CAIR: SEN. SPECTER CANCELS SPEECH AT ANTI-ISLAM EVENT - TOP

(WASHINGTON, D.C., 5/18/09) - The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) announced today that Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) has canceled a scheduled appearance at an “anti-Islam” conference in Washington, D.C., hosted by a right-wing think tank headed by Daniel Pipes, who is regarded by many Muslims as one of the nation’s leading Islamophobes.

CAIR reports that Specter, who was to give the opening address at the conference, cited a “scheduling conflict” for his decision to withdraw from the event. As late as today, media schedules listed Specter as a speaker at the conference.

The false premise of the conference, called “Libel Lawfare: Silencing Criticism of Radical Islam,” is that American Muslims are involved in a concerted effort to suppress free speech by misusing the American legal system.

SEE: Specter Embraces Pipes’ Islamophobia (Tikum Olam)
SEE ALSO: Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter to Speak at ‘Anti-Islamist’ Conference

Last week, CAIR’s Pennsylvania chapter launched an online petition drive to allow constituents to express concerns about Sen. Specter’s participation in the conference.

“We applaud Senator Specter’s decision to withdraw from this inaccurate, inflammatory and agenda-driven conference,” said CAIR-Philadelphia Executive Director Justin Peyton. “We strongly support free speech and other First Amendment rights, but believe the senator’s appearance at this event would have legitimized views not shared by the majority of Pennsylvanians of all faiths.”

Peyton said conference host and speaker Daniel Pipes has stated that the views of far-right French racist Jean-Marie Le Pen “represent an important outlook in the national debate over immigration and Islam” and that he supports racial and religious profiling of Muslims and Arabs. In December 2004, Pipes wrote on his website that he supports the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

Frank Gaffney, one of the event’s other speakers, is linked to an anti-Islam group that has advocated prison terms in the U.S. for “adherence to Islam” and that questioned whether women and African-Americans should be allowed to vote. Gaffney has also claimed that the use of Islamic finance in America is a form of treason.

Other conference participants include Joe Kaufman, a Florida anti-Muslim extremist with a long history of seeking to marginalize and disenfranchise the American Muslim community and its institutions. In 2006, Kaufman joined forces with an anti-Islam preacher in Florida to block the expansion of a mosque in Boca Raton. “This mosque should not exist on American shores,” said Kaufman. (St. Petersburg Times, 7/14/06)

Kaufman has in the past promoted the views of the terrorist organizations Kach and Kahane Chai and praised the Kahane terror group and its founder Mier Kahane on a forum of the radical Jewish Defense League in Florida.

SEE: “A Kahane Legacy Lost” by Joe Kaufman

CAIR, America's largest Islamic civil liberties 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 or 202-744-7726, E-Mail: ihooper@cair.com; CAIR Communications Coordinator Amina Rubin, 202-488-8787 or 202-341-4171, E-Mail: arubin@cair.com

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CHUCK SCHUMER TO ADDRESS PRO-SETTLER RALLY - TOP
Tikun Olam, 5/17/09

Chuck Schumer cozies up to the Jewish wingnut classes

Yesterday, I posted about Arlen Specter being an honored guest and speaker at a Daniel Pipes anti-Muslim conference. But Jewschool has done me one better reporting that Chuck Schumer will address an Israel Independence Day rally sponsored by the right-wing National Council of Young Israel. Apparently, Chuck hasn’t read any of the not-so-fine print in the rally poster which includes these lovely slogans:

• Jerusalemunited forever, never to be divided again
• No to a PA/Hamas terror state!
• No to the surrender of any part of Eretz Yisrael
• No to the expulsion of Jews from Judea and Samaria

Among the sterling Jewish groups sponsoring this proud expression of love for Israel are the wingnut pro-settler Hebron Fund (”your home for Jewish pogroms”), Ateret Cohanim (the settler yeshiva and sponsor of Palestinian land thefts), Americans for a Safe Israel and Arutz Sheva (settler radio”all hate, all the time”). (More)

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CAIR-SAN ANTONIO WELCOMES SENTENCING OF TEEN WHO STABBED MUSLIM FRIEND - TOP

(SAN ANTONIO, TX, 5/18/09) - The San Antonio chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR-SA) today welcomed a 16-year sentence given to a Texas teen who stabbed a Muslim friend 13 times.

