YOUNG MUSLIM ACTIVISTS LOOK AT POLITICS POST-9/11 - TOP
Sophia Tareen, Associated Press, 4/21/10

[...]

Activists have launched "Illinois Muslim Action Day," where Muslims, mostly youth, act as legislative pages and meet with lawmakers at the State Capitol in Springfield.

In its first year, the event drew just under 500 Muslims. Organizers have registered more than double that number for this year's event, planned for Thursday. More than two dozen buses will depart from area schools and mosques.

"The overlying mantra is that we belong here, this is our country, too," said Ahmed Rehab, the executive director of the Council of American-Islamic Relations "That's something you do not through assertive statement, but assertive action." (More)

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1,200 MUSLIMS TO HEAD TO SPRINGFIELD TO ADVOCATE FOR POLICY REFORMS - TOP
Press conference in the capitol building will discuss goals of the Muslim community

(CHICAGO, 4/21/10) -- Over 1,200 Muslims from across Illinois will be assembling in Springfield tomorrow for the second annual Illinois Muslim ACTION! Day (IMAD). Muslim youth and adults will ride buses to the state capitol to meet with Governor Pat Quinn and legislators. Twenty-three American Muslim high school students will also be serving as Senate Pages.

Participants will be advocating for policies that will help Illinois' families and most vulnerable residents. Illinois Muslim ACTION! Day aims to address four main issues:

1. Equitable Access to Healthy Food in the inner cities
2. Foreclosure Prevention and Counseling
3. Introduction of Arabic into the Illinois public schools
4. Preserving Immigrant Integration Services such as English and Citizenship classes

A press conference in the capitol building will discuss these goals in greater detail:

WHAT: Press Conference on Illinois Muslim Action! Day
WHERE: Mezzanine Press Room, Illinois Capitol Building
WHEN: Thursday, April 22, 2010, 10 a.m.

"All Politics is local. In order to affect policy we need to work locally first and build strong relationships with our legislators," said Dr. Zaher Sahloul, chair of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago, which is leading the effort. "We are encouraging Illinois Muslims to contact their legislators and ask for a meeting on April 22 to listen to our concerns. They are elected to serve all of us. They are accountable to their constituency. This is our chance to reflect the great values of unity, solidarity, advocating for good and abhorring evil."

With its estimated 400,000 Muslim residents, Illinois continues to serve as a fundamental hub for mobilizing the emergent American Muslim community. Illinois Muslim ACTION! Day signifies the Muslim community's integration and increased participation in American politics. Through proactive initiatives such as this, the American Muslim community endeavors to move from the fringes of the American political narrative, to the forefront of the dialogue.

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CONTACT: CAIR-Chicago Executive Director, Ahmed Rehab, E-Mail: arehab@cair.com; 312.212.1520 or 202.870.0166; Council of Organizations of Greater Chicago, Interim Executive Director, Kiran Ansari, E-Mail:director@ciogc.org; 312.506.0070 or 630.544.9377

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GROUPS ASK DHS TO SUSPEND FULL-BODY IMAGERS - TOP
By Mike M. Ahlers, CNN, 4/21/10

Washington (CNN) -- More than 30 privacy and civil liberties groups are asking the Department of Homeland Security to suspend the use of full body imagers at airports, saying there is evidence that privacy safeguards don't work and the devices are not effective.

In a petition filed Wednesday, the groups also said the machines -- which see through travelers' clothes -- violate people's "deeply held religious beliefs."...

The organizations signing the petition include EPIC, AALDEF, BORDC, the Council on Islamic-American Relations, the Center for the Study of Responsive Law, the Liberty Coalition and Public Citizen. (More)

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CAIR ACTION: CHALLENGE 'TORTURE' OF MUSLIM FACING TRIAL IN NY - TOP

(NEW YORK, NY, 4/21/10) -- CAIR-NY is calling on the New York Muslim community and all people of conscience to stand in support of the rule of law by bringing attention to the civil rights violations in the case of Syed "Fahad" Hashmi.

Hashmi is an American citizen who has been held in pre-trial solitary confinement for three years and is currently being detained in a Manhattan detention center under conditions that human rights advocates say are tantamount to torture.

He is scheduled to go to trial April 28.

What: Trial of Syed "Fahad" Hashmi, U.S. District Court – Southern District of New York
Where: U.S. District Court, 500 Pearl St, New York, NY 10007; in front of Judge Loretta Preska
When: Wednesday, April 28, at 9 a.m. (The trial is anticipated to last 2-3 weeks.)
Contact: CAIR-NY Civil Rights Director Aliya Latif, 212-870-2002, 732-429-4268, E-Mail: alatif@cair.com; CAIR-NY Community Affairs Director Faiza N. Ali, 212-870-2002, 718-724-3041, E-Mail: fali@cair.com

SEE: Not Just Guantanamo: US Torturing Muslim Pre-Trial Detainee in NYC
Manhattan Vigil for Muslim Held Prisoner for Three Years
Feel Safer Now?

IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUESTED: (Please post, copy and distribute widely)

1. Contact the U.S. Attorney General to express your concerns over the civil rights violations in Hashmi's case.

Click here to send a letter right now to Attorney General Eric Holder.

Copy to: info@cair.com

A sample letter is provided for you or you can edit the text to add a personal message.

2. Join the 500@500 Pearl Street grassroots effort on at least one day and keep the courtroom full during Hashmi's trial.

For more information about his case, visit http://www.freefahad.com/

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CAIR: CBP ALLOWS HIJAB FOR MUSLIM OFFICER - TOP

(WASHINGTON, D.C., 4/21/10) –- The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) announced today that a Muslim U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer will be allowed to wear an Islamic head scarf, or hijab, while on duty.

CAIR reports that the Muslim officer, who recently converted to Islam, notified her supervisor that she will begin wearing hijab and requested religious accommodation. She was initially told that she could not wear hijab pending a review of her request.

Following intervention by CAIR, a CBP official said the Muslim officer will be allowed to wear her head scarf while her request for religious accommodation is being processed.

"We thank U.S. Customs and Border Protection for cutting through the red tape to ensure that the Muslim officer's religious rights are protected," said CAIR Civil Rights Manager Khadija Athman.

SEE: Controversy Shrouds Muslim Women's Head Coverings (USA Today)

Athman said CAIR publishes booklets that outline basic information about Islamic beliefs that are relevant to law enforcement agencies and employers.

SEE: A Law Enforcement Official's Guide to the Muslim Community
An Employer's Guide to Islamic Religious Practices

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 Civil Rights Manager Khadija Athman, 202-646-6033; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-488-8787, 202-744-7726, E-Mail: ihooper@cair.com; CAIR Communications Coordinator Amina Rubin, 202-488-8787, 202-341-4171, E-Mail: arubin@cair.com

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CAIR: VA. DMV RECALLS 'HEIL HITLER' LICENSE PLATE - TOP

(WASHINGTON, D.C., 4/21/2010) – The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said today that the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has recalled a license plate in that state that included what appeared to be coded terms for neo-Nazi and white supremacist slogans.

A spokeswoman for the Virginia DMV said the license plate was recalled today after the agency received a number of complaints.

CAIR said it received reports from individuals concerned that the Virginia truck license plate "14CV88" contained numerical codes often used by racist and neo-Nazi groups.

The number 88 may refer to the Nazi salute "Heil Hitler" based on a doubling of the eighth letter of the alphabet and 14 is common white supremacist code for the 14-word phrase, "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children." "CV" may refer to the group Sons of Confederate Veterans, the logo of which is also appears to be on the license plate.

The back window of the truck has an image of a Confederate flag and the tailgate has an image of the 9/11 attack in New York City, including text stating, "Everything I ever needed to know about Islam I learned on 9/11."

SEE: Virginia License Plate 14CV88

In a letter sent today to Virginia DMV Commissioner Richard D. Holcomb, CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper supported the decision to recall the license plate when he wrote in part:

"No state-authorized sign should be permitted to promote neo-Nazi and white supremacist ideology.

"I therefore respectfully request that this license plate be investigated to determine whether it violates state policy against socially and racially disparaging content.

"If it is determined that the license plate contains coded racist terms, I would ask that it be recalled immediately by the DMV."

[The CAIR letter had already been drafted when it was learned that the license plate had been recalled.]

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 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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YOUTHS IN TERROR TRIAL ALLEGE MISTREATMENT IN PAKISTAN - TOP
CNN, 4/20/10

(CNN) -- Pakistani authorities are denying a renewed claim that five Americans being held on terrorism charges were tortured into confessing.

Amal Khalifa, the mother of one of the suspects, said her son Ramy Zamzam detailed his claims during her recent visit to him in a Pakistani prison and in a letter.

She said the five youths went to Pakistan for a wedding without telling their parents and were watching television when thirty armed men put guns in their faces and took them away, ultimately holding them 36 hours without food or water.

"They tortured them, they beat them up," Khalifa said. "As soon as they fell asleep, somebody hit them so they don't fall asleep."

Her son told her, "the chief of police over there asked him to say they are [planning] terrorism," she said. "He said, some of the boys, they can't take the pressure, and they confess."

Nadeem Kiani, a spokesman for the Pakistani embassy in Washington, vigorously denied the allegation. The youths have had regular consular access from American officials, he said, and there have been no formal complaints of mistreatment lodged by them...

Khalifa, who immigrated to America from Egypt with her husband, was interviewed at the offices of the Council on American-Islamic Relations -- the same organization that several of the parents contacted in December when they learned their sons were missing. The organization helped them contact the FBI, after seeing a video that was left behind by the youths. (More)

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CAIR: TERRORISM AND TORTURE: A MOTHER'S JOURNEY TO PAKISTAN - TOP
Washington Post, 4/21/10

Washington Post reporter Brigid Schulte follows up on her exclusive story in which parents of the five northern Virginia men being held in Pakistan on terrorism charges spoke out for the first time. Now the mother of another of the men is talking, and all of the parents are wondering whether their decision not to talk to reporters for the first months of their sons' captivity was the right one....

