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Chronology of Islam in America (2014)
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
September 2014 - page two
NY Islamic center vandalized, Quran ripped; 3 youths charged
Sept 18: In Yorktown, NY, three youngsters have been arrested after the Hudson Valley Islamic Community Center was found vandalized and pages torn out of a Quran. Police Lt. Kevin Soravilla said that in two classrooms, furniture and other items were thrown around, a computer monitor had shoe prints on it, and books were thrown on floors, some of them ripped. Two bathrooms had soap dispensers ripped off walls and toilet paper strewn about. Eman Gewida is a Saturday school teacher at the center and her father is the imam. She said four of the books thrown on the floor were the Quran, and one had pages torn out. It is the holiest text for Islam, and that was very upsetting to her. The children, one 13 and the others 12, are from Mohegan Lake and have been charged with juvenile delinquency with the underlying charge of third-degree burglary, a felony. Police did not release their names because of their ages, and would not say if they were boys or girls. [The Journal News]
NSA shared unedited data on Arab Americans' calls with Israeli intel unit
Sept 18: The U.S. National Security Agency shared unredacted private communications from Americans – particularly Arab-Americans – with a key Israeli military-intelligence unit, an author and professor wrote. In a New York Times op-ed piece, James Bamford said that he'd met this summer with Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who leaked thousands of classified documents. Snowden found that the data NSA was passing to Israel's Unit 8200 included IDs for who was calling whom. Snowden said that the callers' relatives in Israel and the territories could become targets based on the data, Bamford wrote in the Tuesday op-ed. When NSA shares information with other countries, it normally removes that identifying data, Bamford wrote. Unit 8200 is the largest unit in the Israel Forces and one of the military's most prestigious divisions. It focuses on signals intelligence, or communications eavesdropping. A week ago 43 former members of Unit 8200, including some officers, wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and top military officials, saying they would refuse to do reserve service because of Israel's `political persecution' of the Palestinians. The signatories said the information that is gathered and stored in the army’s systems “harms innocent people. It is used for political persecution and to create divisions within Palestinian society by recruiting collaborators and driving parts of Palestinian society against itself.” Bamford argued that Americans should be concerned that NSA is providing information to be used not to ensure security but "simply to pursue political agendas." And he said the American public should be concerned that NSA might do the same sort of monitoring within the U.S. – and may already be doing so.Haaretz]
Oklahoma Muslims Receive Death Threats
Sept 18: An Oklahoma man is receiving calls threatening to have him, his family and his friends beheaded, all because of his Muslim faith. Threats like that are sparking fear for many Oklahoma families who now say they’re terrified to reveal they’re Muslims. It’s a high security alert and even Muslim schools across the state are not allowing children to go outside to play during recess. A lock down situation for Oklahoma Muslims that stems from comments made by John Rennet, the head of the Republic Party here in Oklahoma. Men attending afternoon prayer at the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma are on extra alert. “We have no problem about people expressing concerns about our faith, but when it crosses the line and Representative Bennett would make a statement such as Islam is a cancer is in our society that needs to be eliminated, we take that very seriously,” Imam Imad Enchassi, senior Imam at the mosque says. The comments were made earlier this week in Sallisaw. [KFOR NEWS]
Arizona Police Departments Drop Out of Islamophobic Training by John Guandolo
Sept 18: The Arizona chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-AZ) said today that several police departments in that state now say they will not take part in an Islamophobic training of county prosecutors and law enforcement personnel by conspiracy theorist John Guandolo scheduled for tomorrow in Tempe. In a meeting last night with Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, the sponsor of the Islamophobic training, representatives of CAIR-AZ and state police departments, and leaders of the Arizona Muslim community discussed Guandolo’s false claims such as his recent statement that state Muslim leaders are members of the Muslim Brotherhood and that the current CIA director is a Muslim “agent.” At that meeting and through other sources, CAIR-AZ has learned that a number of police departments have decided not to send officers to Guandolo’s training. CAIR recently called on the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to protect the civil rights of Arizona Muslims after Montgomery refused to cancel the