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Chronology of Islam in America (2014)
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
December 2014 - page two
CIA Torture Report: Muslims not shocked by interrogation tactics
Dec 12: The reason Muslims across the world have not taken to the streets to decry the U.S.’ use of torture against detainees has largely to do with the seemingly unsurprising nature of the report. While the investigation legitimized rumors and media coverage of such human rights abuses as waterboarding, sleep deprivation and others, many of those had already been widely recounted. “It wasn’t shocking to Muslims,” Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesperson for the U.S.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, told International Business Times. People largely assumed the CIA was torturing detainees. The report simply provided “specifics and details,” he said. “I haven’t seen [the report] as a great topic of discussion” among American Muslims, Hooper said. The report created by the Senate Intelligence Committee detailed enhanced interrogiation tactics used by CIA after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. It said the intelligence agency used interrogation techniques like waterboarding, sleep deprivation and “rectal feeding” that did not result in the 'capture' of Osama Bin Laden or make the U.S. any safer. [International Business Times]
South Asians dismayed over that new U.S. racial profiling guidelines don ’t go far enough
Dec 13: Sikh, Muslim and South Asian Communities have expressed dismay over new guidelines that ban racial profiling by federal law enforcement officers but do not apply to screeners at airports or border check points. The new guidelines announced by Attorney General Eric Holder Monday (Dec. 8, 2014) replace the 2003 Bush administration rules. They prohibit profiling based on race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, religion or sexual orientation. But the new rules apply only to federal officers, such as the FBI and Secret Service and any local law enforcement that work with them on task forces. “We are particularly troubled by a critical exemption for several key federal law enforcement agencies that allows these agencies to explicitly continue profiling, mapping, and surveilling communities in the name of national security investigations,” said The South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT). It joined the National Network of Arab American Communities, the Sikh Coalition, OneAmerica, Rights Working Group, the Southern Border Communities Coalition, and the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans in expressing deep concerns over the new rules. The exemption given to several key agencies “essentially allows the profiling of broad swaths of individuals, and many communities as a whole, including South Asian, Muslim, Arab, Middle Eastern, Latino, and border communities,” it said. “Justice and civil rights protections cannot be dispensed on a sliding scale,” SAALT said. “Immigrants and communities of color risk continuing to be treated as second-class citizens by the very law enforcement officials tasked to protect them.” Condemning the use of profiling by all law enforcement agencies against any individual or community, SAALT said it “joins Arab, Muslim, Middle Eastern, Black, Latino, and border communities to continue our work to seek a more fair, just, and inclusive society where all individuals can live free from discrimination.
Rejecting the “flawed and misleading” guidelines, the Sikh Coalition, the largest Sikh advocacy organization in the US, moved to petition the White House and Congress, and sent protest letters to justice and homeland security departments. “The guidance is like a used car with new paint. The car looks better, but once you look underneath the hood, you realize it’s unsafe to drive,” said Rajdeep Singh, Director of Law and Policy at the Sikh Coalition. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) also expressed concerns over the new guidelines retaining what it called “Muslim carve-outs on profiling by government agencies at airports and borders.” “CAIR is dismayed that at a time when our nation is struggling to come to terms with a series of high-profile police killings of unarmed African-Americans, the DOJ (Department of Justice) would release revised profiling guidelines that include loopholes for targeting US Muslims and Hispanics,” it said. [The Link Paper (Canada)]
Atlanta city reverses course, approves mosque in shopping center
Dec 15: City officials in an Atlanta suburb voted today to allow Muslim residents to open a mosque in a local shopping center, reversing, under threat of a lawsuit, a decision made two weeks earlier. The City Council of Kennesaw, a community of 30,000 residents 30 miles northwest of Atlanta, voted unanimously to allow the prayer center. On Dec. 1, the council voted 4-1 to deny an application for the mosque, saying that zoning regulations did not allow a place of worship in that particular shopping center. An attorney for Muslim residents of Kennesaw called that decision an attack on his clients' rights to freedom of religion under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and said he had recommended they file a lawsuit. Before the original vote, about 10 people demonstrated against the mosque outside City Hall, waving American flags and holding signs that read: “No mosque.” [Reuters]
Maryland School Board Adds Muslim Holiday to Calendar
Dec 17: Maryland's Frederick County Public Schools Board of Education adopted a 2015-2016 calendar that includes the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which marks the end of the yearly pilgrimage to Mecca (Hajj) and commemorates the Prophet Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Ishmael at God's command. CAIR Maryland Outreach Manager Zainab Chaudry said: "This symbolic move indicates that the board supports treating Muslim students equally and promotes inclusivity in the school system." [CAIR]
Bosnian community in shock after attack on a woman
Dec 19: The FBI is investigating possible hate crimes in St. Louis after a woman was assaulted last week by three teens near Bevo Mill allegedly because she is Bosnian. The woman told police she was driving when three men walked in front of her vehicle, ordered her to stop, struck her car and asked where she was from. When the woman said she was European, police said the men called her a liar, and told her “You’re Bosnian. I should just kill you now.” That attack came less than a week after Zemir Begic, a 32-year-old Bosnian man, was attacked by four teens near Bevo Mill. At least one of the attackers hit Begic with a hammer. Begic later died of his injuries, but police have said they do not believe he was targeted because of his ethnicity. Some in the Bosnian community have doubts. So does Karen Aroesty, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League of Missouri and Southern Illinois. “If I steal your wallet, my motive is the money and I get compliance from you if I bully you or harass you. I get compliance when I get your wallet,” Aroesty told “St. Louis on the Air” host Don Marsh on Wednesday. “If I’m smart, I take your money, drop the wallet and run. If I hate you because I don’t like your color or your ethnic background or your sexual orientation or your religion and I start attacking you, when do I get compliance? You’re not going to give me anything that’s going to satisfy me other than severe violence or potentially death. That’s why the murder of Mr. Begic, in my mind, is questionable.” [St. Louis Public Radio]
Faith leaders stand in solidarity after mosque damaged in Minnesota
Dec 21: St. Cloud-area religious leaders said today they stand with the Muslim community after a series of vandalism at the Central Minnesota Islamic Center. Religious and community members, including members of the Great River Interfaith Partnership, met at the Islamic center on Fourth Avenue South. In the past month four incidents of vandalism have been reported there. About 25 community members discussed the issue and looked at the damage done to the center. On Monday, Islamic center officials will meet with Bishop Donald Kettler. St. Cloud police continue to investigate the incidents and have increased patrols in the area. In late November someone broke the front window and community members had their vehicles damaged when they were parked for prayers before sunrise, center spokesman Mohamoud Mohamed said. About a week later another window was damaged. Early this month another window was shot 10 times with a pellet gun, the damage still visible. The most recent incident was reported Dec. 15 when a window was smashed while two members were inside the mosque. The Rev. Randy Johnson is the associate pastor at First United Methodist Church. He said as a community they have been here before, pointing at incidents in 2007 when a Muslim man was assaulted after leaving a mosque and cartoons put up near Somali-owned businesses in 2009 that depicted the prophet Muhammad. At the end of the meeting Johnson read a statement from the Rev. Steve Cook who is the past president of GRIP. "We stand in solidarity with our Muslim neighbors and their leaders against this vandalism and we want to clearly say there is no way that this vandalism can be justified in the name of Jesus Christ, or of the Christian faith," Cook said in the statement. [St. Cloud Time]
German mosque vandalized with swastikas and racist graffiti
Dec 21: A half-built mosque in the northwestern German town of Dormagen has been spray painted with swastikas and racist slogans. The act of vandalism comes as anti-Islamic demonstrations continue to grow across Germany. As well as the symbol associated with the Nazis, the vandals also wrote slurs such as "off with you to the concentration camp!" The attack on the mosque has coincided with the rise of the controversial "anti-Islamization" PEGIDA movement in Germany. The group has been holding demonstrations in cities throughout the country for the past 10 weeks. Head of Neuss district police, Hans-Jürgen Petrauschke said he was horrified by the racially motivated crime. There is "no place for the spread of xenophobia or the glorification of the Nazi past" in the Rhein-Kreis Neuss area," he told reporters. Some observers fear that the protests are a sign that xenophobia is becoming increasingly socially acceptable in the country. Earlier this month, three buildings in the southern German state of Bavaria which were intended to be used as accommodation for refugees were severely damaged by fire in a suspected arson attack. Racist graffiti was also found on a nearby building, bolstering suspicions that the blazes were deliberately set. [www.dw.de]
Lawsuit filed against Navy beard ban, harassment of Muslim petty officer
Dec 23: The Sacramento Valley office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-SV) and the Church State Council today announced the filing of a lawsuit against the United States Navy and the Department of Defense alleging violations of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and the Administrative Procedures Act (APA). According to the lawsuit, Jonathon Berts, an African-American Muslim who enlisted in 2002, was consistently given positive reviews, was placed in positions of leadership, and received several medals for his performance. In early 2011, Berts applied for a religious accommodation to grow a beard in accordance with his sincerely-held religious beliefs. His request and subsequent appeal were denied. Following this request, his commanding officers reportedly subjected him to intense harassment targeting his Islamic beliefs. His commanding officers allegedly used his Islamic faith as a reason to directly question his loyalty to the United States. In addition to the accommodation denial and harassment, Berts' commanding officers stripped him of his leadership positions and re-assigned him to an abandoned "roach infested" building where he was instructed to stand guard over old office equipment. Ultimately, despite almost a decade of positive reviews and accolades, he was denied reenlistment into active duty in early 2012. [CAIR]
Punched because he 'Looked Middle Eastern'
Dec 29: In San Diego, a Navy officer punched a cab driver in the face and told police he did it because he thought the cabbie was "possibly a Muslim." According to a complaint filed by the Sikh cabbie Avtar Singh, Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Kyle Blackwell told the investigating officer that he was "'in fear of my life because he [Singh] looked Middle Eastern, possibly from Iraq or Afghanistan." "Blackwell added: 'And since I was in my Navy dress blues, I thought he was possibly a Muslim extremist and wasn't sure what he was capable of. As he got closer to me, I gave him a couple of jabs and hit him in the mouth.'" Singh says Blackwell is still on active duty and suffered no disciplinary consequences despite "a purported investigation." [Courthouse News Service]
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