N.C. MOSQUE BLAMES REP. MYRICK FOR SMEARS - TOP
By Tim Funk, Charlotte Observer, 4/15/10

Just weeks after trying to make nice at a town hall meeting, Muslim leaders and the office of U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., are again trading charges and countercharges.

At a news conference Wednesday, leaders of the Islamic Center of Charlotte said they and other local Muslims were victims of "a campaign of fear and smear" that has sought to link them with terrorism.

Jibril Hough, a spokesman for the mosque on Progress Lane, blamed the "baseless attacks" on Myrick's office and on WBT (1110-AM), which gave the claims wide airing.

Observer calls and e-mails to Myrick's office were not returned. Neither was a call to WBT.

At issue is a charge first leveled at the end of the Feb. 26 town hall meeting by Zuhdi Jasser, a Muslim physician and political ally of Myrick's who heads the Arizona-based Islamic Forum for Democracy. At the town hall meeting - Myrick turned the microphone over to him - then again on Keith Larson's morning show on WBT, Jasser pointed out that the deed to the Islamic Center of Charlotte's property is held by the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), which he charged has ties to terrorism. (More)

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VIDEO: ISLAMIC CENTER OF CHARLOTTE RECEIVES THREATS - TOP

CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV, 4/14/2010) - The Islamic Center of Charlotte is firing back against the feds and our WBTV On Your Side Investigation.

Watch the video here.

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CAIR ASKS GOP, N.C. REP. MYRICK TO REPUDIATE QURAN DESECRATION - TOP

Congresswoman scheduled to speak to anti-Islam hate group whose Fla. representative brags: 'I like desecrating their [Muslims'] holy stuff'

WASHINGTON, April 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A prominent national Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization today urged GOP leaders to insist that Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC) withdraw her support for an anti-Islam hate group after one of its Florida representatives was exposed bragging in a YouTube video that he desecrated the Quran, Islam's revealed text, and urinates in the washing stations Muslims use to perform their ritual ablutions (wudu) for prayer. (More)

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VIDEO: MUSLIM SOLDIER CLAIMS HARASSMENT IN THE ARMY - TOP
Martin Bashir, ABC News, 4/14/10

ABC News Nightline, 4/14/10 - Army Spc. Zachari Klawonn is exactly the kind of soldier the military says it needs. He's the son of Kansas-born father and a Moroccan mother, raised as a Muslim and able to speak Arabic. He's been recognized for his exemplary performance in the Army, and his commanders even identified him as a candidate for Special Forces selection, a road to joining the elite Army unit.

One American soldier is torn between his faith and his duty. "I really do think he's the best soldier in our battalion, hands down," said Spc. Arnold Mendez, a friend of Klawonn's.

Watch the video here.

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CAIR: CONTROVERSY SHROUDS MUSLIM WOMEN'S HEAD COVERINGS - TOP
Marisol Bello, USA Today, 4/15/10

College sophomore Hani Khan had worked for three months as a stockroom clerk at a Hollister Co. clothing store in San Francisco when she was told the head scarf she wears in observance of Islam violated the company's "look policy."

The policy instructs employees on clothing, hairstyles, makeup and accessories they may wear to work. When supervisors told Khan she had to remove the scarf, known as a hijab, to work at the store, she refused on religious grounds. A week later, she says, she was fired.

In February, Khan filed a federal job discrimination complaint against Hollister and its parent company, Abercrombie & Fitch. She is among a growing number of Muslim women filing complaints of discrimination at work, in businesses or in airports...

The attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound plane on Christmas Day has made discrimination against Muslim women worse, says Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an advocacy organization. He says women wearing hijabs are the visible face of Islam...

Complaints on the rise

In the first three months of the year, CAIR received 43 discrimination complaints from women who wear hijabs, compared with 103 in all of 2009.

