Interstellar News Service

SUSPECTS' TALK BACK: MUSLIMS COMPLAIN TO FBI - TOP
Heather Appel, City Limits Weekly, November 2, 2009

Many Flushing residents object to their treatment in the wake of a terrorism investigation, and they're doing something about it.

Almost two months after a suspected terrorist visited New York, setting off a chain of law enforcement activities including police raids of homes in Queens, activists are methodically collecting and recording complaints from Queens residents who allege a spectrum of harassment by law enforcement from verbal abuse to home entry without a warrant. The complaints will be logged by CUNY School of Law and given to Joseph M. Demarest Jr., the assistant director in charge of the FBI's New York City office…

“An entire community and religion should not be profiled because of an investigation,” said Monami Maulik, executive director of the South Asian advocacy group DRUM (Desis Rising Up and Moving), which led a rally last month outside the Flushing branch of the Queens library. Yet some say this is exactly what has happened. In the weeks since the raids, staff from DRUM say they have spoken with more than 100 families in Flushing and have heard numerous stories of people being questioned on their way to or from work, and being asked for identification in their own homes, said organizer Ayesha Mahmooda...

Incidents like these have led DRUM to partner with the CUNY law school on creating a complaint database, and to submit a series of recommendations to the FBI which it believes could help safeguard civil liberties and promote a better relationship between law enforcement and the South Asian community.

The recommendations include creating policy change and accountability mechanisms beyond "diversity training," and ending the use of agent provocateurs in mosques, Muslim businesses, organizations, and other neighborhood sites. “This practice makes a racial and religious presumption of criminal activity that is biased,” DRUM's letter states and lower attendance at mosques in Flushing reflects the current climate of suspicion, some report…

Advocates say the latest series of raids and interviews has rekindled fears in the community that began in the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Tensions escalated again in 2007 when the NYPD released a report titled “Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat,” which made sweeping generalizations about the city’s Muslim communities.

This September, the NYPD added a “statement of clarification” to the two-year-old report (on p. 11-12), which retracts the original report's statements linking the practice of Islam with terrorism, and states that increasing religiosity among Muslims "cannot be used as a signature of someone potentially becoming a terrorist." It also backs off from the conclusion that our area's Muslim communities have been "permeated" by radical ideologies.

Faiza N. Ali, community affairs director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-NY), said the clarification was an important step, but additional measures should be taken in order to safeguard both civil liberties and national safety. They are laid out in a letter to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly from the Muslim American Civil Liberties Coalition, of which CAIR is part. "We remain concerned that the standing report sends mixed messages: the clarification decouples religion from terrorism but the core language continues to criminalize religious behaviors,” Ali said. “The NYPD report risks alienating mainstream Muslims, and if translated into policy, will only deepen mistrust between law enforcement and community members.” (More)

SEE ALSO:

TEAM TO REVIEW SHOOTING OF IMAM - TOP
Detroit Free Press, 11/3/09

Ron Scott, head of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, called Monday for an independent investigation into the killing of Luqman Ameen Abdullah, a Muslim leader who headed the Masjid Al-Haqq mosque in Detroit. (More)

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U.S. TO PAY $1.2 MILLION TO 5 DETAINEES OVER ABUSE LAWSUIT - TOP
NINA BERNSTEIN, New York Times, 11/3/09

The federal government is paying $1.2 million to settle the cases of five Muslim immigrants who sued over their detention and treatment in a Brooklyn jail after 9/11, when hundreds of noncitizens were rounded up and held for months before being cleared of links to terrorism and deported.

The five were part of a larger lawsuit, Turkmen v. Ashcroft, which will continue to press the argument that the roundups and physical abuse they say they suffered were unconstitutional. (More)

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CAIR-LA TO GIVE ‘COURAGE IN MEDIA’ AWARD TO ZEITOUN AUTHOR, PULITZER NOMINEE DAVE EGGERS - TOP
13th annual banquet expected to draw 2,000 including public officials, community and interfaith leaders

(ANAHEIM, CA, 11/3/09) - The Greater Los Angeles Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-LA) will present its 2009 "Courage in Media" Award to Zeitoun author and Pulitzer Prize nominee Dave Eggers. Eggers will accept the award at CAIR-LA’s 13th annual banquet on Saturday, November 7 at the Anaheim Hilton.

Zeitoun is about a Muslim American man who volunteers to help rescue victims of Hurricane Katrina but is mistaken for a terrorist, detained by FEMA and subjected to a series of humiliations and detention at the hands of his own government.

Eggers also wrote A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, for which he was the 2001 Pulitzer Prize finalist, and is a co-screenwriter for the box office hit Where the Wild Things Are, an adaptation of 1963 classic children’s book by Maurice Sendak.

SEE: A Muslim American Hero: A Conversation with Dave Eggers on “Zeitoun”

“Dave Eggers has made accessible a powerful story about the joys and tribulations of being an American Muslim in the wake of the Bush administration’s misguided policies in the War on Terror,” said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of CAIR-LA. “His work deserves recognition and thanks from American Muslims.”

Some 2,000 guests are expected to attend Saturday’s banquet and celebrate CAIR-LA and the Southern California Muslim community’s accomplishments.

The keynote speech will be delivered by Dr. Sherman Jackson, professor of Arabic & Islamic Studies and visiting professor of law at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. North Carolina State Senator and CAIR National Board Chairman Larry Shaw and Shaikh Alauddin El-Bakri, Imam of Saratoga mosque and co-founder of Inner City Muslim Action Network (IMAN) and editor of IQRA, will also speak.

WHAT: CAIR-LA 13th Annual Banquet
WHEN: Saturday, November 7, at 5:30 p.m.
WHERE: Anaheim Hilton, 777 Convention Way, Anaheim, CA. [Please park in the Hilton parking for your ticket to be validated. Media professionals must carry company-issued credentials]
CONTACT: Munira Syeda, CAIR-LA communications manager, phone: (714) 776-1847 or (714) 851-4851; E-mail: info@losangeles.cair.com

CAIR-LA also will present Rancho Palos Verde resident Atif Moon with the 2009 "Excellence in Leadership" award. The 24-year-old was born with neuroblastoma, a cancer of the spinal cord. Despite being paralyzed from waist down, Moon lives a full life. He co-founded the Center for Global Understanding (CFGU), an organization that encourages Muslim American youth to participate in the civic process. He is also a sports enthusiast and will be pursuing a master’s degree in sports management in spring 2010.

CAIR is America's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. 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 or E-Mail at info@losangeles.cair.com

Interstellar News Service

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

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