training session. In August, CAIR joined a coalition of 75 groups urging the Obama administration to take “immediate action to end the use of anti-Muslim training materials and address anti-Muslim conduct exhibited by agencies throughout the federal government.” The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an organization that tracks hate groups in America, describes Guandolo as "a disreputable character, who regularly attacks the U.S. government, claims that the director of the Central Intelligence Agency is a secret Muslim agent for the Saudi government and says that American Muslims 'do not have a First Amendment right to do anything.'" In February of this year, Virginia’s Rappahannock Regional Criminal Justice Academy rescinded its earlier approval of in-service training credits for state law enforcement scheduled to attend a training Guandolo was conducting in Culpeper, Va., after being made aware of his anti-Islam rhetoric. [CAIR]
Fox’s Cashin’ In: ‘The Enemy Is Islamic,’ It’s Time to Start Profiling Muslims
Sept 20: For what was deemed the “most controversial” topic ever discussed on Fox’s Cashin’ In, all the guests seemed to agree: It’s time to start profiling Muslims in America. “While the administration buries its head in the sand,” host Eric Bolling said of alleged jihadist recruitment in the United States, “we know how to find terrorists among us: Profile, profile, profile.” M*A*S*H star-turned-investor Wayne Rogers agreed: “There’s no other way. You’ve got to do it. It’s stupid not to.” Co-panelist Jonathan Hoenig seconded the motion, perhaps going a bit further: We should have been profiling on September 12, 2001. Let’s take a trip down memory lane here: The last war this country won, we put Japanese-Americans in internment camps, we dropped nuclear bombs on residential city centers. So, yes, profiling would be at least a good start. It’s not on skin color, however, it’s on ideology: Muslim, Islamists, jihadist. That’s a good start but it’s only a start. We need to stop giving Korans to Gitmo prisoners, we need to stop having Ramadan and Iftar celebrations in the White House. We need to stop saying the enemy is not Islamic. They are. Bolling then rattled off historical terrorist attacks: The 1983 Beirut barracks bombing, the 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 bombing, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 9/11 attacks, and the Boston Marathon bombing. The “common thread” he found? “Muslim males.” And so: “Is it okay to say it’s time to start profiling Muslim males? I say, yes, it is.” Newly-minted Fox contributor Michelle Fields also concurred: We don’t have a problem with extreme Buddhists. We have a problem with extreme Muslims; to ignore that is not fair. This is to protect all Americans: Christian and Muslim Americans, everyone. Because they pose a danger to all of us. And if you’re a Muslim who’s going to Syria, yes, you should be tracked. We should know what you’re doing there, why you’re going there. I don’t think that that’s irresponsible. [MediaITE]
Muslim leaders rally against Islamic State in Oklahoma City
Sept 21: Muslim leaders rallied in Oklahoma City on Friday to denounce the Islamic State group and condemn recent remarks by a Republican lawmaker who said people should be wary of Muslim Americans. About 100 people attended the event hosted by Oklahoma’s Chapter of The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City, a local CBS affiliate reported. “This is the type of hate rhetoric we’ve heard before in many eras and in many parts of the world where minorities have been targeted for violence,” said Adam Soltani, the local CAIR chapter’s executive director, The Oklahoman reported. Oklahoma Republican Party Chairman Dave Weston said the dispute between local Muslims and Mr. Bennett has been “overblown,” the CBS affiliate reported. [The Washington Times]
North Texas Muslim leaders condemn ISIS, raise concerns about threats to U.S. Muslim
Sept 22: North Texas Muslim leaders condemned the “horrific barbarism” of the Islamic State, the Sunni extremist group dominating crucial portions of Iraq and Syria. In a press conference this morning in East Dallas, Alia Salem, the executive director of the DFW chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said continued violence from the Islamic State for Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, and its allies prompted Muslim leaders to speak out now. ISIS and its allies are “barbarians,” who do “not represent Islam,” said Salem, of the CAIR civil rights organization. Salem was joined by several others, including Dallas attorney Khalid Hamideh. “We should not be judged by the actions of some barbaric terrorist group overseas,” Hamideh said. But such judgment is spilling in the North Texas Muslim community with threatening phone calls that have been reported to the FBI, Salem said. Those that believe they are targeted should contact CAIR offices, she said. Salem estimated that the North Texas Muslim community exceeds 100,000 and may be much higher because of recent immigration. (Dallas Morning News)
Anti-Islamic backlash may KO Amir Khan-Mayweather's multi-million dollar showdown
