BREAKING: CALIF. MOSQUE TARGETED WITH HATE GRAFFITI - TOP
(ANAHEIM, CA, 6/4/09) - The Greater Los Angeles Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-LA) said today that vandals targeted a local mosque with hate graffiti early this morning.
CAIR-LA said the mosque in Cypress, Calif., was vandalized with “huge” graffiti, which stated: “F**k You, “we’re going to kill you,” and “US Military is going to kill you all.” The graffiti was reportedly several feet high across a wall of 20 to 30 feet. Local police are treating the vandalism as a hate crime.
SEE: Police Investigate Islamic Center Graffiti as Hate Crime
SEE ALSO: Mosque In SoCal Gets Vandalized with Racial Slurs
Representatives of CAIR-LA reported the incident to the FBI and are in touch with the police department and mosque officials.
“This apparent hate crime points to the need to challenge the destructive phenomenon of anti-Muslim stereotypes in our society that President Obama warned us about in his speech today in Cairo,” said CAIR-LA Executive Director Hussam Ayloush.
SEE: Hate Groups Growing Rapidly
He said state and national religious and political leaders must challenge the growing level of Islampohobia in American society that can result in such incidents. Ayloush added that CAIR offers advice for reacting to anti-Muslim hate crimes in its "Muslim Community Safety Kit."
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-LA Communications Manager Munira Syeda, 714-776-1847, 714-851-4851; E-mail: info@losangeles.cair.com; 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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CAIR ACTION ALERT #577:
ACTION: SUPPORT PRESIDENT’S ‘NEW DIRECTION’ IN CAIRO SPEECH - TOP
CAIR calls president’s speech ‘comprehensive, balanced and forthright’
(WASHINGTON, D.C., 6/4/09) - CAIR is calling on American Muslims and other people of conscience to support the new direction outlined in President Obama’s historic address to the Muslim world today in Cairo.
In a statement issued following the speech, CAIR called it “comprehensive, balanced and forthright” and said it may help reverse the deterioration in relations between the United States and Muslim-majority nations.
For a transcript of the president’s speech, click here.
To read CAIR’s statement, click here.
IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUESTED:
1. CONTACT the president to express support for the new direction outlined in his address. Clickhere to customize a letter to President Obama.
2. Write editorials and letters to the editor based on the points in CAIR’s statement and submit them to your local newspaper or publish them on your blog, Twitter or Facebook account. Send copies to info@cair.com
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CAIR VIDEO: MUSLIMS WATCH, REFLECT ON OBAMA’S SPEECH - TOP
Associated Press TV, 6/4/09
Click here to watch the video.
SEE ALSO:
CAIR: REACTION IN AMERICA ENTHUSIASTIC, WITH CAVEATS - TOP
Garance Franke-Ruta, Washington Post, 6/4/09
President Obama's Cairo address to the Muslim communities of the world reverberated back in the United States, where some Muslim leaders hailed it as a breakthrough, rebalancing international relationships, as well as an affirmation of American Muslims. Others thought the president could have gone further.
In the Washington area, the Council of American-Islamic Relations hosted a 6 a.m. viewing of the speech for local Muslim groups and community leaders. About 25 people attended, including representatives of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, the Falls Church Dar al Hijrah Islamic Center, the Coordinating Council of Muslim Organizations of Greater Washington, the District's Masjid Muhammed society, the Muslim American Society Freedom (MAS Freedom), and local business and community members.
Reaction to the speech by viewers at CAIR "was universally positive," said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the group. "People really thought he set a new tone, a new direction for American policy toward the Muslim world, particularly in reference to the Israeli-Palestinian issue. His rejection of settlements was very straightforward." Hooper also hailed "his rejection of crude stereotypes of Islam" and the "nuanced" understanding of Islam revealed by Obama's words.
"A theme that ran through his speech was balance," Hooper said. "His speech brings our policy more to the center and toward a policy of evenhandedness and balance that I think will be well received in the Muslim world." (More)
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CAIR-MN: REP. ELLISON (WITH A CAMEO), OTHER MINNESOTANS REACT TO SPEECH -TOP
Bob Von Sternberg, Star Tribune, 6/4/09
Beyond any of the specifics of President Obama's expansive speech in Cairo today, the most important fact about the speech "was that he did it," said Rep. Keith Ellison. "He achieved the essentials of moving the ball down the line."
