America" sermons, is over 5 years old, not that things have changed much since) Arab governments all over the Middle East have stood by while their airwaves, their mosques and websites bubbled with anti-Americanism and antisemitism.

Experts, from Middle Eastern journalists such as Khalid Abu Toameh (described as a Palestinian journalist...they don't say he's with The Jersualem Post, which says volumes) to A British historian and Churchill biographer Sir Martin Gilbert to Itamar Marcus of Palestinian Media Watch (that's a good idea for a think tank--monitoring TV and radio for this sort of naked evidence of "how they feel about us") to conservative academic Daniel Pipes to journo Caroline Glick and Steve Emerson of something called The Investigative Project rail against the Islam-fascism that now confronts the West, and the ways it parallels (in their minds) the 1930s and the world's slow-to-act take on Nazi Germany.

The experts vary widely in credibility and seem selected because of their willingness to say what the movie wants them to say. It's a mildly scary film, but one utterly lacking in context. (MORE)

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CAIR-FL: MUSLIM MAN SAYS JAX OFFICER TARGETED HIM - TOP
News4Jax, 9/15/08


A Georgia man who recently visited Jacksonville said he has some very unpleasant memories of the city after he claims he was targeted by a police officer because of his ethnicity.

The man, who is Muslim, is filing a complaint against the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, because he said an officer pulled him over and asked him questions he felt were insulting.

The man, who does not want to be identified, said he was driving in his car wearing the official dress of Dubai when he said he pulled over and the officer told him it was for suspicion of DUI.

However, the man said he was never given a Breathalyzer test and instead was inundated with improper questions.

"It seems to us as though they are violating Constitutional laws that have been set," said Emad Ahmad, who works for the Council on American Islamic Relations.

Emad is working with the accuser in the case. He said the accuser was in town for a medical conference when he said the incident happened. Wearing a white Islamic robe and a turban, the man said he was pulled over by a sheriff's officer while on the Southside. (MORE)

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CAIR-FL: MUSLIM MAN CLAIMS HE WAS UNFAIRLY TARGETED BY POLICE - TOP
Jeff Hess, WOKV, 9/15/08


A Muslim man passing through Jacksonville is filing a complaint against the Jacksonville Police after he says he was unfairly pulled over and questioned.

The Georgia man was in town for a medical conference when he was pulled over by the officer.

He says he was pulled over because of what he was wearing, a traditional Muslim robe and head scarf known as a Guthra.

Emad Ahmed from the Council on American Islamic Relations is working with the man. (MORE)

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CAIR-NV: ISLAMIC HOLY MONTH: KEEPING THE FAITH - TOP
Las Vegas families strive to observe Muslim traditions during Ramadan
Danielle Nadler, Southeast View, 9/16/08


The alarm sings early this month at the Fayed household.

By 4:15 a.m., a half hour before sunrise, the family of four is gathered around the table in their two-bedroom apartment to eat fruit, yogurt, grains and juice; the last food or drink Ahmad Fayed and his wife, Fatma Alazab, will have until sunset.

The Fayeds and the estimated 18,000 Muslims in Las Vegas have abstained from food, drink and other pleasures from sunrise to sunset since Sept. 1 in observance of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month.

This is the Fayed family's second Ramadan away from their home country, Egypt. Just like most of Las Vegas' first-generation American Muslims, the Fayeds have made an extra effort to hold on to the Muslim traditions from their homeland. . .

The family settles for an Internet alarm to indicate the time for their five daily prayers. In Egypt and most other Muslim countries, a loud Arabic song is projected from mosques to announce prayer.

The Fayeds are not alone in their modified Ramadan celebrations.

Most of the city's Muslims have had to get used to holy days away from their home countries, said Yasser Moten of the Council on American-Islamic Relations of Nevada.

Las Vegas Muslims have come from all over the world, and they each come with different customs.

