HADITH OF THE DAY: WHAT IS FAITH? - TOP

A person once asked the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him): "What is faith?" The Prophet replied: "When a good deed becomes a source of pleasure for you and an evil deed becomes a source of disgust, then you are a believer." He was then asked: "What is a sin?" The Prophet said: "When something pricks your conscience, give it up."

Al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 8

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VIDEO: ALA. SIGN SAYS RESTAURANT SAFE BECAUSE 'NO MUSLIMS INSIDE' - TOP

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COLO. MUSLIM REPUBLICAN SWITCHES PARTIES OVER GOP 'BIGOTRY' - TOP
By John Tomasic, Colorado Independent, 12/9/10

Muhammad Ali Hasan, a member of the wealthy and influential Colorado Republican Hasan family and a past state House and treasurer candidate, said he is switching parties. Speaking at the University of Colorado-Boulder on his experience growing up Muslim in the American West and later in conversation with the Colorado Independent, Hasan said he is ending his affiliation with the party for the bigotry he believes has shaped Republican politics over the last year. The FOX News regular and founder of Muslims for Bush said he met recently with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the controversial Democratic leader won him over. ...

Major financial backers of conservative causes and candidates in the state and friends to national GOP leaders and successive Republican presidential administrations, the Hasans have publicly struggled with the post-Bush Palin-era GOP. Matriarch Seeme Hasan during the "Ground Zero Mosque" debate said she didn't recognize the party. Ali Hasan's defection comes in the wake of news that state GOP lawmakers will introduce tough Arizona-style immigration legislation and held a high profile hearing on the topic with a slanted roster of experts that featured almost no immigrant rights groups but several with ties to white supremecist organizations. ...

Hasan said he felt alienated between national Republican leaders on one side railing against the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque" and gays and illegal immigrants and, on the other, state Republican delegates convinced that as a candidate for treasurer he was angling to install sharia finance laws. He said the GOP convention in May was a low point.

"You experience bigotry sometimes but I often just think it's probably my personality that the person doesn't like. At the convention, though, that was the first time I felt the real thing. It was the worst experience of my life."

Hasan suspects a whisper campaign swept the convention, sounding a warning against placing a Muslim in charge of investing the state's revenues.

"Some goons were telling people that there's a passage in the Koran that encourages Muslims to lie, that lying is considered a good thing in the service of advancing a Muslim or sharia agenda. I don't know who was behind the rumor, but I've read the Koran, and I don't know what they were talking about." (More)

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VIDEO: HATE CRIME CHARGES FOR ATTACK ON NY IMAM (CAIR-NY) - TOP

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Two men were arraigned Thursday on hate crimes after an imam was attacked inside a Manhattan subway station.

The incident occurred on the northbound A train platform inside the Canal Street station around 3:30 a.m. Wednesday.

Officials say Eddie Crespo, 28, of Staten Island and Albert Melendez, 30, of Manhattan pushed the 49-year-old imam to the ground and yelled anti-Muslim slurs.

Advocates say there's still work to do in order to combat intolerance.

"Still there are people who highly propagandized by what they read on the net which is completely, just illogical and incorrect about what Muslims represent," said Zead Ramadan of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Crespo and Melendez were arraigned on two counts of second degree robbery as a hate crime and one count of third degree assault as a hate crime.

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CAIR-NY: HATE CHARGES FOR 2 ACCUSED OF ATTACKING AN IMAM - TOP
By Anahad O'Connor, New York Times, 12/9/10

Two men were charged with hate crimes on Thursday after they attacked a Muslim religious leader on a New York City subway train, the authorities said.

The attack occurred early Wednesday morning on a northbound A train, when one of the men confronted the victim -- who was wearing a traditional African hat called a kufi -- and harassed him about his clothing and religion, the Manhattan district attorney's office said in a complaint filed in Criminal Court in Manhattan.

That suspect, Albert Melendez, 30, was quoted as making an ethnic slur and then saying, "I don't like Muslims."

A moment later, the train stopped at the Canal Street station, prosecutors said, and Mr. Melendez tried to kick the man as he stepped off the subway car. As the two men struggled, the complaint stated, another man who was with Mr. Melendez -- Eddie Crespo, 28 -- grabbed the victim and tossed his kufi onto the subway tracks while shouting, "You know, I really don't like Muslims."

According to prosecutors, Mr. Melendez then punched the man repeatedly in his face, causing "substantial pain" and "bruising and swelling" to his left eye. (More)

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NY: PLEA DEALS CONSIDERED FOR MOSQUE HARASSMENT CASE - TOP
The Journal Register, 12/10/10

A group of teens who have been charged with disturbing a religious service and first-degree harassment for allegedly harassing parishioners of a local mosque earlier this year had their cases adjourned Monday night in Carlton Town Court.

According to Orleans County District Attorney Joseph Cardone, motions have been filed in the cases, but no pleas have been made.

"Not any one of them has been disposed yet," he said.

"Some are considering plea deals."

About 50 members of the World Sufi Foundation Mosque on Fuller Road in the Town of Carlton were disrupted during Ramadan services at about 11 p.m. Aug. 30 when a group of teens in two vehicles began beeping car horns, squealing tires and yelling obscenities, according to Bilal Huzair, a Carlton resident who is also a board member and spokesman for the mosque.

