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Chronology of Islam in America (2013)
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
June 2013 - Page Two
"Pork-laced ammo designed to send Muslims to hell"
June 14: New, pork-laced ammunition should serve as a warning shot to would-be Islamic terrorists with plans to attack Americans, the product's makers said today. Jihawg Ammo, the company started by Brendon and Julie Hill of Coer D'Alene, Idaho, sells boxes of gun cartridges that are made with pork products and advertised as being a deterrent to potential terrorists who may not eat pork because of their religious beliefs. "With Jihawg Ammo, you don't just kill an Islamist terrorist, you also send him to hell," the company said in a press release earlier this month. "That should give would-be martyrs something to think about before they launch an attack. If it ever becomes necessary to defend yourself and those around you our ammo works on two levels." Brendon Hill, who developed the technology for the cartridges with his wife, said that the idea behind the ammunition was that if a devout Muslim were thinking of carrying out a terrorist attack, they might be deterred by knowing they could be shot with bullets covered in pork, a religiously forbidden food. Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the Hills were trying to exploit Muslims for their own profit. "This is just one of many individuals and companies who seek to make a quick buck exploiting the growing Islamaphobia in our society," Hooper said. "We're not motivated by giving them free publicity they so desperately seek. That's their intention -- to get people upset so that they talk about it and they make money. "If somebody did actually use one of these bullets to target a Muslim," he added, "I am sure that a hate crime enhancement would fit." [ABC News]
Legal challenge to NYPD Muslim surveillance program
June 18: The ACLU, the NYCLU, and the CLEAR project today filed a lawsuit challenging the New York City Police Department's discriminatory surveillance of innocent Muslim New Yorkers. The plaintiffs include three religious and community leaders, two mosques, and one charitable organization, all of whom have been subject to the NYPD's unconstitutional religious profiling program. Through this program, the NYPD has singled out Muslim institutions and individuals for pervasive surveillance that is not visited upon the public at large or upon institutions or individuals belonging to any other religious faith. As a result, the NYPD has imposed an unwarranted badge of suspicion and stigma on law-abiding Muslim New Yorkers, including our clients. The lawsuit was filed in June 2013 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. [ACLU]
Islamic school gets OK from Blaine City Council, Minnesota
June 21: A small Islamic school aimed at helping students memorize the Quran can continue to operate in a Blaine office building. With about 150 people in attendance, the Blaine City Council has voted 5-0 to approve a conditional-use permit for the Darul Arqam Center of Excellence, according to Bryan Schafer, director of community development in Blaine. Council member Dick Swanson abstained from the vote. The approval means the Islamic school, which already is offering classes to a handful of students, will be allowed to stay in the building and to expand its program, Schafer said. Traffic was the recurring theme among those who spoke against the school at the meeting, Schafer said. A petition signed by about 80 residents also named inadequate parking as a chief concern. "There are traffic concerns on Lincoln Street, which is right behind this school, but it has nothing to do with this office building or this school," Schafer said. Though the sentiment was largely absent from the city council meeting, Schafer said community members who spoke at the city's recent planning commission meeting also expressed concern about having Muslims in their neighborhood. [Twin Cities]
Mosque-building rises as Muslim American clout grows
June 23: The opening this weekend of a new mosque in Rowland Heights is powerful evidence of a building boom of such facilities in Southern California and around the nation. Over the last several years, new mosques have risen in Mission Viejo, Irvine, Anaheim, Reseda, Rancho Cucamonga, Rosemead, Diamond Bar and Tustin. Additional mosques are slated for Temecula, Ontario, Lomita and Corona. Strikingly, the new mosques have been funded entirely by local Muslims, who began settling in the region in the 1960s. Before 2001, new mosques were often funded by foreigners; the Saudis financed the King Fahad Mosque in Culver City, and Libyans helped build Masjid Omar near USC. Stricter government scrutiny of foreign investments from Islamic countries after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, along with reluctance by local Muslims about accepting foreign money, helped change the practices, according to Shakeel Syed, executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California. "Post 9/11, the dynamic completely changed," Syed said. "The Muslim community at large in North America realized it is better if we develop our own funding, however long it takes." The majority of mosques in the United States are still existing buildings converted to an Islamic prayer space. But the number of newly built structures — such as the new Islamic Center of San Gabriel Valley — has doubled in the last decade, to 632 in 2011 from 314 in 2000, according to the American Mosque 2011 study. Among metropolitan areas, Southern California is home to 120 mosques, second only to the New York area, the study found. At the new Masjid Qubaa in Rowland Heights, several members donated $100,000, and a few gave $500,000. The women held a fashion show, which raised $100,000. Dozens of skilled craftsmen contributed services and construction materials, which significantly reduced the structure's cost. [Los Angeles Times]