Ellison, who was traveling in the Middle East late last week, said "everyone I talked to, in Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Israel, was excited about the fact that he is focusing on the Middle East and trying to build bridges.
"For the president to do what he did this morning sent a critical message of hopefulness to the whole region." …
Equally impressed was Lori Saroya, board chair of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Minnesota. "I was impressed by his call for a new beginning -- something we've waited for for the last eight years, when we were treated like second-class citizens," she said. "His saying Islam is part of America, quoting from the Qur'an, that hasn't happened before. I was kind of taken aback."
Saroya said she was relieved Obama "wasn't blaming Muslims and Islam. He treated us with respect, saying we're not the problem. Now we just have to wait for action, because so many policies of the Bush administration are still in place." (More)
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CAIR-IL: CHICAGO MUSLIMS RESPOND TO OBAMA’S SPEECH - TOP
Evelyn Holmes, WLS-TV, 6/4/09
Click here to watch the video.
June 4, 2009 (CHICAGO) (WLS) -- Some people are already calling the president's speech Thursday morning historic.
Obama said the United States is committed to working in partnership with the Middle East, and Americans and Muslims together could confront violent extremist across the world, thus advancing the search for peace in the Middle East.
The president met with Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, and he joined Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to tour a 600-year-old mosque. There, Obama got the tour of the historic pyramid. The president heads for Europe with stops in Germany and France next.
Muslims from around the world and in Chicago are reacting to the historic speech by President Obama.
Some American Muslims say they see the president's first speech addressing Muslims worldwide as a step in the right direction. One says the United States may finally be on the right track to healing its relationship with the Muslim world.
"I found that Obama is making it known that Islam and America are not mutually exclusive," said Gerald Hankerson.
The Chicago native and practicing Muslim is one of several who watched the president's address at a viewing sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations. (More)
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CAIR-TX: LOCAL MUSLIM AMERICANS SUPPORT OBAMA - TOP
KSAT, 6/4/09
Members of a Muslim American group in San Antonio said Thursday that they appreciate President Barack Obama's attempt to correct what they said was broken during the eight years of the Bush administration.
"This is what America needs and we have to stand behind him to do whatever we can to help him out," Sarwat Husain, CAIR-San Antonio president, said. "We all have to work together to establish peace and a better future." (More)
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CAIR-MI: METRO DETROITERS PRAISE OBAMA'S SPEECH ON ISLAM - TOP
Gregg Krupa, Detroit News, 6/4/09
Across Metro Detroit and elsewhere people responded positively to what President Obama said in Cairo today, in a major speech on Islam and resolving problems in the Middle East and South Asia…
"His speech was balanced and candid, perhaps the best speech that I have ever heard an American president deliver," said Dawud Walid, of the Council on American Islamic Relations-Michigan. "I am sure that this speech will not only aid in isolating extremists in the Muslim world, but was an education for some Americans who are hostile toward Islam because of lack of knowledge relating to America's historical relationship and benefit from Muslims." (More)
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CAIR-IL: US MUSLIMS GREET OBAMA SPEECH WITH HOPE, RELIEF - TOP
Mira Oberman, Agence France Presse, 6/4/09
For eight years, US Muslims cringed at the rhetoric coming out of the White House and the divisions created at home and abroad by terms like "Islamo-fascism" and "Islamic terrorists."
On Thursday, many here breathed a sigh of relief at the major shift marked by President Barack Obama's call for a new beginning with the Muslim world in a much-anticipated Cairo speech.
"The speech has done more to undermine Al-Qaeda than anything (former president George W.) Bush did," said Ahmed Rehab, executive director of the Chicago branch of the Council on American Islamic Relations…
"There is a clear feeling within the Muslim audience that President Obama is genuine," Rehab told AFP as he fielded calls in his bustling Chicago office where employees crowded around a television set to watch a replay of the speech.