Some of the complaints allege workplace bias. Others are from women who say they were singled out for additional security screening in airports, were stopped from entering banks because of security policies that prohibit hoods, hats and sunglasses, or were told to remove their hijabs before taking a driver's license photo. (More)

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CAIR: HAIRLINE HEADLINE -- NEW RULE FOR DC DMV - TOP
Apology, accommodation for female Muslim drivers
By Barbara Harrison, NBC Washington, 4/14/10

A victory today for female Muslim drivers in the District of Columbia.

The city's Department of Motor Vehicles has modified its policy on driver's license photos after complaints of discrimination from Muslim women who wear the religious scarf called the hijab, the Council on American-Islamic Relations said. Until now, the rule for license photographs in D.C. called for showing the "full face including the hairline."

DMV personnel interpreted that description to include hair. Muslim women were turned away without licenses when they refused to uncover their hair.

CAIR contacted DMV Director Lucinda Babers and requested the change in policy. The response issued today allows the hijab. (More)

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CAIR: MUSLIM GIRL WAS A VICTIM OF IGNORANCE AND BIGOTRY - TOP
Delaware Online, 4/15/10

It was a bittersweet experience for staffers at the Division of Motor Vehicles.

The bitter, of course, was the arbitrary and somewhat crude behavior of at least one DMV employee, and an unknown number of others who stood by and watched as the agency's refusal to take a 16-year-old girl's picture for her driver's license ended with her in tears.

The Muslim girl was wearing a headscarf, which the employee behind the camera insisted had to be taken off for her picture.

The fact is, DMV policy calls for the face of the driver to be visible. There's no requirement to remove a headscarf.

The good part of this story is that another employee who did know the DMV policy on headscarves in license pictures took the photograph.

Meanwhile, those local residents who were present who suggested the girl and her mother should be "sent back to Afghanistan" should be ashamed of themselves.

Both mother and daughter were born here and are U.S. citizens.

That DMV officials called the woman and her daughter to "apologize profusely" takes some of the sting out of the situation.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations intervened after the incident and said the apology and offer to retake the picture was appropriate. (More)

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CAIR: TROY WOMAN SAYS SHE DID NOT GET JOB AT MCDONALD'S BECAUSE OF RELIGIOUS ATTIRE - TOP
Jerry Wolffe, Oakland Press, 4/15/10

An Oakland County woman has filed a complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charging she was discriminated against in hiring by McDonald's restaurants because she refused to not wear a hijab, the head covering traditionally worn by Muslim women.

"Outside of a quick resolution, we want McDonald's to put in place certain safeguards that would impede anyone (from) being denied a job because of their religious attire," Council on American-Islamic Relations-MI Executive Director Dawud Walid said Wednesday. (More)

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OBAMA ADMINISTRATION REACHES OUT TO MUSLIMS - TOP
Omar Sacirbey, Religion News Service, 4/15/10

WASHINGTON — Nearly a year after President Obama told an audience in Cairo that America wanted a "new beginning" with the Muslim world, evidence of that policy shift has, in recent weeks, become hard to ignore.

* The Obama administration is revising national security guidelines that strip references to "Islamic radicalism" and other terms deemed inflammatory to Muslims.

* Officials reversed three-month-old guidelines that singled out passengers on flights arriving from 13 Muslim countries, and Cuba, for mandatory screening.

* Controversial scholar Tariq Ramadan entered the U.S. for the first time in six years after being barred by the Bush administration.

* The Obama administration has dispatched American Nobel Prize winners to advise Muslim scientists, economists and other professionals on how to improve their research and better manage their institutions.

* At the end of this month, the U.S. government will host some 500 mainly Muslim business people for intensive seminars on entrepreneurship.

[...]

Many Muslims have welcomed the changes and shift in tone. Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, called the new White House vocabulary "another step toward respectful and effective outreach to Muslims at home and abroad."