Silicon Valley long has had ties to military, intelligence agencies
June 23: "Silicon Valley long has had ties to military, intelligence agencies" is the title of the Mercury News (CA) story about the National Security Agency's surveillance programs. The paper reported today that disclosures about a secret government intelligence effort called Prism have rocked some of Silicon Valley's leading Internet companies, but the program is hardly the first instance of U.S. military and intelligence officials turning to the tech industry for help. "The industry has always tried to make it seem like it was all venture capitalists and free thinkers. And it does include those people," the newspaper quoted longtime Silicon Valley watcher Lenny Siegel as saying. Siegel runs the nonprofit Pacific Studies Center in Mountain View. "But there's no question that the government, particularly the military, was a driving force in the development of the computer technology that we use today." Experts say the government has had good reason to cultivate ties with Silicon Valley companies, the paper said adding: The valley has what U.S. military and intelligence agencies want: cutting-edge technology and online services -- from social networks to Web-based email and video chat rooms -- that people all over the world use to communicate and share information. Brandon Bailey of the Mercury News says Silicon Valley's ties to the government are decades old. "Back in the 1980s, the valley's biggest employer was Sunnyvale's Lockheed Missiles and Space, which developed weapons and spy satellites for the Defense Department. The Internet itself started as a defense research project. And military contracts helped support the famed SRI think tank in Menlo Park, where researchers have developed and in some cases spun off pioneering technology used in robotics, mapping and the voice-recognition software that powers Apple's (AAPL) Siri personal assistant." Not surprisingly, as the Mercury News points out, today, the CIA has its own venture capital fund, In-Q-Tel, to help finance promising tech startups. "Software-makers such as Palo Alto's Palantir Technologies sell sophisticated programs that law enforcement and intelligence agencies use to analyze vast amounts of data. Mainline companies such as Cisco Systems (CSCO), Oracle (ORCL) and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) have multimillion-dollar contracts to supply computer hardware and tech services to the military and other government offices." According to Mercury News, tech companies have also collaborated voluntarily with U.S. authorities in areas such as computer security. In recent years, Intel's (INTC) McAfee unit and other security firms have shared information and advised government officials about computer viruses and other malicious Internet attacks. "The government, in turn, has provided access to some of its knowledge on the subject: A few years ago, according to Bloomberg News, U.S. authorities gave Google co-founder Sergey Brin a top-secret briefing on a Chinese army unit that was linked to an attack on Google's network," the newspaper concluded. [AMP Report]
Supreme Court's Right-Wing Clique Guts the Voting Rights Act
June 25: The U.S. Supreme Court’s Republican-appointed majority has ruled that the 'legal formula' behind the most powerful section of civil rights era Voting Rights Act—allowing the Justice Department to veto changes in election laws in states and counties with histories of racial discrimination—is outdated and unconstitutional. “Section 4 is unconstitutional in light of current conditions. In 1966, the formula was rational in both practice and theory,” the Court held in a 5-4 opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, referring to the part of the law that allowed the federal government to assess and block racially discriminatory changes in voting laws. “Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional,” Roberts wrote, gutting the law. “Its formula can no longer be used as a basis for subjecting jurisdictions to preclearance … Coverage today is based on decades-old data and eradicated practices.” The Supreme Court’s ruling essentially invalidates the landmark civil rights era law until Congress the part of the law that determines what racial discrimination in voting procedures and elections looks like, which is unlikely given the U.S. House's current GOP majority. "Today’s decision is a huge setback for civil rights in our nation," said Gerald Hebert, Campaign Legal Center executive director. "It is citizens, specifically the nation’s minorities, who will suffer as a result the votes of 5 Supreme Court Justices. The Roberts Court proved again that it will not be deterred by Supreme Court precedent, the realities on the ground in our nation; nor will it defer to Congress even when the legislative branch is granted clear authority by the Constitution to remedy our nation's long history of discrimination against racial and language minorities."
The ruling means that the Department of Justice will no longer be able to stop many of the most abusive election practices seen in the 2012 presidential election cycle where Republicans sought to change voting rules to advantage their party. The DOJ used the law to reject racially biased congressional district lines in Texas, to reject Florida’s efforts to curtail early voting and voter registration drives, and to reject new and tougher voter ID laws in other states. The Voting Right Act of 1964 has been a pillar of the Civil Rights Movement and the section that was declared unconstitutional was the procedural heart of its enforcement tool. Needless to day, civil rights groups, while not surprised at the ruling, say the decision is a historic step backward that empowers more race-based political tactics. "The Court today declared racism dead in this country despite mountains of evidence to the contrary," Hebert said.
