MD. MUSLIM OBJECTS TO ‘SEPARATE BUT EQUAL’ TREATMENT BY BANK - TOPCAIR again asks banking industry to address discriminatory ‘no hats’ policy
(WASHINGTON, D.C., 3/9/09) A prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group today challenged a “separate but equal” Navy Federal Credit Union (NFCU) policy that treats customers wearing religious head coverings differently than other customers.
The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said a Muslim customer at an NFCU branch in California, Md., reported that she was singled out twice by bank officials because of her religiously-mandated head scarf, or hijab.
In February, the Muslim customer, who has been banking with NFCU since 1992, was removed from the waiting line and taken to a back office to complete her transaction. She was reportedly told that she would have to conduct her business in a separate area every time she came to the bank.
On March 7th, the Muslim customer was again asked to step out of line but left the bank after refusing to complete her transaction in a back office.
Last month, Virginia-based NFCU told CAIR that it would remind employees that the bank’s new "no hats, hoods and sunglasses" policy does not prohibit Muslim customers or staff from wearing hijabs. The reminder came after a Muslim NFCU customer was denied service at a branch in San Diego, Calif., despite telling bank officials that she wears her head scarf for religious reasons. NFCU offered that Muslim customer a personal apology.SEE: Muslim Woman Denied Service Over Head Scarf to Get Apology (Union-Tribune) SEE ALSO: Calif. Muslim Claims Bank Singled Her Out for Head Scarf
At the time of the California incident, a CAIR spokesman said the new NFCU policy “is far too vague and will inevitably lead to a reoccurrence of such discriminatory incidents.”
“Navy Federal’s policy on head coverings clearly forces bank employees to impose a ‘separate but equal’ status not only on Muslim women who wear hijab, but on all those who wear religious attire,” said CAIR Communications Coordinator Amina Rubin in response to the latest NFCU incident.
She said this and other incidents are apparently the result of “no hats” policies being implemented in banks nationwide. “The banking industry needs to come up with a standard policy based not only on security needs, but also on the religious and civil rights of customers.”
SEE: 'No Hats, No Hoods, No Sunglasses'
Rubin cited another case in California in which a bank had to issue a formal apology to a Muslim customer who was denied service because she wears hijab.
SEE: Oakland Bank Apologizes to Muslim Woman Denied Service
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.
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 National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-488-8787, E-Mail: ihooper@cair.com; CAIR Communications Coordinator Amina Rubin, 202-488-8787, E-Mail: arubin@cair.com
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CAIR-CA: BREACH OF TRUST: FBI WANTS IT BOTH WAYS - TOPNew University Editorial Board, 3/9/09
Imagine a man walks into your school, work, place of worship, community—a place you consider a home away from home. He gives you his name, origins and occupation, and assures you he is of your kind but declares he’s new. So you take him under your wing, befriend him and introduce him to your world.
But this man doesn’t appear to be the most reputable of the bunch—you brush off his criticisms of the U.S. as zeal, but soon his words take an increasingly violent turn, and you become more than a little worried. You report the not-so-favorable-man-after-all to the authorities. A few months later, you find yourself behind bars.
Turns out the guy you had earlier befriended and confided in was actually an undercover federal informant, and you were his latest victim. Good times, eh?
The times were anything but pleasant for Ahmadullah Niazi, a 34-year-old Tustin man who suffered a similar experience at the hands of Craig Monteilh. According to Monteilh, the FBI paid him sums ranging from $2,500 a month to as high as $11,200 from July 2006 to October 2007 to infiltrate several different mosques in Orange County, including the Islamic Center of Irvine (ICOI), which Niazi attended. Monteilh, a self-proclaimed light-skinned African-American, presented himself to members of the Irvine mosque as an immigrant of French and Syrian descent who was interested in converting to Islam, as per the agreement with the FBI, and proceeded down a trail of fabricating spirituality and forging friendships with community members. Among them was Niazi.
When Monteilh, a convicted con artist, began shifting religious discussions to those of “operations” against U.S. military targets, suggesting that he had access to weapons and, according to court documents, trying to recruit people to “join him in a terrorist plot,” community members felt threatened and the mosque obtained a restraining order against Monteilh. Niazi was the one who first approached the FBI regarding a man at ICOI who had been speaking about blowing up buildings. (MORE)
SEE ALSO:
AL: HOLDER VOWS TO RESTORE DOJ CIVIL RIGHTS - TOPJonathan Martin, Politico, 3/8/09
Barack Obama went to Selma, Ala., two years ago to claim a place in the lineage of civil rights pioneers.