"President Bush at times said the right things but he never seemed genuine."
Amina Sharif was touched by Obama's recognition of the contributions of Muslim Americans and his willingness to acknowledge the suffering of the Palestinian people.
"What he's doing will help to break stereotypes Americans have of their Muslim neighbors and of Muslims in other countries," said Sharif, who coordinates communications for CAIR.
"There will always be demagogues who try to criticize all his actions," she added. (More)
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CAIR-NY: WHITE HOUSE USES WEB DURING SPEECH TO MUSLIMS - TOP
Associated Press, 6/4/09
From left to right, Jay Dabhi, Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) volunteer; Faiza Ali, CAIR community affairs director; and Aliya Latif, far right, CAIR New York civil rights director, watch U.S. President Barack Obama's speech from Cairo projected on a big screen off a laptop computer at the InterChurch Center in New York Thursday June 4, 2009.
Click here to read the article
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CLEARED OF TERROR CHARGES, FACING DEPORTATION - TOP
Damien Cave, New York Times, 6/4/09
MOORE HAVEN, Fla. — Youssef Samir Megahed toyed with a piece of lint on the other side of the bulletproof glass and described his case as simply “weird.”
In April, a federal jury acquitted him on charges of transporting explosives during a road trip with a friend who had packed model rocket propellants in the trunk. But three days later, in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Tampa, Mr. Megahed was arrested again in connection with the case, this time by immigration authorities.
The new charge is that he “is engaged in or is likely to engage in” terrorist activities, a violation of his legal residency in the United States.
“They just label you a terrorist and that’s it,” said Mr. Megahed, 23, who moved to Florida from Egypt with his family 11 years ago and is being held here at an immigration detention center.
Mr. Megahed is at least the third Florida defendant in three years to be brought up on immigration charges after prosecutors failed to win terrorism convictions in federal court. If convicted of the new charges and deported, he would join thousands of other Muslim and Arab men sent home since Sept. 11, 2001, as part of an extensive law enforcement strategy that relies on the immigration courts to remove potential threats.
Some national security experts say the country is safer without such men, and immigration officials declare the deportations both legal and fair. But with President Obama scheduled to speak in Cairo on Thursday about repairing relations with the Muslim world, Mr. Megahed is being presented by critics of the immigration strategy here and abroad as a test case of the president’s pledge to break with some of the Bush administration’s most unpopular policies.
Egyptian news outlets and blogs have taken up Mr. Megahed’s cause. Several federal jurors who acquitted him have also made the rare move of publicizing their outrage at their verdict’s being second-guessed, while Arab-American groups, civil rights organizations and churches have lobbied the Obama administration for his release.
“We are sending the wrong message to American Muslims and the Muslim world,” said Ramzy Kiliç, executive director of the Tampa chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an advocacy group for Muslims. “If Obama really wants to make a new way forward with mutual respect, he has to start here at home.” (More)
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VIDEO: CAIR-MN CALLS FOR ACTION RABBI'S GENOCIDAL MESSAGE - TOP
KSTP-TV, 6/3/09
See the video.
The Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations is asking political and religious leaders in that state to repudiate a St. Paul rabbi.
CAIR says the writings of Rabbi Manis Friedman is a call to kill Arab men, women and children and to destroy their religious sites.
In an article in the latest issue of ‘Moment Magazine,’ headlined ‘How Should Jews Treat Their Arab Neighbors?’ Friedman of the Bais Chana Institute of Jewish Studies in St. Paul, wrote in part:
"I don’t believe in western morality, i.e. don’t kill civilians or children, don’t destroy holy sites, don’t fight during holiday seasons, don’t bomb cemeteries, don’t shoot until they shoot first because it is immoral. The only way to fight a moral war is the Jewish way: Destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children (and cattle)…with their holy sites destroyed, they will stop believing that God is on their side." (More)
SEE ALSO:
St. Paul Rabbi's Comments Set Off Storm of Protest (Star Tribune)
St. Paul Rabbi's Comments on Arabs Spark Outrage (Pioneer Press)
Rabbi's Comments About Arabs Widely Rebuked (MPR)
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