Sept 22: An anti-Islamic backlash following terrorist activities might knock out British boxing ace Amir Khan's hopes of a multi-million dollar showdown with undefeated American boxing champion Floyd Mayweather. The former world light-welterweight champion from Bolton is reportedly said to be high on Mayweather's to-be-hit list but boxing sources in the United States have revealed that they sense a growing reluctance to promote a Muslim boxer, even though Khan has consistently condemned the outrages perpetrated in the name of his faith. A leading boxing promoter revealed that any Muslim fighter would be a hard sell to TV audiences in such a high-profile fight, especially should the situation escalate, adding that there is so much Islamophobia around here following the hostage killings that it might be considered too great a risk, The Independent reported. Khan, who watched Mayweather defeat Marcos Maidana in Las Vegas last week, has remained in the US to prepare for a proposed contest against an unspecified opponent in December. The Briton said that he is unaware of any antipathy towards him because of his religious beliefs, although he has had several problems with US immigration authorities. [Big News Network]
Muslim scholars tell Islamic State: you don’t understand Islam
Sept 24: More than 120 Muslim scholars from around the world joined an open letter to the “fighters and followers” of the Islamic State, denouncing them as un-Islamic by using the most Islamic of terms. Relying heavily on the Quran, the 18-page letter released today picks apart the extremist ideology of the militants who have left a wake of brutal death and destruction in their bid to establish a transnational Islamic state in Iraq and Syria. Even translated into English, the letter will still sound strange to most Americans, said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council of American-Islamic Relations, who released it in Washington with ten other American Muslim religious and civil rights leaders. “The letter is written in Arabic,” Awad said. “It is using heavy classical religious texts and classical religious scholars that ISIS has used to mobilize young people to join its forces." Even mainstream Muslims, he said, may find it difficult to understand. Awad said its aim is to offer a comprehensive Islamic refutation, “point-by-point,” to the philosophy of the Islamic State and the violence it has perpetrated. The letter’s authors include well-known religious and scholarly figures in the Muslim world, including Sheikh Shawqi Allam, the grand mufti of Egypt, and Sheikh Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, the mufti of Jerusalem and All Palestine. A translated 24-point summary of the letter includes the following: “It is forbidden in Islam to torture”; “It is forbidden in Islam to attribute evil acts to God”; and “It is forbidden in Islam to declare people non-Muslims until he (or she) openly declares disbelief.”
This is not the first time Muslim leaders have joined to condemn the Islamic State. The chairman of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, Aiman Mazyek, for example, last week told the nation’s Muslims that they should speak out against the “terrorist and murderers” who fight for the Islamic State and who have dragged Islam “through the mud.” But the Muslim leaders who endorsed today's letter called it an unprecedented refutation of the Islamic State ideology from a collaboration of religious scholars. It is addressed to the group’s self-anointed leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, and “the fighters and followers of the self-declared ‘Islamic State.’” But the words “Islamic State” are in quotes, and the Muslim leaders who released the letter asked people to stop using the term, arguing that it plays into the group’s unfounded logic that it is protecting Muslim lands from non-Muslims and is resurrecting the caliphate—a state governed by a Muslim leader that once controlled vast swaths of the Middle East. “Please stop calling them the ‘Islamic State,’ because they are not a state and they are not a religion,” said Ahmed Bedier, a Muslim and the president of United Voices of America, a nonprofit that encourages minority groups to engage in civic life. [Christian Century]
Beheading in Moore incites anti-Muslim response
Sept 29: An Islamic advocacy group in Oklahoma City and area mosques are withstanding a large increase in hate mail and angry phone calls since a man claiming to be a Muslim allegedly decapitated a woman at a Moore food processing plant last week. Messages range from expressions of anger that local Muslims haven’t done more than condemn last Thursday’s attack to heated calls for a “purge” of the Islamic faith from America, said Adam Soltani, executive director of the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. There are about 40,000 Muslims living in Oklahoma. Through midday today, Soltani estimated having received about 50 hate-filled emails.... The city of Moore, where the attack occurred, has no mosques. The hate mail and calls were incited by last Thursday afternoon’s attack at Vaughan Foods in Moore. Police said Alton Alexander Nolen, recently fired from his production line job, returned with a standard knife and stabbed co-workers at random. [Norman Transcript]