SEE: Teen Sentenced to 16 Years in Prison
VIDEO: Texas Teen Gets 16 Years in Prison for Stabbing Muslim Friend

In a statement, CAIR-SA President Sarwat Husain said: “We welcome the verdict and thank all the jurors for their fair and just decision. We appreciate all the help that was provided to Mohammed Martinez and his family by the San Antonio Police Department, EMS, University Hospital and its staff, all the doctors and nurses, neighbors and friends. All these people have shown what a truly caring city we are living in. They all made us feel that we are here for each other. I would also like to thank the Bexar County District Attorney Susan D. Reed, her staff, Judge Laura Parker, Attorneys Jill Mata and Rose Zebell, Rebecca Mendez (Victims Advocate) and all the witnesses for all the understanding and help they provide to Mohammed Martinez and his family.”

CAIR, America's largest Islamic civil liberties 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-SA President Sarwat Husain, 210-378-9528, E-Mail: shusain@cair.com

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POLICE APOLOGIZE FOR OFFICER'S COMMENT TO BOY, GROUP SAYS - TOP
Ben Aguirre Jr., The Argus

NEWARK — The Newark Police Department recently apologized to the mother of a 15-year-old boy who in January reportedly was the subject of an officer's "racial" comment, an official from the Bay Area chapter of an American-Islamic organization said.

In addition, several police officers who witnessed the incident have been disciplined in connection with the matter, the official said.

Police confirmed that a meeting took place Wednesday at department headquarters, but would not confirm Friday whether an apology had been offered, or whether any officers had been disciplined.

"We (legally) cannot discuss personnel matters," said police Cmdr. Tom Milner, who confirmed that he attended the meeting.

The Bay Area chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, issued a statement Friday saying that the department took appropriate actions in disciplining officers. (More)

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HATE CRIME OR NOT, MUSLIM DESERVES TO FEEL SAFE AT HOME - TOP
Jeri Rowe, News-Record, 5/17/09

Last Sunday, in this space, Yusra Alaqrah talked about having her house egged time and again, always after midnight, for more than three years.

She felt no one was listening, no one cared, and she believed she was hit incessantly because of the folds of fabric that framed her face: her head scarf, her hijab, the wardrobe signature of her religion.

Alaqrah is a Muslim, an American citizen and a Jordanian native. And she felt she was a victim of a hate crime.

Today, Greensboro police say that’s not the case. After an investigation, their verdict: petty vandalism…

Now, she doesn’t have much comfort. She’s a 53-year-old divorced mother of four, grandmother of three, who has sat up way past midnight, peeking through the blinds, to catch the vandals egging her house.

She has lost sleep, and she went to the doctor for stress. And even with the ruling by the police, she still believes she’s a victim of a hate crime.

“Hateful people throw eggs and hateful people keep doing it and doing it and keep doing it for 3 ? years,’’ says Alaqrah, a certified nursing assistant who holds down three jobs to help pay the bills. “That is a hate crime.”

Hate crime, a phrase explosive as a live grenade, brings to mind an ugly chapter of American history — from lynchings to the attack of a gay man who died tied to a split-rail fence in the middle of nowhere.

But a hate crime can be hard to prove and, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington, law enforcement officers are often reluctant to classify crimes that way. (More)

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AMERICAN ISLAMIC SCHOLARS PLAN MUSLIM US COLLEGE IN TRADITION OF BRANDEIS, NOTRE DAME - TOP
RACHEL ZOLL, Associated Press, 5/17/09

PLAINSBORO, N.J. (AP) — A group of American Muslims, led by two prominent scholars, is moving closer to fulfilling a vision of founding the first four-year accredited Islamic college in the United States, what some are calling a "Muslim Georgetown."

Advisers to the project have scheduled a June vote to decide whether the proposed Zaytuna College can open in the fall of next year, a major step toward developing the faith in America. (More)

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NOW A FREE MAN, HOUSTON IMAM CLINGS TO HOPE - TOP
He awaits a deportation hearing after being released from 5-month detention
LINDSAY WISE, Houston Chronicle, 5/15/09

Sheikh Zoubir Bouchikhi stepped out of a friend’s car as twilight fell over his southeast Houston neighborhood this week, an electronic monitor blinking on his ankle.

The last time the 39-year-old spiritual leader of Abu Bakr Siddqui mosque had stood in his own driveway, he’d been in handcuffs. Now, after five months at an immigration detention center in Houston, the imam was free on $20,000 bail. And yet for a moment, only yards from his front door, he couldn’t move. His feet seemed to sink into the pavement, relief tugging hard like quicksand.

“The sun was setting, and I felt like a phase of my life was setting with the sun,” he said. “Hopefully a new phase of my life will begin.”

