HADITH OF THE DAY: LOVE EACH OTHER AND ENMITY WILL DISAPPEAR - TOP

The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: "Shake hands and rancor will disappear. Give presents to each other and love each other, and enmity will disappear."

Al-Muwatta, Volume 47, Hadith 16

-----

VIDEO: EXCLUSIVE CAIR INTERVIEW WITH U.S. MUSLIM WHO SAYS HE WAS TORTURED AT BEHEST OF FBI - TOP

Yonas Fikre spoke to CAIR attorneys via Skype from Sweden. Watch the video here.

SEE ALSO:

CAIR: US MUSLIM SAYS 'I WAS TORTURED AT FBI'S BEHEST IN UAE' - TOP
Malin Rising, Associated Press, 4/18/12

STOCKHOLM (AP) -- A Muslim American seeking asylum in Sweden claimed Wednesday he was detained at the U.S. government's request while in the United Arab Emirates last summer, tortured in custody and interrogated about the activities of a Portland, Oregon, mosque. (More)

---

CAIR: OREGON MUSLIM JAILED AND TORTURED BECAUSE HE REFUSED TO BECOME FBI INFORMANT - TOP
Willamet Week, 4/18/12

A Muslim man from Oregon says he was imprisoned and tortured for 106 days last year in the United Arab Emirates after he refused to become a U.S. government informant and answer agents' questions about Portland's largest mosque.

Yonas Fikre, 33, tells WW that Emirates officials denied him sleep, kept him in a freezing cell, beat him with wooden sticks and plastic pipes, and threatened to kill him if he didn't cooperate with U.S. agents.

A U.S. citizen, Fikre says his captors repeatedly grilled him with the same questions Portland-based law enforcement agents had asked him a year earlier about his mosque, the Islamic Center of Portland, Masjed As-Saber. ...

If Fikre's story is true, it appears to be a twist on the U.S.'s use of "extraordinary renditions," the practice of transferring captured suspects to countries lacking human rights standards.

In this case, Fikre was allegedly held and tortured in an Arab country and told he couldn't fly to the U.S. until he cooperated with investigators. Human rights lawyers call the practice "proxy detention" or "rendition lite."

"Yonas' case highlights a new trend we think we are seeing from Portland, where third parties are doing what would be illegal or unconstitutional if done by U.S. agents," says Gadeir Abbas, a lawyer for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "You can't just deprive someone of their liberty to return home, especially without due process. It isn't consistent with the concept of citizenship." (More)

---

CAIR: PORTLAND MUSLIM CLAIMS FBI INVOLVEMENT IN HIS TORTURE, DETENTION OVERSEAS - TOP
Helen Jung, The Oregonian, 4/18/12

A Portland man now in Sweden is accusing the FBI of orchestrating three months of interrogations and torture after he refused to act as an informant at a local mosque.

Yonas Fikre, 33, alleges that he was beaten on the soles of his feet, threatened and forced into "stress positions" by unidentified interrogators, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The Washington, D.C.-based civil rights group and Fikre's attorney have written a letter asking the U.S. Justice Department to investigate the claims.

Fikre is the fourth Portland-area man in less than a year to accuse the FBI of high-pressure tactics and civil rights violations. The men, all Muslims who have attended Portland's largest mosque, allege the agency ordered their detentions while they traveled overseas and had them placed on the government's no-fly list as leverage.

The men include Portland State University student Michael Migliore; Portland grocer Mustafa Elogbi and Tigard businessman Jamal Tarhuni. None of them have been charged with a crime. (More)

---

CAIR: LETTER TO DOJ ABOUT ALLEGED PROXY DETAINEE YONAS FIKRE - TOP
Nick Baumann, Mother Jones, 4/18/12

Earlier this week, I broke the story of Yonas Fikre, a 33-year-old Muslim American from Oregon who claims that he was detained and tortured in the United Arab Emirates on behalf of the US government. Fikre is now in Sweden, where he and his lawyers were scheduled to hold a press conference on Wednesday morning. On Wednesday, Portland's Willamette Week and Oregonian published stories on Fikre's ordeal. Oregon Public Broadcasting adds the detail that Fikre has applied for asylum in Sweden.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, which has been helping Fikre, has given me a copy of a letter the group sent to Thomas Perez, the head of the Justice Department's civil rights division, describing Fikre's ordeal, asking that Perez investigate "whether Mr. Fikre was detained and tortured at the behest of any agent of the U.S. government," and demanding that he be allowed to return to the United States without "further unconstitutional interference." You can read it here: (More)

-----

AMERICAN SEEKS POLITICAL ASYLUM IN SWEDEN, ALLEGING TORTURE, FBI COERCION - TOP
Kari Huus, msnbc.com, 4/18/12

An American citizen who alleges that he was detained and tortured overseas at the behest of the U.S. government -- and is now marooned as a result of the U.S. no-fly list -- has filed for political asylum in Sweden, he announced with his lawyers on Wednesday.

