Muslim American News Briefs, August 29, 2007

* Hadith: Do Good, Avoid Evil and Love the Poor
* CAIR-CA: Racist Slurs Sprayed on Muslim's Stolen Car
            - Register for CAIR-Sacramento Annual Banquet
* 250 Attend CAIR-Cincinnati Annual Community Cookout
* DC: Muslim Patrol Quiets Crime in Neighborhood (Wash Post)
* CA: Sikh Men Feel Targeted at Airports (Mercury News)
            - The Cost of Hidden Bias at Work (Financial Times)
            - WA: Inflaming Fears Doesn't Make Anyone Safe (Seattle P-I)
* CAIR: Most US Muslims Against Iraq War, But Say Aid Needed
* Dubai: World's First Muslim History Image Library Launched
* Canada: 'Little Mosque' Filming Second Season (CBC)

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HADITH OF THE DAY: DO GOOD, AVOID EVIL AND LOVE THE POOR - TOP

The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: "O God! I ask You for the means to do good, to avoid evil and to love the poor."

Fiqh-us-Sunnah, Volume 4, Number 13A

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RACIST SLURS SPRAYED ON CA MUSLIM'S STOLEN CAR - TOP
CAIR asked that incident be probed as possible hate crime

(SACRAMENTO, CA, 8/28/O7) - The Sacramento Valley chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-SV) reported today that racist slurs were spray-painted on a car stolen from a California Muslim.

CAIR said the Muslim woman's late-model car was stolen from the parking lot of a shopping center in Sacramento, Calif., earlier with month. When police found the car days later, the hood and truck were spray-painted with slurs such as "rag head go home."

The thieves may have either observed the woman's Islamic headscarf when she parked the car or noticed the Islamic name on the insurance and registration cards.

"Whenever there are overt signs of a bias motive, an incident should be investigated as a possible hate crime," said CAIR-SV Executive Director Basim Elkarra.

Elkarra discussed the incident in a meeting today with law enforcement officials.

CAIR, America's largest Muslim civil liberties group, has 33 offices, chapters and affiliates nationwide and in Canada. 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.

CONTACT: CAIR-SV Executive Director Basim Elkarra, 916-441-6269, 916-289-3748, E-Mail: sacval@cair.com

SEE ALSO:

PURCHASE TICKETS ONLINE FOR CAIR-SV 5TH ANNUAL BANQUET - TOP

WHAT: 5th Annual CAIR-SV Banquet
WHEN: Saturday, September 8th, 2007, Social 5:30 p.m., Dinner & Program 6 p.m.
WHERE: Radisson Hotel, 500 Leisure Lane, Sacramento, CA
(916) 922-2020

Free Childcare!

How to purchase/reserve your tickets:

Online at: https://www.cair-california.org/banquet/
Via email: sacval@cair.com
By Phone: (916) 441-6269

For sponsorship opportunities call (916) 441- 6269

If you are unable to attend, please send your tax-deductible contributions to: CAIR-SV, 717 K Street, Suite 217, Sacramento, CA 95814

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250 ATTEND CAIR-CINCINNATI ANNUAL COMMUNITY COOKOUT - TOP

(CINCINNATI, 8/27/07) - The Cincinnati office of CAIR-Ohio held the Third Annual CAIR Community Cookout, on August 26, 2007, at Sharon Woods Park.

The cookout, which was attended by some 250 people, was an opportunity for community members to hear about CAIR programs and reconnect with the local chapter.

There was good food, socializing and games for everyone, young and old. Those in attendance were encouraged to support CAIR's efforts on behalf of the Muslim community.

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DC: MUSLIM PATROL QUIETS CRIME IN SHAW - TOP
Omar Fekeiki, Washington Post, 8/28/07
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/27/AR2007082701527.html

On a sidewalk in Shaw, a dozen Muslim men wearing red T-shirts gather an hour before sundown.

Half line up quietly behind an imam. Facing southeast toward Mecca, they bow their heads and read aloud verses from the Koran. The other half spread themselves out and look up and down the street. After a few minutes, they switch places.

The men have come not just to pray but to assume control over a crime-prone block.

They are part of a Muslim neighborhood watch that lately has focused its efforts on Seventh Street NW between P and Q streets, site of the long-troubled Kelsey Gardens apartment complex. Just a few weeks ago, the location was beset by drug dealers, armed assaults and random shootings.

The group is composed of Muslims who practice a more orthodox form of Islam than such groups as the Nation of Islam, says founder Leroy Thorpe.

