Monday, June 10, 2013

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Lawsuit Claims U.S. Muslim Tortured at Behest of FBI, State Dept.
(WASHINGTON, D.C., 5/31/13) -- The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, announced today that it has joined with Oregon attorney Thomas H. Nelson in filing a lawsuit yesterday on behalf of a Muslim former resident of that state who claims he was tortured in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at the behest of the FBI and State Department.
Named in Yonas Fikre's suit are Attorney General Eric Holder, Secretary of State John Kerry, FBI Director Robert Mueller, and two Portland-based FBI agents. The lawsuit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Oregon, seeks $30 million in damages and injunctions against similar mistreatment of American citizens.
Read the entire lawsuit.
Last year, CAIR called on the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Civil Rights Division to investigate Fikre's claims that he was beaten on the soles of his feet, kicked and punched, and held in stress positions while interrogators shouted questions similar to those posed to him by FBI agents and other American officials.
Fikre said he rejected an FBI demand that he act as an informant. He is currently seeking asylum in Sweden because he fears what U.S. officials may do to him if he returns.
"Our nation's leaders must be held accountable if they use foreign proxies to violate the constitutional rights of American citizens," said CAIR Staff Attorney Gadeir Abbas, who is co-counsel in the lawsuit.
CAIR has previously called on the DOJ to investigate acts of "coercion and intimidation" allegedly used by the FBI's Portland Field Office to pressure Muslim citizens into giving up their constitutional rights if they wished to return to the United States from overseas. Fikre is originally from Portland.
In 2011, CAIR filed a lawsuit against the DOJ and the FBI seeking a court order to allow a Virginia Muslim teenager who had been detained in Kuwait and placed on a U.S. government no-fly list to return to the United States. Earlier this week, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected government efforts to dismiss that case.
CAIR has assisted a number of other American Muslim citizens who have been stranded overseas by government actions.
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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CAIR Seeks Hate Crime Probe of Texas Mosque Vandalism
Muslim house of worship in McKinney targeted by paintball attack
(DALLAS-FORT WORTH, TX, 6/2/13) -- The Dallas-Fort Worth chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-DFW), the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, tonight called on state and national law enforcement authorities to investigate a paintball attack on a mosque in that state as a possible hate crime.
Officials with the McKinney Islamic Association in Mckinney, Texas, told CAIR that up to two dozen paintballs were fired at the mosque sometime between 11 p.m. on Saturday and 5 a.m. on Sunday. A vehicle owned by a member of the mosque's congregation was also hit by a paintball after he left the facility. Worshippers have reportedly been verbally harassed recently by young people who gather near the mosque. Local police told mosque officials that they will recommend stepped up patrols in the area.
"If a bias motive is proven in this case, the perpetrators should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, including appropriate hate crime enhancements," said CAIR-DFW President Amina Rab. "Local, state and national leaders should acknowledge the growing Islamophobia in our nation that can lead to such attacks."
Last week, CAIR urged a similar hate crime probe of vandalism targeting a Georgia mosque.
CAIR recently began distributing new safety and security guidelines to mosques and other Islamic institutions nationwide.
The new CAIR publication, "Best Practices for Mosque and Community Safety," was produced in response to recent bias attacks, including a series of incidents last year targeting American Muslim institutions.
Community leaders may request a free copy of CAIR's "Best Practices for Mosque and Community Safety," by clicking 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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  • CAIR: Passports Often Hold Clues to Terrorism (Detroit Free Press)According to CAIR, getting hassled at the border is one of the biggest complaints the council receives every year from travelers. Complaints are especially high when a terrorist attack occurs, such as the Boston Marathon bombing, triggering more scrutiny. Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for CAIR, said that sometimes, there's "an overreaction to a tragedy" and "ordinary people just get swept up in it without really knowing why." But he understands the scrutiny of passports. And he cautions all travelers to be truthful with federal agents. "People don't realize the repercussions. ... You cannot lie to any law enforcement officer," Hooper said, adding: "Everybody who enters the country should be fully identified. And it should be verified and that they're not up to anything."
  • Video: CAIR Seeks Hate Crime Probe of Texas Mosque Vandalism
CAIR GOOD NEWS ALERT:
CAIR Applauds Missouri Gov's Veto of Anti-Islam Bill
(ST. LOUIS, MO, 6/3/2013) -- The St. Louis chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-St. Louis) today applauded Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon's decision to veto an anti-Islam bill (SB 267) passed by that state's legislature.
ACTION REQUESTED: Contact Gov. Nixon to thank him for vetoing SB 267. NOTE: This alert will only work for Missouri residents -- non-Missouri residents, please email your thanks to media@mo.gov and cc info@cair.com.
In a statement today announcing the veto, Gov. Nixon said:
"This legislation seeks to solve a problem that does not exist, while creating the very real problem of jeopardizing Missouri's families' ability to adopt children from foreign countries. Here in Missouri, we believe in strengthening families and encouraging adoption. By placing additional barriers between couples who want to adopt and children who need loving homes, Senate Bill 267 is quite simply out of step with these basic values."