His African-American attorney general returned to mark “Bloody Sunday” again — this time, with a pledge to restore the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and end “the scourge of racial profiling.”
Much like Obama in 2007, Eric Holder’s appearance at Brown Chapel AME Church Sunday was part remembrance, part present-day politics
Holder was there to commemorate the day in 1965 when Alabama state troopers beat a group of civil rights marchers, but he also spoke to those in the church of racial struggles today, with a pledge that Obama would help protect the gains won by their predecessors. . .
“That will require the Justice Department to work hand in hand with police and communities to get neighborhoods engaged in promoting their own protection,” he said. “That won’t happen unless we relentlessly pursue an end to the scourge of racial profiling of African-Americans, Muslims and other Americans that alienates citizens from their own communities.” (MORE)
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AZ: 250 ATTEND 6TH ANNUAL JEWISH-MUSLIM PEACE WALK - TOPDaniel Woolfolk, Tucson Citizen, 3/8/09
[NOTE: CAIR-AZ’s board chair and his family took part in the event.]
About 250 people participated in the 6th Annual Jewish-Muslim Peace Walk in Tucson on Sunday, officials said.
The event began at 2 p.m. at Congregation Or Chadash, 3939 N. Alvernon Way, with a ceremony, followed by a walk to Al Huda Islamic School, 2800 E. River Road, where a Thai dinner was served. (MORE)
-----OBAMA TO VISIT TURKEY, FIRST TRIP TO MUSLIM NATION - TOPSue Pleming, Reuters, 3/7/09
ANKARA (Reuters) U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held up Turkey on Saturday as proof that democracy and Islam can coexist and said Barack Obama would visit the NATO state in his first trip as president to a Muslim country.
The choice of Turkey -- a secular Muslim democracy that aspires to join the European Union -- reflects the value Washington places on links with Ankara as it tries to forge a better relationship with the Islamic world.
"Democracy and modernity and Islam can all coexist," Clinton said in Ankara, appearing on a popular Turkish television chat show, Hadi Gel Bizimle (Come and Join Us).
"I really consider the role of Turkey as a global leader very important," she told her four female interviewers.
After eight years of former President George W. Bush, who invaded two Muslim countries and gave strong support to Israel, Obama has pledged a "new way forward" with the Muslim world.
There has been speculation he might use Turkey as a platform for a widely expected major policy speech on ties between the United States and Islamic countries. (MORE)
-----'THEY USED A SCALPEL... I WAS CRYING IN AGONY': GUANTANAMO VICTIM BINYAM MOHAMED SPEAKS - TOPDaily Mail, 3/9/09
Binyam Mohamed arrived in London from his native Ethiopia in 1994 aged 16 and was given leave to remain. After falling into drug use, he turned to religion. In 2000, someone at a mosque suggested he see the 'pure' form of Islam practised in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. Yesterday, he told his story in an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday.
[. . .]
Having said that he lived in an area of London known as Little Morocco, on July 21, 2002, he was sent to Morocco - apparently the Americans believed the authorities there could make him talk.
For the flight he was trussed, gagged, blindfolded and made to wear a giant nappy.One Moroccan interrogator at the prison in Rabat told him: 'Do you know who sent you here? The British sent you here.'
Mohamed said: 'They cut off my clothes with some kind of doctor's scalpel. I was totally naked. I was afraid to ask [the interrogator] Marwan what would happen because it would show fear.
'They took the scalpel... One of them took my penis in his hand and began to make cuts. He did it once, and they stood still for maybe a minute, watching my reaction.
'I was in agony, crying, trying desperately to suppress myself, but I was screaming. They must have done this 20 to 30 times in maybe two hours.'
Telegrams obtained by his lawyers from the U.S. courts show MI5 officers supplied questions to the U.S. to ask the captive.
He says: 'They [the interrogators] started bringing British files to the interrogations - thick binders, some of them containing sheaves of photos of people who lived in London and places there like mosques.
'The British were feeding them questions about people in London. When I realised that the British were co-operating with the people torturing me, I felt completely naked.
'It was when they started asking the questions supplied by the British that my situation worsened. They sold me out.' (MORE)