"For many of the immigrants, when they're in their other country, the entire community is fasting," Moten said. "And when they come to the United States, it's really hard for a lot of these immigrants to hold on to that celebratory environment."

Thousands of Muslims meet at Las Vegas' five mosques each evening throughout Ramadan to pray and break their fast. Moten said the communal meals give Muslims a chance to celebrate their religious traditions together. (MORE)


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NE: MUSLIM PROTEST FOR RIGHT TO PRAYER - TOP
Tracy Overstreet, Grand Island Independent, 9/15/08


A group of 500 Muslim workers from Grand Island's JBS Swift & Co. plant staged a protest Monday afternoon.

Members of the B shift (3 to 11:30 p.m.) and some members of the morning A shift walked off the job after being denied time to pray during what they said is the holiest of times for them -- Ramadan.

A group of protesting women said they were kicked by a supervisor when they attempted to pray at work.

Asha Abdi said she knelt to pray when the supervisor said, "You can't pray here," kicked her feet and told her to go home.

Another woman, Hawo Mohammed, said she told her production supervisor she needed to go to the bathroom. She attempted to pray quickly in the bathroom until the male supervisor followed her in and told her she was taking too long.

"The main point is freedom for religion," said Ridwan Abbi, a second-shift production worker who gladly supported his peers. (MORE)

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IL: BRIDGEVIEW TEAM TAKES BIG STEP - TOP
Deborah Horan, Chicago Tribune, 9/16/08


Three years ago, girls at a private Muslim high school in suburban Bridgeview asked their basketball coach if they could play against public schools. School administrators hesitated because the teenage athletes removed their head scarves during games and wore uniforms that revealed elbows and knees.

Boys at the other schools might sit in the bleachers and watch them.

This year, girls at Universal School, on the grounds of the Bridgeview Mosque Foundation, will compete a full season against public schools for the first time by wearing a modest uniform of long pants and long-sleeved shirts beneath maroon sports jerseys. They'll also cover their hair.

"Our other option was to keep boys away at the other schools, and it's very hard to do that," said coach Lena Tleib.

They have 16 games scheduled so far and hope to add more before the season begins. Meanwhile, female volleyball players — also dressed modestly — already have competed against Gordon Tech, a Catholic high school. And Tleib is organizing a girls soccer team. (MORE)

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INCITEMENT WATCH: MAKE ISLAM ILLEGAL IN AMERICA? - TOP

Wall Street, What's Next?
Frank Gaffney, Washington Times, 9/16/08


…The next "what" is called Shariah-Compliant Finance (SCF).

Shariah, of course, is the term the Islamists use to describe the ruthlessly repressive, totalitarian program they believe should govern every aspect of the lives of faithful Muslims. It is also the instrument they intend to use to rule the world. The first clue that something is wrong with Wall Street's next big thing is that it is Shariah-compliant.

The next clue is how Shariah-Compliant Finance works. Like subprime, it is a black box, in which management and investors alike are told to trust in the experts. In this case, the experts are Shariah authorities who are accorded exclusive responsibility for determining whether investments are "pure" (halal) and therefore acceptable, or "impure" (haram) and not.

As an important monograph on the subject recently issued by the McCormick Foundation and the Center for Security Policy (for copies contact the Center at www.SecureFreedom.org) makes clear, these authorities are, unsurprisingly, adherents to Shariah. A number of them explicitly embrace its call to jihad (including a former senior member of the Dow Jones Islamic Index, Sheik Taqi Usmani). This "holy war" is to be waged where possible through violent means, where necessary through "soft" means like Shariah-Compliant Finance. For this reason, such Islamists call SCF "financial jihad."

Earlier this year, David Yerushalmi, a litigator specializing in securities law and an expert on Shariah, produced a riveting legal memorandum (soon to appear in the University of Utah Law Review) examining the civil and criminal exposure inherent in Shariah-Compliant Finance. His conclusion: banks and investment houses offering SCF products may be enabling or engaging in the following: racketeering, antitrust activity, securities fraud, consumer fraud and/or material support for terror.