The Orleans County Sheriff's Office charged five Holley residents with disrupting a religious service, a misdemeanor, the day after the incident. Charged were Tim Weader, 17; Dylan Phillips, 18; Jeff Donahue, 18; Anthony Ogden, 18; and Mark Vendetti, 17. The harassment charges were added later.

Vendetti was also charged with second-degree criminal possession of a weapon for allegedly firing a gun in the area of the mosque three days earlier. He was taken to Orleans County Jail and was freed on $10,000 bail.

Phillips, who was accused of sideswiping a worshipper with his vehicle on the night of the incident, was also charged with third-degree assault, leaving the scene of a personal injury incident and various traffic violations. (More)

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OKLAHOMA'S TOP LAWYER AT CENTER OF FIGHT OVER SHARIAH - TOP
Omar Sacirbey, Religion News Service, 12/9/10

(RNS) Backers of a referendum that would bar Oklahoma courts from considering Islamic law admit they suffered a setback when a federal judge issued a temporary injunction against the measure last month.

But they are pinning their hopes on Attorney General-elect Scott Pruitt, a minor league baseball team owner and former state senator who has already made a big mark on religious laws in Oklahoma.

"This is just round one," said Jordan Sekulow, an attorney at the American Center for Law & Justice, a conservative legal firm advising Oklahoma state Sen. Anthony Sykes, who co-authored the anti-Shariah amendment.

More than 70 percent of Oklahoma voted for the referendum, which forbids courts from considering or using Islamic law, known as Shariah, in legal decisions.

Supporters of the referendum and Oklahoma legal observers say Pruitt, a deacon at the First Baptist Church of Broken Arrow, will be more involved in the case than his predecessor, W.A. Drew Edmondson. (More)

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CAIR-CA: U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL TO SPEAK TO BAY AREA MUSLIMS AMID DISTRUST OVER SURVEILLANCE - TOP
By Matt O'Brien, Contra Costa Times, 12/09/2010

SAN FRANCISCO -- Bay Area Muslims caught between a national concern that they cooperate with the government to root out terrorists and their own concerns about privacy and loss of freedom will hear from the nation's top law enforcer Friday evening.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will talk at an annual dinner banquet hosted by Muslim Advocates, a San Francisco-based organization that has fought the Department of Justice on some issues and praised it for others.

The visit marks the first time any U.S. attorney general has addressed an event hosted by a national Muslim group, and it could not come at a more important time because of anti-Muslim sentiment, said Farhana Khera, executive director of Muslim Advocates. ...

Zahra Billoo is pleased with the way the Obama administration has responded to anti-mosque attacks.

"They've been great in terms of condemning Islamophobia and combating anti-Muslim bigotry," said Billoo, director of the Bay Area chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "Unfortunately, that's where I think a lot of the good work ends."

Billoo, who plans to attend the Holder event Friday, said the FBI could have arrested the Baltimore and Oregon suspects much earlier, rather than enabling them to commit the crimes and thereby inflaming anti-Muslim sentiment after the high-profile arrests.

"When these individuals were put in touch with the FBI, they were aspirational terrorists. What the FBI came and did was enable them to become actual terrorists, and then came and saved the day," Billoo said. "The community is saying, we want to work with you. We're sending you these tips. But instead, what you're doing is creating these huge terror plots where they don't exist."

In the Bay Area, Muslim groups concede that many of the FBI visits are designed to be casual and friendly, but the efforts by law enforcement to build community bonds can sometimes end up sowing distrust.

"People always ask me, 'If I don't talk to them, will that make me look suspicious?' There's sort of an inherent coercion," Billoo said. "They're in a position of authority." (More)

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CAIR-MI REP JOINS PANEL ON SECRETIVE CMU PRISON POLICY - TOP

SOUTHFIELD, MI, 12/9/10) -- A representative of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI) yesterday spoke on a panel discussion at the Henry Ford Centennial Library in Dearborn focusing on Communications Management Units (CMUs) and the expansion of unconstitutional detention policies in the post-9/11 federal prison system.

CMUs are secretive units opened during the Bush administration, which are designed to severely restrict communications between the detained and their family members, media and the general public. Two such units, which are referred to as "Little Guantanamos," are located in Illinois and Indiana.

SEE: "Little Guantanamo" Secretive "CMU" Prisons

CAIR-MI Staff Attorney Lena Masri discussed issues of concern facing the broader Muslim community including egregious post-9/11 profiling practices. Masri focused on FBI surveillance at mosques, the FBI's controversial use of confidential informants and the mapping of religious, racial and ethnic behavior within the Muslim community and CMU facilities.

Other speakers on the panel discussion -- which was sponsored by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) -- included CCR attorney Alexis Agathocleous, CCR Education and Outreach Associate Nahal Zamani, and Reem Jayoussi, daughter of a CMU inmate.

"We welcome such opportunities to raise the awareness of the general public about the erosion of civil liberties in America, which has negative consequences for all of her citizens and residents," said CAIR-MI Staff Attorney Lena Masri.

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-MI Staff Attorney Lena Masri, 248-390-9784, E-Mail: lmasri@cair.com