The most obvious impact of the decision will be to question ongoing legal fights in states like Texas, where the GOP-dominated Legislature has sought to redraw district lines to lessen the likelihood of electing Latinos. In other states that were not covered by the Voting Rights Act, such as Pennsylvania, civil rights lawyers have had to go to court semi-annually in an effort to hold the line against regressive partisan voting rules. The historic context for these state-by-state political fights is that the Republican Party knows that its largely white base is in a losing battle against America's changing demographics, where minority populations are growing and threatening longtime governing elites. Thus, the party has been waging a multi-front battle to limit the political rights of people from communities of color and to discourage participation by young voters as well. Even the most recent immigration reforms before Congress would bar Latinos on the path to citizenship from voting for more than a decade, for example.
Now, following the Supreme Court’s ruling today, civil rights groups will be forced to fight state-by-state and jurisdiction-by-jurisidiction, instead relying on the Department of Justice to come in and stop wholesale changes in laws designed to disenfranchise voters. "The Supreme Court has effectively gutted one of the nation's most important and effective civil rights laws," said Jon Greenbaum, Chief Counsel, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. "Minority voters in places with a record of discrimination are now at greater risk of being disenfranchised than they have been in decades. Today's decision is a blow to democracy. Jurisdictions will be able to enact policies which prevent minorities from voting, and the only recourse these citizens will have will be expensive and time-consuming litigation.” [Steven Rosenfeld - AlterNet]
Muslim woman refused service at credit union over hijab
June 27: In Hazelwood, Missouri, a local credit union is being accused of discrimination by one of its members. Adiaratou Sall of Hazelwood says after ten years of banking with the Gateway Metro Credit Union she was refused service, for the first time ever, because she was wearing a head scarf. Sall says she wears scarf for religious reasons. Tellers wanted it removed for security reason. The credit union says it has had a policy for years of no sunglasses, hats or hoods. Because of recent robberies the credit union is enforcing the policy more strictly. But Sall says she can vote, get a driver's license and go through airport security with the same scarf and wants to know why banking should be any different. "I feel hurt, big time and violated," says Sall. "It's who I am." "I don't like doing it," says Gateway Metro Credit Union President and CEO Larry Pixley. "But I feel like we have to protect our members and our employees." Sall was able to complete her transaction at another branch the same day and was confused by the inconsistency. Pixley says that branch has new employees who may not be up to speed on the policy and says they will be trained. [KSDK-TV]
NYPD embedded 4 CIA officials since 9/11
City Council votes to increase oversight of New York Police
June 27: Amid a growing debate over security and privacy ignited by the National Security Agency whistle blower Edward Snowden and revelation that four CIA officials were embedded with the NYPD, the New York City Council todayapproved by veto-proof majorities a pair of bills aimed at increasing oversight of the Police Department and expanding New Yorkers’ ability to sue over racial profiling by officers. New York police was accused of religious profiling and suspicion-less surveillance of Muslim New Yorkers in years since 9/11. According to the New York Times, the bills were passed in the early hours of Thursday (June 27, 2013) despite the objections of the Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly. "The two bills, known together as the Community Safety Act, passed during a late-night meeting of the Council that began after 11 p.m., lasted more than three hours and in which members also voted to pass the city’s budget and override a mayoral veto of a law on paid sick leave," the New York Times reported adding: "But it was the two policing bills that for months have stirred a heated public debate between its supporters, who are seeking a legal means to change the Police Department’s stop-and-frisk program, and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, who have warned that the measures would hamstring police officers and lead to a dangerous spike in crime." The paper also reported: "One, known as Intro 1079, would create an independent inspector general to monitor and review police policy, conduct investigations and recommend changes to the department. The monitor would be part of the city’s Investigation Department alongside the inspectors general for other city agencies. The law would go into effect Jan. 1, 2014, leaving the matter of choosing the monitor to the next mayor. The other bill, Intro 1080, would expand the definition of bias-based profiling to include age, gender, housing status and sexual orientation. It also would allow individuals to sue the Police Department in state court — not only for individual instances of bias, but also for policies that disproportionately affect people in any protected categories without serving a significant law enforcement goal." [AMP Report]
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