What makes Shariah-Compliant Finance even more dangerous than subprime is that, in its effort to legitimize and institutionalize Shariah in America, it is advancing a criminal conspiracy whose purpose is the violent overthrow of the United States Constitution and government in favor of Islamic rule. That would make it sedition. (MORE)

ACTION REQUESTED: (AS ALWAYS, be POLITE. Hostile comments can and will be used to further defame the Muslim community.)

WRITE A LETTER TO THE EDITOR of the Washington Times to express your concern about an apparent call by its columnist to treat Islam as a “criminal conspiracy.”

CONTACT:

Letters Editor
The Washington Times
3600 New York Ave. NE
Washington, D.C. 20002

Tel: 202/636-3305
Fax: 202/832-2982

E-Mail: letters@washingtontimes.com, oped@washingtontimes.com, commentary@washingtontimes.com
COPY TO: info@cair.com

Background - David Yerushalmi, the person Frank Gaffney quotes on shariah financing, is the head of a racist anti-Muslim group called Society of Americans for National Existence (SANE). Sane has in the past urged that the practice of Islam be made illegal.

On its now-deleted website, SANE offered a policy proposal that would make it illegal to be a Muslim:

“Whereas, adherence to Islam as a Muslim is prima facie evidence of an act in support of the overthrow of the US. [sic] Government through the abrogation, destruction, or violation of the US Constitution and the imposition of Shari’a on the American People...It shall be a felony punishable by 20 years in prison to knowingly act in furtherance of, or to support the, adherence to Islam.” [A SANE Act to Deal with the Islamic Threat to America’s National Existence (SADITANE)]

SANE’s website once contained the following white supremacist language as part of its mission statement:

“America is a unique people bound together through a commitment to America’s Judeo-Christian moral foundation and to an enduring faith and trust in G-d and in His Providence. America’s founding, and its greatness was neither accident nor staging ground for some better existence or world state. America was the handiwork of faithful Christians, mostly men, and almost entirely white, who ventured from Europe to create a nation in their image of a country existing as free men under G-d.”

Other articles on the SANE website made racist statements such as: “There is a reason the founding fathers did not give women or black slaves the right to vote,” and "Race matters and affects your intelligence. Jews are the smartest white people around. Orientals smarter than Whites. Latinos next. Then Blacks.”

Another SANE article stated:

“Is there something unique about the Black American (or, at least the Black New Yorker) that leads him to murder so disproportionately and to most often kill and victimize his own? Do we see patterns of Black culture that arise out of Africa and the wanton murder of blacks by blacks there? Why have the colonized blacks of the African continent, after having acquired their freedom and independence, so willingly slaughtered their own and live in despicable disease and squalor despite a land of enormous riches while Indians of the Indian sub-continent have successfully moved from British rule to democracy and relative civility even in a country that still maintains social inequalities as a fact of their culture?”

The New York Jewish Week newspaper reported last year that Yerushalmi “condemns democracy in the United States and, in comments that evoke classical anti-Semitic stereotypes, says he finds truth in the view that Jews ‘destroy their host nations like a fatal parasite.’” (8/24/07)

In a March 2, 2006, article for The American Spectator, Yerushalmi wrote: "Muslim civilization is at war with Judeo-Christian civilization...The Muslim peoples, those committed to Islam as we know it today, are our enemies."

In another article, Yerushalmi wrote: “Instead of a promise of victory, Sura 24:52 must be made ashes in the mouths of Muslims. A seemingly unending air control campaign over enemy territory is the way to continually remind the Muslims of their subordinate status and the impotence of Allah without becoming mired in the quagmire of counterinsurgency.” He also wrote: “SANE has staked out an approach which is to Know the Enemy by declaring the enemy historical, traditional, and authoritative Islam….”