Yonas Fikre, 33, says he spent more than three months in a Dubai detention center in 2011. In a lengthy Skype interview with msnbc.com, he described sleeping on the concrete floor of a frigid jail cell, and enduring regular interrogation, beatings and stress positions that caused him to collapse or black out.

He was released in September, he says, but is just now going public with his story.

Fikre's ordeal took place outside the United States -- far from his home in Portland, Ore. -- but he and his American lawyer say they believe it was orchestrated by the FBI in connection with an investigation in Portland. And they maintain that Fikre's inclusion on the no-fly list -- which bars him from boarding U.S.-bound flights -- has been used as a tool to coerce information, not because he presents a risk to U.S. flights. (More)

-----

GOOD NEWS: MISSOURI JAIL TO REVIEW HIJAB POLICY (CAIR-ST. LOUIS) - TOP
Jennifer Mann, St. Louis Post Dispatch, 4/18/12

The head of the county jail said Tuesday that his staff acted appropriately in ordering a Muslim woman to remove her religious head scarf when she was booked earlier this year.

But in light of concerns by a civil rights group, Herb Bernsen, director of St. Louis County Justice Services, said he will revisit policies "to try to work out a solution that would satisfy both our security needs and individual religious concerns."

He said he will discuss it with the St. Louis Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an advocacy organization that raised concerns about the woman's constitutional rights.

Told of Bernsen's comments, the group's executive director, Faizan Syed, said, "That would be absolutely wonderful; we'd love to work with them. This is an incident that happened, but I believe we can learn from it." (More)

SEE ALSO:

VIDEO: MUSLIM WOMAN FORCED TO REMOVE HEADSCARF IN JAIL (CAIR-ST. LOUIS)- TOP

ST. LOUIS, MO (KPLR) -- A Muslim group is calling for an apology from the St. Louis County Department of Justice Services. A young Muslim woman, arrested in January on a vehicle violation, was forced to remove her head scarf in front of men during a security check at the County Jail.

The head scarf, known as a hijab, is considered a requirement in public under the Islamic religion. "I don't think they understood that when you take that off it is as if you are undressing the person in public," said Faizan Syed, executive director of CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) in St. Louis. (More)

-----

CAIR: MICH. MUSLIM SUING GOVERNMENT SAYS HE WAS 'TREATED LIKE A CRIMINAL' - TOP
J. Patrick Pepper, Press and Guide, 4/18/12

DETROIT -- Domestic security agencies and officers on Friday were sued over allegations of routine improper questioning and detainment of U.S. citizens because they are Muslims.

The suit seeks an injunction against an alleged pattern of Muslim Americans being singled out for lengthy questioning about their religious practices and places of worship during security screening at borders and airports. Named as defendants are the directors of the FBI, the U.S. Customs Border Patrol and the Transportation Security Administration as well as those agencies and individual officers and agents within them.

The local chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations filed the lawsuit on behalf of four men, but officials with the civil rights group said the allegations are indicative of a larger problem.

"Since the tragedy of 9/11 we've seen a steady erosion of the civil liberties of American Muslims and American citizens in general," said Dawud Walid, executive director of CAIR-Michigan. "What troubles us most about this case is that we tried exhausting all measures to get this type of religious questioning stopped before we came to the courts." (More)

-----

VIDEO: DALLAS MEN SAY IHOP FIRED THEM BECAUSE THEY ARE MUSLIM - TOP
ABC News, 4/18/12

Pancake chain accused of firing four Arab men based on their national origin. Watch thevideo.

-----

U.S. TROOPS POSED WITH BODY PARTS OF AFGHAN BOMBERS - TOP
David Zucchino, Los Angeles Times, 4/18/12

A few months later, the same platoon was dispatched to investigate the remains of three insurgents who Afghan police said had accidentally blown themselves up. After obtaining a few fingerprints, they posed next to the remains, again grinning and mugging for photographs. (More)