Amal Khalifa spent more than 14 hours in the air and three more hours on a crowded bus to get from her suburban Alexandria home to the rural town of Sargodha, Pakistan, where her eldest son, Ramy Zamzam, has been imprisoned since December, charged with planning to fight against the United States as a terrorist.

When she first heard the news, she said, it was as if a building had fallen on her. She couldn't believe what the Pakistani authorities were saying about her son, a 22-year-old Howard University dental student. More, she didn't believe it. This was her son, who might borrow her credit card only to buy food for the homeless or coffee and doughnuts for the volunteers who packed their lunches.

She had to go see her son, she said, and hear the truth from him.

Zamzam had written her a letter saying he'd been tortured. She had to see for herself, she said.

She arrived in Sargodha with her husband at 10 a.m. on Thursday, April 1. By 10:30, she was waiting outside the gates of the local jail, carrying bags of clothes and underwear and boxes of M & Ms, peanut butter crackers, Kit Kat bars, cookies, even a bucket of fried chicken and french fries for Zamzam and four other American college student friends from Alexandria who are similarly charged. If convicted, they each face the possibility of life in a Pakistani prison.

She waited at the front gate for five hours in the hot sun, hoping Pakistani authorities would let her see her son. She stayed until it was clear the food had gone bad.

The next day, Friday, she arrived at the front gate at 9 a.m. and waited until 5 p.m., when it was clear she wouldn't be allowed in.

On Saturday, after waiting half the day outside the gate, Khalifa worried that prison authorities might never let her in. Pakistani prisoners are allowed a half-hour visit every 14 days. At 12:30, she called an FBI official she knew in Washington. By 3, she had her now-emaciated son in her arms.

"It was like a dream," she said. "It felt like it passed in a minute."

She never had a chance to ask him her questions, she said, because Zamzam had his own.

"'Mom, why am I here?'" she said he asked her. "'What did I do?'"

In back-to-back interviews starting Friday and continuing Tuesday morning at the Council on American Islamic Relations on Capitol Hill, Khalifa broke her long silence and began telling her story.

Distraught families contacted CAIR last November, shortly after their sons disappeared. And CAIR advocates urged the families to contact the FBI. CAIR initially wanted the families to tell their side of the story to the news media, but Khalifa said she could not. "At the beginning, everything was so confusing," she said. (More)

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WHITE HOUSE REACHES OUT TO MUSLIMS, WHO WANT MORE ACTION THAN TALK - TOP
Julianne Hing, Racewire, 4/20/10

The New York Times reported over the weekend that the White House has been making quiet overtures to make amends with the Muslim community in the U.S. and build a stronger relationship for a healthier climate for policy making.

The NY Times cited several public moves from the Obama administration, including the speech President Obama gave in Cairo last June promising a new direction in the relationship between his administration and Muslims abroad and in the U.S. top Arab-American and Muslim leaders had met with Valerie Jarrett, a top White House advisor, Janet Napolitano, the DHS Secretary, and Eric Holder, the Attorney General to talk about domestic policy...

But community leaders want more than respectful language and symbolic moves. Zahra Billoo, the policy and outreach director of the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, praised many of the Obama administration's gestures as promising "first steps," but said the lived reality for many Muslims in America continues to be very different.

"A lot of people are being visited at home and at work by the FBI," said Billoo. "People are being told by FBI agents, 'You don't need a lawyer. We just want to talk.' They are being asked about where they pray, their religious practices." Billoo said this local activity still made people in the community fearful about going to their mosques or getting involved in political advocacy work.

Billoo also said that many Muslims also reported other troubling interactions with law enforcement, that many, including U.S. citizens, reported being unable to travel freely because they had been put on no-fly lists. (More)

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ARMY CONSIDERS RESCINDING INVITATION TO EVANGELIST - TOP
DAN ELLIOTT, Associated Press, 4/21/10

DENVER — The Army is considering whether to rescind an invitation to evangelist Franklin Graham to appear at the Pentagon amid complaints about his description of Islam as evil, a military spokesman said Wednesday. (More)

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THE PENTAGON PLAYS MIND GAMES WITH MUSLIMS - TOP
Washington Post, 4/21/10

In a devilish bit of psychological warfare, the Pentagon has invited the Rev. Franklin Graham to speak there next month. Graham, son of evangelical preacher Billy Graham, is probably best known in the Muslim world for pronouncing Islam a "very evil and wicked religion" -- a judgment with which something like a billion people are bound to differ. The mere entry of the man into the iconic building on the Potomac is bound to throw our enemies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other places in the Muslim world off-balance. They must wonder about a trap. Could America be so stupid? (More)