CAIR-CA Publishes 2014 Voter Guide
Sept 29: The four offices of the California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CA) today published the 2014 California Voter Guide.The voter guide is a compilation of resources to help community members vote in the 2014 mid-term elections on November 4. The booklet consists of three main resources: Congressional scorecard, California State Legislative scorecard (state scorecard), Statewide proposition guide. The scorecards reflect the voting performance of California representatives from Congress, and the California State Legislature. The votes of each legislator have been rated positive or negative depending on how closely their votes on relevant legislation corresponded with civil rights and social justice priorities identified by CAIR-CA. The guide also includes CAIR-CA’s recommendations on statewide ballot propositions. As a non-profit and non-partisan organization, CAIR-CA cannot advocate for specific candidates for office, but is able to endorse ballot propositions. The voter guide is part of CAIR-CA’s voter empowerment and mobilization efforts made this year. In addition to the distribution of the voter guide, CAIR-CA’s efforts include organizing voter registration drives at local mosques and online through CAIR-CA’s website and creating Muslims United for Solidarity and Action (Project MUSA) with the Muslim Student Associations across the West Coast (MSA West) to educate and mobilize voters in support of Proposition 47. [CAIR-CA]
Hot Springs (Arkansas) firing range declared a "Muslim free zone" by its owner
Sept 29: Jan Morgan, the proprietor of a Hot Springs business called The Gun Cave Indoor Shooting Range, announced on social media that she is banning all Muslims from her establishment. It's a public safety move, says a statement on her website elucidating her reasoning for excluding 23 percent of the world's population from her clientele. Remember, the Fort Hood shooting, the Boston bombings and that recent atrocity in Oklahoma were committed by Muslims (or rather, Muslims, to use Morgan's preferred house style). Also, 9/11. The Koran directs Muslims to slaughter non-believers, she says. "This is more than enough loss of life on my home soil at the hands of muslims to substantiate my position that muslims can and will follow the directives in their Koran and kill here at home," she writes. [Arkansas Times]
WA Mosque Protest; Sign Reads: "Death to Islam"
Sept 30: A 28-year-old man holding up a sign that read "Death to Islam" is creating some controversy in the community. Michael Harmon was standing on the side of the road in West Richland, across the street from the Islamic Center of Tri-Cities, WA. "Taliban, ISIS, Al-Queda, they all follow the Quran and the Quran is absolutely evil," said Harmon. He went on to say he's completely fed up with terrorists and decided to picket across the street from the only mosque in town. Mosque Leader Mohamed El-Sehmawy also known as the Imam, said he is not angry with Harmon, in fact, it's quite the opposite. "According to the Quran, I have to treat him nice," said El-Sehmawy. He said Islam derives from the words peace and that is how he deals with any issue, peacefully. In response to allegations that Muslims are terrorists, El-Sehmawy said terrorists should not be the representation of Islam. He said he and his fellow Muslims completely disagree with evil terrorist acts and said it is against the Word of God. Harmon's protest was ironically carried out just one day after a multi-faith peace walk started at the Mosque and ended at a local church. [KVEW TV]
Southern California Muslim group condemns journalist's killing
Sept 2: Southern California’s Muslim leaders on today decried the actions of the Islamic State terrorist group, the same day a video was released purporting to show the beheading of a second American journalist. According to SITE Intelligence Group, a research organization that tracks jihadist Web postings, Steven J. Sotloff, 31, was executed by the Islamic State militant group, with a video of his beheading posted on the Internet. Sotloff’s family said they believed he had been killed. In a statement released this evening, the Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned the apparent execution and urged “people of all faiths” to come together and reject the religious divisions that the organization believes Islamic State is attempting to create by their “monstrous acts.” “No words can describe the horror, disgust and sorrow felt by Muslims in America and worldwide at the unconscionable and un-Islamic violence perpetrated by the terror group ISIS,” CAIR officials wrote in the statement. In a news conference at CAIR’s Anaheim office, several local Muslim leaders joined the organization in offering their condolences to Sotloff’s loved ones, and their disgust at Islamic State’s apparent actions. “It’s morally repellent and it is cruel,” said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of CAIR’s Greater Los Angeles area chapter. “Such brutal acts must face punishment, and those who perpetrate such acts must face justice.” [Orange County Register]
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