It is a spinoff of the Citizens Organized Patrol Efforts, or COPE, a neighborhood watch established in 1988 in Shaw. Both groups dress in ample red T-shirts and red baseball hats with "COPE Patrol" written on them.

About two months ago, owners of the 35-unit Kelsey Gardens complex asked Thorpe to arrange security for the residents and crack down on drug dealers who gravitated to a parking lot in the complex, Thorpe said. The complex is slated to be razed next month and a new structure will take its place. Thorpe said that the owners want to encourage more investment in the area.

"Nobody is going to invest in a drug-infested area," said Thorpe, a former Advisory Neighborhood Commission member who also goes by the Muslim name Mahdi.

D.C. police, who say they know of no other religion-based citizens patrol operating in the District, credit the Muslims with rousting the drug dealers and restoring a measure of public safety to the neighborhood. "There was an overwhelming difference," said Officer Earl Brown of the 3rd Police District. (MORE)

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CA: SIKH MEN FEEL TARGETED AT AIRPORTS - TOP
Turban 'searches' angers community
Rebecca Rosen Lum, San Jose Mercury News, 8/28/07
http://www.mercurynews.com/religion/ci_6738255

A new Homeland Security Department policy singles out Sikh men for rigorous airport security searches at the discretion of screeners, a national civil rights organization says.

The United Sikh Coalition has written to Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff to protest the policy, implemented Aug. 4, which it says amounts to racial profiling. Nearly 2,000 have signed petitions.

Previously, travelers wearing turbans were searched only if they failed to clear metal detectors or other preliminary checks. The new rules, implemented Aug. 4, allow pat-downs of religious headgear at the screener's discretion.

For the world's 25 million Sikhs, the turban is an article of faith, only to be removed in the home or in private.

"In the last three weeks, we've heard dozens of complaints, people being asked to remove their turbans in public and denied the use of a mirror or space to re-tie them, said Kavneet Singh, East Bay resident and director of the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund. "For a Sikh man, that's like being strip-searched."

J.P. Singh, president of the Sikh Center of the San Francisco Bay Area in El Sobrante, teaches Department of Justice and local law enforcement agencies about Sikh practices.

"It's like asking a woman to take off her blouse in public," he said. "It's that bad."

At San Francisco International Airport on Aug. 12, screeners ordered aside three Sikh men. One of them was Kuldip Singh, managing director of United Sikhs.

"The metal detector did not go off," he said. "I asked the guy why they were asking me to step aside. He said they have a new no-hat policy, and we have to pat down your turban." (MORE)

SEE ALSO:

THE COST OF HIDDEN BIAS AT WORK - TOP
Francesco Guerrera, Financial Times, 8/27/07
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/1/c093ce66-54ad-11dc-890c-0000779fd2ac.html

When an Arab-American working for a US bank heard that a colleague was buying a house, he went to Google Maps to check it out. Another colleague, noticing he was looking at satellite pictures, quipped: "What, are you selecting a target?"

The banker did not find it funny. A short while later he left the company and the industry, tired of being the butt of terrorist jokes and facile racial stereotypes by not-so-funny co-workers.

He is just one of an estimated 2m professionals, nearly 5 per cent of the US managerial cadre, who quit their jobs every year because they feel unfairly treated at work.

Their reasons for leaving are many and widely different, ranging from being bullied or being passed over for promotion, to having to endure unwelcome questions about their skin colour.

What is pushing these professionals out is not, by and large, overt racism and sexism but rather a series of more covert actions that end up undermining their trust and respect for their company and colleagues.

This yearly exodus is motivated by highly personal reasons but it has a powerful common effect: a brain drain from key parts of the US economy at a time when corporate America is struggling to recruit talent to compete with low-cost rivals from emerging markets.

New research to be published today by the Level Playing Field Institute, a San Francisco-based think-tank, puts the economic toll from professionals who say they left their jobs solely because of unfairness at $64bn (€47bn, £32bn) a year.

The survey, carried out on more than 1,700 people by an independent research consultancy in January, arrives at the figure by multiplying the average annual compensation of a US manager by the number of "corporate leavers". (MORE)

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WA: INFLAMING FEARS DOESN'T MAKE ANYONE SAFE - TOP
Robert L. Jamieson Jr., Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 8/28/07
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/jamieson/329300_robert28x.html

It's official: We live in a republic of fear. And when fear runs rampant, our good sense escapes us.

Photos, which spread across the city and state last week, showed two Middle Eastern-looking men accused of seeming suspicious on state ferries.