Read the governor's full statement.
"We applaud Governor Nixon for taking this courageous and principled stance in defense of Missouri families and of the Constitution," said CAIR-St. Louis Executive Director Faizan Syed. "The Missouri Muslim community and its interfaith and civil rights partners also deserve thanks for helping demonstrate the power of positive civic engagement on this issue."
Syed noted that dozens of similar discriminatory and unconstitutional bills have been introduced in state legislatures nationwide.
In 2011, the American Bar Association (ABA) passed a resolution opposing legislation like SB 267, noting that it is "duplicative of safeguards that are already enshrined in federal and state law," and saying, "Initiatives that target an entire religion or stigmatize an entire religious community, such as those explicitly aimed at 'Sharia law,' are inconsistent with some of the core principles and ideals of American jurisprudence."
In 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit upheld a lower court's decision to block implementation of an Oklahoma state constitutional amendment that would have prohibited courts from applying -- or even considering -- "Sharia law" and "international law."
The lower court blocked implementation of the "Save Our State Amendment" based on arguments that it would unconstitutionally disfavor an entire faith and deny Oklahoma's Muslims access to the judicial system on the same terms as every other citizen.
Last year, CAIR released a community toolkit designed to assist those seeking to preserve America's ideal of religious pluralism in the face of the unconstitutional anti-Islam campaign.
CAIR's toolkit includes background on David Yerushalmi, the anti-Islam extremist who authored the template for the anti-Sharia bills.
Yerushalmi is head of the anti-Islam hate group Society of Americans for National Existence (SANE), which once offered a policy proposal that would make "adherence to Islam" punishable by 20 years in prison, called for the immediate deportation of all non-citizen Muslims and urged Congress to declare war on the "Muslim Nation," which SANE defined as "all Muslims." The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) named Yerushalmi a member of the "anti-Muslim inner circle."
Links to background information on David Yerushalmi:
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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CAIR Action Alert #699:
Action: Tell Our Nation's Leaders to Stop Spying on Calls, Emails
(WASHINGTON, D.C., 6/7/2013) -- CAIR is calling on Muslims and all other Americans who value constitutional protections of privacy and the prohibition of unreasonable search and seizure to contact their elected representatives to ask that they end the all-encompassing monitoring of telephone communications and the Internet.
In the past 48 hours, it has been reported that the National Security Agency (NSA) and FBI are "tapped" directly into the servers of the nation's top Internet providers and have been collecting the phone records of millions of Verizon customers in the U.S. on an "ongoing, daily basis."
CAIR and other civil liberties organizations strongly suspect that the federal government is also collecting call data from all other major phone carriers.

Join CAIR in demanding that the president and Congress shut down these overly intrusive and unconstitutional spying programs that are aimed at American citizens.
IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUESTED:
CAIR has provided a "click and send" letter for all Americans call on President Obama and Congress to demand an immediate end to these abusive and unconstitutional government spying programs. Please sign the letter to send it to the president and your representatives in Congress.
Background:
Right now the FBI and NSA have obtained "direct access," under Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) secret court orders, to the servers of Google, Yahoo!, Facebook, Microsoft (Hotmail, etc.), Apple, PalTalk, YouTube, Skype, and AOL. Under a surveillance program, code-named PRISM, they are collecting data on personal emails, chats, videos, photos, stored data, VoIP, file transfers, video conferences, logins, and details on online social networking.

It has also been reported that FBI and the NSA are using the USA PATRIOT Act to obtain FISA secret court orders instructing Verizon Business Network Services to turn over millions of customer phone records. Under this secret court order, Verizon must provide the FBI and NSA with phone records "between the United States and abroad" and "wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls."

This includes the phone numbers for both parties on a call, as well as data on time, location, duration, and other unique identifiers. Only the names of the persons who made the calls were not handed over, although such information is easily attainable, and the conversations held during the calls.

These classified domestic spying programs have been operational for years under both the Obama and Bush administrations.

In February 2008, CAIR opposed the expansion of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act because it gave immunity to telecom companies that may have unlawfully aided the administration's bypassing of FISA court orders.

In 2011, Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, warned that "when the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the Patriot Act, they will be stunned and they will be angry."

In 2012, the NSA refused tell Senators Mark Udall (D-CO) and Wyden how many Americans phone calls, text messages, and emails were being spied without probable cause under the broad powers granted in the 2008 expansion of FISA.

While some in Congress and the White House say that these spying programs are lawful under the Patriot Act and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, CAIR and the civil rights community believes that the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is clear:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause."
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