Bouchikhi’s release on Wednesday comes on the heels of a grass-roots campaign by his supporters, who pressed the government for months to release the imam on bail while he awaits a deportation hearing.

Last week, Bouchikhi’s lawyer, Brian Bates, filed a writ of habeas corpus in U.S. District Court in Houston, seeking relief from unlawful imprisonment. The 20-page document (read it here) details a Kafkaesque nightmare of unreturned phone calls, unresponsive bureaucrats and confusion over which official was handling the imam’s case. In the document, Bates describes making dozens of calls to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials after his client’s arrest Dec. 17, only to be juggled between voice mails and a handful of different officers and supervisors who either failed to return messages, or passed responsibility to others. (More)

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ACQUITTED MAN LANGUISHING BEHIND BARS - TOP
FRED GRIMM, Miami Herald, 5/17/09

Lyglenson Lemorin committed an offense tantamount to a terror attack. He embarrassed Homeland Security.

Which explains why he's still behind bars 520 days after being exonerated by a Miami jury.

Remember Lemorin? He was indicted in 2006 as an operative in a hapless terrorist gaggle known as the Liberty City Seven. The first trial ended Dec. 13, 2007. The jurors deadlocked on all but one defendant.

Lemorin was acquitted of four scary charges. A big mistake, getting that not-guilty verdict.

Reducing the Liberty City Seven to the Liberty City Six didn't sit well with Justice Department apparatchiks who had gone to considerable expense painting Lemorin and associates as homegrown al Qaeda desperados, bent on blowing up buildings, wreaking havoc and killing Americans.

DEPORTATION ORDER

After the verdict, Lemorin was bound in chains like the terrorist he wasn't and whisked away that very night to a federal detention center in rural Georgia, far from his wife and three kids in Miami. Homeland Security cajoled an immigration judge into issuing a deportation order for Lemorin, a legal permanent resident, based on the very charges disproved in U.S. District Court…

Jury verdicts apparently don't cut much ice with ICE. On April 6, ICE sent eight carloads of agents to snatch Youssef Megahed, a 23-year-old legal resident, from a Tampa Wal-Mart parking lot and begin deportation proceedings. Three days earlier, a jury had found Megahed not guilty of terror-related charges. Four of the jurors signed a statement calling his arrest “a blatant disregard for the will of its own people.” (More)

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BIBLICAL QUOTES SAID TO ADORN PENTAGON REPORTS - TOP
DAVID E. SANGER, New York Times, 5/18/09

A series of cover sheets for intelligence reports written for Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and other senior Pentagon officials during the early days of the war in Iraq in 2003 were adorned with biblical quotations, and appeared Sunday, six years later, on the Web site of GQ magazine. (More)

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HALAL: BUYING MUSLIM - TOP
CARLA POWER, Time, 5/14/09

Khalfan Mohammed has long been buffeted by culture shock while staying in five-star hotels. As a devout Muslim he has learned to ask staff to remove the minibar's alcohol. He loathes lobbies with loud discos and drunken guests. When traveling with his parents, it is the bikinis that rankle most. "It was quite shocking for my mother to sit in a restaurant with undressed people," the Abu Dhabi-based businessman says. "My mom and dad are not used to seeing people in public wearing their underwear." To avoid such embarrassment, the Mohammeds took to renting furnished apartments.

No longer. On a trip to Dubai last year, Mohammed stayed in the Villa Rotana, one of a growing number of hotels catering to Muslim travelers. In the lobby — all white leather, brick and glass, with a small waterfall — quiet reigns. Men in dishdashas and veiled women glide by Westerners who are sometimes discreetly reminded to respect local customs. Minibars are stocked not with alcohol, but with Red Bull, Pepsi and the malt drink Barbican.

Time was, buying Muslim meant avoiding pork and alcohol and getting your meat from a halal butcher, who slaughtered in accordance with Islamic principles. But the halal food market has exploded in the past decade and is now worth an estimated $632 billion annually, according to the Halal Journal, a Kuala Lumpur-based magazine. That's about 16% of the entire global food industry. Throw in the fast-growing Islam-friendly finance sector and the myriad other products and services — cosmetics, real estate, hotels, fashion, insurance — that comply with Islamic law and the teachings of the Koran, and the sector is worth well over $1 trillion a year.

One reason for the rise of the halal economy is that the world's 1.6 billion Muslims are younger and, in some places at least, richer than ever. Seeking to tap that huge market, non-Muslim multinationals like Tesco, McDonald's and Nestlé have expanded their Muslim-friendly offerings and now control an estimated 90% of the global halal market. (More)