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Chronology of Islam in America (2014)
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
February 2014
New York City schools to observe Islamic holidays
Feb 3: Fulfilling his election promise, the New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced today to close schools on Islamic holidays. In a TV interview the Mayor declared that he planned to move forward with closing schools for Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, as well as for the Lunar New Year. Muslim families in New York City have been calling for the official recognition for Islamic holidays in public schools for years. The New York City Council approved a measure in 2009 that would have added both of the Muslim holidays to the public school holiday calendar. But the outgoing Mayor Michael Bloomberg opposed the idea. He told the New York Times then: “If you close the schools for every single holiday, there won’t be any school,” he said. “Educating our kids requires time in the classroom, and that’s the most important thing to us.” An estimated 100,000 Muslim children are enrolled in New York City schools, about 10% of the enrollment. New York City schools close on major federal holidays, as well as the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur. School recesses are scheduled during Christmas, Good Friday, Easter and Passover. City schools permit children to stay home on days when they are celebrating a religious holiday. The Muslim community has welcomed de Blasio's move to close schools on Islamic holidays but the community, which remained under siege during Bloomberg era, hopes that the new mayor will make a serious effort to take up the issue of police spying. The New York Police Department (NYDP) has conducted widespread surveillance of entire Muslim neighborhoods in New York and secretly labeled entire mosques as terrorist organizations, as reported by the Associated Press. This type of classification allows police to spy on members of the Muslim community without any evidence of wrongdoing. In the years following 9/11, the NYPD's Demographics Unit has infiltrated mosques and student groups, spied on the private lives of Muslims everywhere from their place of business to their homes, and systematically trampled their civil liberties – without any evidence of wrongdoing. And despite the outcry over these explosive revelations and evidence that the unit never produced a single terrorism related lead in its years of investigating, the NYPD continues to unjustly target Muslims. At a pre-election rally in Brooklyn, de Blasio promised that the NYDP surveillance would only be authorized to follow-up on specific leads. He also said he would hire a new inspector general for surveillance. Throughout the election campaign, de Blasio said he wants to restore trust between police officers and the communities they serve. He told local media: “Not only are we going to be safe, but we’re going to be safe in a manner that is, again, consistent without values and our constitution.” [AMP Report]
Muslim teen harassed after wearing hijab to school
Feb 4: A Florida teen says she has been verbally and physically assaulted because she wears a hijab, or head scarf, to school. Zahrah Habibulla, 14, said she didn't have problems at school with other children until she started wearing her hijab on December 14. "I've been bullied in school," she said. "I had verbal assaults, physical assaults." Each time the teen was attacked, she told her mother, who then called the principal of Ridge Community High School. [Wcsh6.com]
Hate-crime probe launched after vandals deface Manteca mosque
Feb 4: Police officials in Manteca, Calif., said today that they had launched a hate-crime investigation after vandals defaced a mosque with vulgar graffiti and left strips of raw bacon strewn on the ground. Manteca police Sgt. Jodie Estarziau said officers responded to the Islamic Center of Manteca on Jan. 28 after receiving reports of "spray-painted vulgarities" and pieces of raw bacon that were found in a parking lot just inside the front gate of the property. The mosque was targeted previously by vandals who spray-painted offensive graffiti on the property. "Because of the nature of the vandalism and the fact that the mosque has been targeted in the past, we urged state law enforcement authorities and the FBI to investigate this disturbing incident as a possible hate crime," Basim Elkarra, executive director of the council chapter, said in a statement. [Los Angeles Times]
DC Muslim Named Deputy Campaign Manager for Vincent Gray
Feb 7: D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray announced his reelection campaign late in December. With eight mayoral candidates competing in the April 1 primary, Chuck Thies, Gray’s campaign manager has his work cut out for him. Gray has named, as Deputy Campaign Director, Rahim Jenkins. A lifelong activist Jenkins sits in the District’s Commission on Human Rights and is a member of the Mayor’s Commission on Religious Affairs. His participation in the Muslim Advocacy Commission with Imam Johari Malik, amongst other endeavours makes him an influential leader in the Muslim community. [Muslim Link]
'Religious Freedom' Rep Funded by Same Group that Backs Islamophobes
Feb 11: The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today repeated its request to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) to investigate one of its own members, this time for being funded by the same group that backs a number of notorious Islamophobes. Earlier this year, CAIR asked for an investigation of USCIRF Vice Chair Zuhdi Jasser for apparently seeking to deny religious rights to Muslim military personnel. In a letter sent today to USCIRF Chairman Dr. Robert P. George, Corey Saylor, director of CAIR's Department to Monitor and Combat Islamophobia, wrote in part: "We are writing today to expand upon the concerns regarding Dr. ZuhdiJasser that were expressed on our letter to you dated January 24, 2014. Additional information has come to light regarding the financial dependence of Dr. Jasser's American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) on groups known for promoting Islamophobia in the United States. Tax filings for the New York-based Abstraction Fund reveal that between 2010 and 2012, Jasser's organization accepted $45,000 in grants and contributions. In 2012, 82 percent of the Fund's total $1,982,930 contributions and grants went to groups known for their active role in spreading anti-Islam prejudice." [CAIR]
White supremacists protest Black History Month event in Harrison, Arkansas
Feb 11: There were at least 75 people packed into a library meeting room for the event but not one black person, according to Patty Methvin of the Harrison Community Task Force on Race Relations – a 10-year-old organization, which includes the Mayor of Harrison, the police chief and the head of the chamber of commerce, working mightily to improve race relations and the city’s racially charged image. The Klan, however, did show up, including Thomas Robb, an Arkansas-based Christian Identity pastor and leader of the Knights Party. “Fourteen racial patriots,” about half of them Knights Party members, filed into the meeting room just before the 5:30 p.m. starting time, Billy Roper, the notorious neo-Nazi son and grandson of a Klansman, said today in a post on the racist web forum Stormfront. They went, Roper said, “to counter the Anti-White agenda of the ‘Community Task Force on Race Relations,’ which held their Black History Month presentation and hosted an NPR Jewess as a speaker.” “We easily had the Antis matched, if not outnumbered,” Roper said. “I relished being able to be the first one present to put on my bright yellow ‘Anti-Racist Is A Code Word For Anti-White’ sticker and staring down the anti-White Mayor.”[SPLCenter]
Religious discussion dominates Idaho zoning hearing on Mosque
Feb 13: A variance request hearing that was supposed to be focused on parking and public safety concerns surrounding the placement of an Islamic Center (Poctello, Idaho) turned into testimony about religious tolerance and fear of Islam tonight. Originally scheduled for the small Paradise meeting room in Pocatello City Hall, the hearing was moved to the City Council Chamber to accommodate more than 100 people — most of them Muslims. Hearing officer Jim Mullen tried to limit input to planning and zoning issues, but citizen comments soon expanded — at times resembling a spirited religious debate....Later in the hearing when opponents to the variance spoke, they said the mosque would actually hurt Pocatello and put its residents in danger. The Rev. Jim Jones of the Blazing Grace Church in Pocatello brought a copy of the Koran to the lectern. He said Islam faith preaches intolerance of others and promotes the killing of Christians and Jews.“I get very fearful because I live close to this place,” he said about the proposed Islamic Center. Several local pastors and the Portneuf Valley Interfaith Fellowship lent their support to the application including Janie Gephardt of Pocatello’s first church, First Congregational Church of of Christ. Gephardt said when her church started back in the 1800s, it didn’t have to ask for permission....However, opponents continued to take aim at the Muslim faith itself instead of any zoning issues related to the fact the proposed mosque is in a commercial area that requires a variance. Rick Frasure said because of the threats of Islamic war and jihad, the Islamic Center in Pocatello posed a grave danger. [Idaho State Journal]
Court gives NYPD green light to conduct religious surveillance
Feb 20: Today, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit challenging the New York City Police Department’s broad surveillance of Muslims in New Jersey. In a summary 10-page opinion, and without oral argument, the case was dismissed for lack of standing and because the court considered plaintiffs’ claims of discrimination from NYPD’s Muslim surveillance program not “plausible.” Muslim Advocates and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) case, Hassan v. City of New York, was brought on behalf of a broad group of American Muslims from a variety of backgrounds – including a decorated Iraq war veteran and the former principal of a grade school for Muslim girls – who have been subjected to invasive NYPD spying. The City had argued that the events of 9/11 justified broad surveillance of any and all New Jersey Muslims, without any indication of wrongdoing. Hassan is the first direct legal challenge to the NYPD’s surveillance of Muslims in New Jersey. [Muslim Advocates]
St. Clair County (Michigan) Jail implements new policy for religious diets
Feb 21: The St. Clair County (Michigan) Jail has installed new procedures for inmates who request religious diets. Until now, inmates who wanted religious diets were required to pass a written exam that tested their knowledge of their faith. A lawsuit filed last year by the Council on American-Islamic Relations claimed that policy was unconstitutional. The case concerned Aaron Utley, a Muslim man and a former inmate at the jail, who was denied a Halal diet – in keeping with Islamic tradition – after failing a test on Islam. But "the government may not test knowledge of faith," said Lena Masri, a staff attorney for the Michigan Chapter of CAIR, who added that the religious tests were so difficult that most inmates were failing them. The tests have now been eliminated. Instead, new procedures in the jail will give inmates different avenues to prove their faith. For example, "an inmate could provide letters from their clergyman that attest to their faith," Masri said. "Or (the inmate) could provide ... jail logs that show that they participate in certain services with that particular faith." She said the new policy is an improvement, calling it "much more accommodating of all religious backgrounds." "It completely takes away any right of the jail to question inmates about their knowledge of their faith," she said.Masri said she also receives regular complaints that Muslims in Michigan state prisons are not provided with adequate nutrition when they fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. [Michigan Radio]
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