"We hope this positive change in language will lead to policies that will deal more effectively with important issues such as peace with justice in the Middle East and withdrawal of our nation's forces from Iraq and Afghanistan," he said. (More)

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CAIR: WOMAN SAYS FOSTER AGENCY REJECTED PORK-FREE HOME - TOP
Kathleen Miller, Associated Press, 4/15/10

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) -- A Baltimore County Muslim woman said Wednesday that her application to be a foster mother was rejected by a local agency because she does not allow pork to be served in her home....

Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington based Muslim civil rights and advocacy group, said if the state has no policy requiring foster families serve all types of food in their homes, "it provides evidence she is being singled out because of her particular faith and dietary requirements." (More)

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COVER-UP IN IMAM'S SLAYING? - TOP
Darrell Dawsey, TIME Detroit Blog, 4/14/10

Saying the FBI won't hand over certain documents related to the shooting death of Detroit imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy has declined to investigate the incident, prompting some serious concern from the Detroit Free Press about the feds' motives...

Why would the FBI deny potential evidence to another law enforcement agency investigating the case? Classified documents generally involve high levels of national security that don't apply here, by any stretch. Nor does the Abdullah case involve foreign governments or -- at least officially -- terrorism.

What's going on?

Damn good question.

I still think it's only fair to withhold official judgment, but honestly, the feds' behavior around this incident seems to get weirder by the day. (More)

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EDITORIAL: INQUIRY ON IMAM'S DEATH SHOULD BE CONCLUDED QUICKLY - TOP
The Detroit News, 4/15/10

Now that the state Attorney General's Office has revealed it has been involved since February in the investigation of the shooting incident that led to the death of Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah being conducted by the U.S. Justice Department, we urge that this investigation, along with the one being run by the Dearborn Police, be concluded as soon as possible.

According to the Attorney General's Office, it stepped in when Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy declined. The Attorney General's Office released a letter from the FBI saying it can't close out its investigation until it receives an opinion from a local prosecutor. (More)

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CAIR-OK REP SPEAKS AT IMMIGRATION IN THE HEARTLAND MEDIA CONFERENCE - TOP

(OKLAHOMA CITY, OK – 4/15/10) A representative of the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-OK) today spoke at the "Immigration in the Heartland" conference at the University of Oklahoma in Norman.

The conference, which was co-sponsored by the Institute for Justice and Journalism and the University of Oklahoma's Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication convened members of the media from throughout the Midwest such as The Oklahoman, Dallas Morning News, The Garden City Telegram, Minnesota Public Radio, Salt Lake Tribune, Greeley Tribune, Columbus Dispatch, Tulsa World, Wall Street Journal, Des Moines Register, Kansas City Star, Capitol Times, and T30 Noticias-Telemundo. The purpose of this conference was to discuss reporting the complexities of immigration with clarity, depth and context.

For more information, see: http://immigrationintheheartland.wordpress.com/

CAIR-OK Executive Director Razi Hashmi spoke in a session on Muslim Immigration and the scrutiny that Muslim foreign-born immigrants have faced since 9/11. Mohamed Elibiary, President and CEO of the Freedom and Justice Foundation also spoke during this session.

"If we continue down the path we are going now, we will turn away some of the best and brightest minds and they will end up going somewhere else, leaving us at a disadvantage in competing in a global economy. Our community is proof positive of the success stories and contributions that Muslims have made to our great nation. We have an obligation to continue that promise of hope and prosperity," said CAIR-OK Executive Director Razi Hashmi.

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-OK Executive Director Razi Hashmi, 405-248-5853, E-mail: rhashmi@cair.com; CAIR-OK Chair Michael Aziz Gipson, E-Mail: mgipson@cair.com; CAIR-OK Operations Coordinator Huda Abdul-Razzak, E-Mail: habdulrazzak@cair.com

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AFGHANS 'ABUSED AT SECRET PRISON' AT BAGRAM AIRBASE - TOP
By Hilary Andersson, BBC News, 4/15/10

Afghan prisoners are being abused in a "secret jail" at Bagram airbase, according to nine witnesses whose stories the BBC has documented.

The abuses are all said to have taken place since US President Barack Obama was elected, promising to end torture. (More)