Muslim American News Briefs, June 20, 2007

* Verse: The Reward of the Righteous is Not Wasted
* CAIR-NJ Hosts Town Hall Meeting with Security Officials
* CAIR-IL: Muslim Civil Rights Complaints Up 40% (Chicago Trib)
            - CAIR-Florida to Co-Host Islamophobia Symposium
* CAIR-CAN: No-fly List Grounds 2,000 People (Globe & Mail)
            - CAIR-CAN: No-Fly List Needs Safeguards (Gazette)
            - CAIR-CAN: Muslims Say List a No-Go (CP)
* NJ: Iraqi Girl Travels to NJ for Surgery (Herald News)
            - CAIR-MI: Few Iraqis Find Refuge in US (VOA)
* Incitement: Anti-Islam Group Also Anti-African American
* DC Conference: 'Resolving the Kashmir Dispute'
* Iraq: A War on Rewind, in a Bleaker Baghdad (AP)

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VERSE OF THE DAY: THE REWARD OF THE RIGHTEOUS IS NOT WASTED - TOP

"Be patient (in adversity); for, verily, God will not let the reward of the righteous be wasted."

The Holy Quran, 11:115

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CAIR-NJ HOSTS TOWN HALL MTG WITH SECURITY OFFICIALS - TOP

(PRINCETON, NJ, 6/19/07) - The New Jersey chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-NJ) held a town hall meeting on Saturday in Edison at which state and national law enforcement officials responded to the concerns of that state's Muslim community.

At the event, more than 200 people heard from representatives of the FBI, the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness and state police. Attendees asked questions about law enforcement procedures, the legal rights of those approached by authorities and religious and ethnic profiling.

The program was scheduled to end at 3 p.m., but due to the number of questions from the audience, it was extended one hour.

"We appreciate the willingness of all those who took part in this important event to address the concerns of the New Jersey Muslim community," said CAIR-NJ Communications Director Afsheen Shamsi. She said CAIR-NJ hopes to host similar community events in the future.

CAIR, America's largest Islamic civil liberties group, has 33 offices and chapters 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-NJ Communications Director Afsheen Shamsi, 908-938-5990, E-Mail: ashamsi@cair.com

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CAIR-CHICAGO: MUSLIM-AMERICAN CIVIL RIGHTS COMPLAINTS UP 40% - TOP
Emma Graves Fitzsimmons, Chicago Tribune, 6/19/07
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-070619muslimsjun19,1,1331510.story

The number of civil rights complaints filed by Muslim-Americans increased by about 40 percent in Illinois last year, according to a report released today by a national Islamic civil liberties group.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations found that complaints about delays in citizenship applications and work discrimination increased by 25 percent nationwide in 2006. Illinois had 412 civil rights complaints - the second largest number of any state, the group said at a news conference in Chicago.

"I think most Muslim-Americans have themselves suffered from some sort of discrimination or know someone who has," said Christina Abraham, the Chicago chapter's civil rights coordinator.

The report, which is called "Presumption of Guilt," says the experience of the American Muslim community is "the next chapter in the continuing civil rights history of America."

The number of civil rights complaints by Muslim-Americans has steadily increased nationwide since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks - to almost 2,500 incidents last year from about 350 reported incidents in 2000, according to the report. (MORE)

SEE ALSO:

CAIR-FLORIDA & THE IMAN AT NOVA HOST ISLAMOPHOBIA SYMPOSIUM - TOP

Speakers:

* Dr. Robert Pape, 'Why the War on Terrorism is Heading South'
* Dr. Mohammed Nimer, Islamophobia & Anti-Americanism: An Action Agenda
* Dr. Aisha Musa, Islam in the popular media: The problem of pseudo-scholarship and misinformation

WHERE: Nova Southeastern University, Steele Auditorium in Terry Bldg. 19E, 3301 College Avenue, Ft Lauderdale, FL
WHEN: Saturday, June 30, 2007, 2 - 4:30 p.m.

RSVP: Free admission. