VIDEO: CAIR DIRECTOR DISCUSSES MISSING YOUTH WITH LARRY KING - TOP
CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad appeared last night on CNN’s “Larry King Live” to discuss the Muslim community’s assistance to the FBI in locating five Virginia Muslims missing under mysterious circumstances.
View the video.
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CAIR: MINN. LEADERS ASKED TO REPUDIATE ANTI-MUSLIM INCIDENTS - TOP
Congressional candidate says Constitution does not apply to Muslims, anti-Islam fliers posted in St. Cloud
(ST. PAUL, MN, 12/10/09) - The Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MN) today called on political and religious leaders in that state to repudiate recent incidents of anti-Muslim hate.
In the first incident, a challenger to Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), the first Muslim elected to Congress, said Islam promotes criminal behavior and that Muslims do not deserve constitutional protections. On her campaign web site, Lynne Torgerson wrote in part: “[T]he religion of Islam cannot be protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. It is not ‘religion’ recognizable under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.”
In a media interview, she said, "I don't want other cultures coming into the United States and chilling our freedoms."
SEE: Ellison Foe Torgerson Says Islam Promotes Criminal Behavior
In St. Cloud, Minn., anti-Muslim cartoons with derogatory depictions of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad and Nazi swastikas were posted on utility poles this week.
SEE: St. Cloud Police Investigate Anti-Islamic Cartoons
“We believe there is a direct correlation between anti-Muslim rhetoric and bias incidents targeting American Muslims,” said CAIR-MN Communications Director Jessica Zikri. “Our state’s political and religious leaders need to speak out strongly against anti-Muslim hate, just as they would speak out against any other form of intolerance.”
Zikri added that CAIR-MN is working with St. Cloud Muslim leaders to offer training on community safety and religious freedom. In June, CAIR-MN offered a “Know Your Rights” workshop at a convention organized by the Islamic Center of St. Cloud.
On December 3, the Washington-based Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization released its annual report on the status of American Muslim civil rights. That report, titled "Seeking Full Inclusion," showed an increase in the number of bias-related incidents in 2008.
SEE: CAIR News Conference on U.S. Muslim Civil Rights (Video)
To view the entire "Seeking Full Inclusion" report, go here.
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.
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CONTACT: CAIR-MN Communications Director Jessica Zikri, 612-226-3289, E-Mail: jzikri@cair.com; CAIR-MN Outreach Director Kashif Saroya, Tel: 651-216-9557, E-Mail: ksaroya@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-488-8787, 202-744-7726, E-Mail: ihooper@cair.com
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CA: LOCAL MUSLIMS UPSET OVER LA MESA CHURCH EVENT - TOP
10 News, 12/8/09
SAN DIEGO -- Several Muslim families invited to a service at Skyline Church in La Mesa said they received the insult of their lives, 10News reported.
Muslim churchgoer Omar said he expected the sounds of the season at the church, but that is not what he got.
Outside an El Cajon market, Omar told 10News he was handed a flyer for an international Christmas party, complete with a magic show. He believed it would be a celebration of the holiday spirit shared by religions. (More)
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VIDEO: MUSLIM COMMUNITY OUT FRONT IN PROBE OF MISSING YOUTH - TOP
FOX5, 12/9/09
Click here to watch the video.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (FOX5, 12/9/09) Five local college students are in Pakistan and under arrest and under investigation for possible ties to terrorism. The FBI says the men have been missing more than a week now.
Authorities say were picked up today in Eastern Pakistan during an anti-terror raid. They were found at the home of a jihadist activist who has been branded a terrorist by the U.S.
The Islamic community is out front in this investigation. In fact, local leaders and the parents of the five Alexandria men tipped off federal authorities. Now, they are making a plea for others to come forward. (More)
SEE ALSO:
CAIR: AMERICAN-ISLAMIC GROUP ALERTED FBI TO MISSING STUDENTS - TOP
USA Today, Doug Stanglin, 12/10/09
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) played a key role in alerting U.S. authorities about five young Americans who were arrested in Pakistan for possible terrorist links after going missing from the United States, according to media reports.
Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for CAIR, says the Muslim community "took the lead in bringing the case to law enforcement authorities," The Washington Times reports. (More)
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CAIR: TIPS FROM ISLAMIC-AMERICAN COMMUNITY HELPED NAB 5 SUSPECTS IN PAKISTAN - TOP
Mark Hosenball, Newsweek, 12/9/09
Leaders of the Islamic community in the U.S. today said they believed that it was information from community organizations and affected families that led to the arrests in Pakistan of five Washington, D.C., area men on terrorism-related charges.
At a press conference in D.C. on Wednesday afternoon, representatives of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said that they arranged for members of the families of the five men to get in touch with the FBI and lawyers.
The CAIR representatives said they set up the contact with the FBI earlier this month after people in the Washington area Islamic community had contacted a CAIR leader to express concern about how the five men had been missing for several days under mysterious circumstances. (More)
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CAIR: US MUSLIMS FIGHT DOMESTIC EXTREMISM - TOP
Aisha Qidwae, Islam Online, 12/10/09
WASHINGTON Leading American Muslim organizations and community leaders are planning to launch a website and organize a summit where young Muslims can ask mainstream scholars questions as part of renewed efforts to combat extremism.
"The idea is really to refute and counter the misuse of certain ayahs [verse of the Qur'an] and hadiths [sayings of Prophet Muhammad] that are commonly misused by recruiters or young people who do not understand the depths and circumstances of revelations and just juxtapose superficial and disconnected meaning to justify their actions," Nihad Awad, National Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), told IslamOnline.net.
He described the website as an online resource center for Muslims who are vulnerable to extremist ideologies. (More)
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VIDEO: CAIR NEWS CONFERENCE ON MISSING YOUTH - TOP
On Wednesday, December 9, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) held a news conference in Washington, D.C., at which outlined how the Muslim community assisted the FBI in resolving the case of five Muslim young men from Virginia who left the country recently under mysterious circumstances.
You can watch the news conference in three parts: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
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CAIR-MI: ABDULLAH AUTOPSY KEPT SECRET BY WAYNE COUNTY - TOP
Medical examiner's report could shed light on allegation that imam's corpse arrived in handcuffs
David Alire Garcia, Michigan Messenger, 12/9/09
DETROIT — As activists call for an independent investigation into the death of Luqman Ameen Abdullah, the imam at the center of the FBI’s Oct. 28 raids in Detroit, Michigan Messenger has learned that the Wayne County Medical Examiner’s office will not divulge the imam’s autopsy report…
The decision to withhold the autopsy report will only feed suspicion of the investigation, according to Dawud Walid, director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
“If the autopsy is being suppressed to media and advocates, this would be very disturbing indeed and will raise even more suspicion in regards to the shooting of the imam,” said Walid, also assistant imam at Detroit’s Masjid Wali Muhammad mosque. “Transparency would be the best measure for restoring public confidence in the process.”
Walid and other members of the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights called for an independent investigation into the death of Abdullah on Oct. 30. (More)
SEE ALSO:
CAIR-MI: TOO SOON TO LAUNCH CIVIL RIGHTS INVESTIGATION INTO IMAM’S DEATH, DOJ LETTER SAYS - TOP
David Alire Garcia, Michigan Messenger, 12/9/09
The U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division has declined -- for now -- to launch a separate investigation into the killing of Detroit Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah in a late-October FBI raid, according to a letter dated Dec. 2.
Dawud Walid, director of the Michigan Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, requested a civil rights investigation last month. He told Michigan Messenger he received the DOJ response on Monday. (More)
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