A ferry crew member (who took the photos) and the FBI (which released them) didn't lose sleep over the guilt or innocence of the men in the snapshots.

And why should they? The authorities had fear as an ally. They blithely enlisted a fearful public to do their bidding -- to be dutiful patriots and report them.

The two men in question could have been innocents on vacation. Or they could have been mistaken for another pair of dark-complexioned guys seen wandering ferries.

But they happened to fit a very broad profile -- even though the FBI says they aren't suspects.

So, why the brouhaha?

The trouble with public outings goes beyond these men being stripped of their rights to privacy. They weren't linked to a crime, such as, say, bank robbers caught on tape. They were snapping pictures and, we're told, acting too interested in vessel interiors and systems.

It is not a stretch to imagine the dangerous consequences when Uncle Sam deputizes the public. A citizen cowboy fueled by vigilantism could attempt to take the law into his own hands -- with horrific results.

Fear makes people irrational. (MORE)

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CAIR: MOST MUSLIMS AGAINST IRAQ WAR, BUT SAY U.S. AID NEEDED - TOP
Larisa Epatko, Online NewsHour, 8/27/07
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/middle_east/iraq/july

-dec07/muslims_08-27.html

A vast majority of Muslims in America feel the use of force in Iraq was wrong -- even more so than the general public, according to survey results -- but some say a continued U.S. presence is necessary for stability.

The most recent Pew Research Center survey on the subject, published May 22, found that 75 percent of Muslim Americans said the U.S. use of military force in Iraq was wrong, compared to 47 percent of the general public.

Farid Senzai, director of research for the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, helped advise Pew on its survey. He said Muslim-Americans in general saw a disconnect between the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the invasion of Iraq, even though the war on terrorism was one of the main reasons the Bush administration gave for going to war in Iraq.

Muslims recognized that al-Qaida, the self-proclaimed perpetrator of the Sept. 11 attacks, was a religious network that wouldn't want to affiliate itself with former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, who was a member of the secular Baathist Party, said Senzai.

Most Muslims in America and in other parts of the world believe terrorism would be better addressed through political options rather than military might, he added.

A survey of Muslim American voters conducted last year by the Council on American-Islamic Relations also found that the majority of both Sunnis and Shias thought the war in Iraq was a bad choice for the United States, though the percentage was slightly higher among Sunnis. (MORE)

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MUSLIM HERITAGE CONSULTING LAUNCHES WORLD'S FIRST MUSLIM HISTORY IMAGE LIBRARY - TOP
AME Info, 8/28/07
http://www.ameinfo.com/130210.html

Dubai-based Muslim Heritage Consulting has launched the world's first online image library dedicated to the history of the Muslim world, aptly named www.MuslimHeritageImages.com

ACM presents the best advantages and solutions for banks, brokers and traders- while offering Islamic trading conditions

The library includes thousands of images, such as manuscripts starting from the 10th Century, as well as contemporary pictures of people, architecture and important artefacts from museums.

Many of the images are unique recreations of pivotal moments in history, such as pioneering early surgical work carried out in the Middle East centuries before similar treatments were available in Europe.

Treasured collections from the past telling the true story of Muslim civilisation have been hidden in museums, library archives and private collections all over the world. Bringing together image collections from acclaimed photographers such as Werner Forman and manuscripts from the Sulaymaniye Library in Turkey, the new service, MuslimHeritageImages.com, offers thousands of eye-catching pictures illustrating various aspects of Muslim history. (MORE)

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CANADA: LITTLE MOSQUE FILMING 2ND SEASON IN SASKATCHEWAN - TOP
CBC News, 8/27/07
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/saskatchewan/story/2007/08/27/mosque.html

Little Mosque on the Prairie is back on the Prairies.

CBC's hit TV series about Muslims in a fictional Saskatchewan town is wrapping up production in Regina on its second season.

Producer Michael Snook says on-location shooting for parts of 12 episodes will begin Monday and continue into September. Broadcasts of the second season episodes begin Oct. 3.

"We'll be shooting five days in Regina over the next couple of weeks and we'll be shooting five days in Indian Head," Snook said.

The comedy originated in Regina, although CBC ended up moving more than half of the production to a soundstage in Toronto.

Even so, according to Snook, the sitcom has a strong Prairie component. (MORE)

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CAIR
Council on American-Islamic Relations
453 New Jersey Avenue, S.E.
Washington, D.C. 20003
Tel: 202-488-8787, 202-744-7726
Fax: 202-488-0833
E-mail: info@cair.com
URL: http://www.cair.com

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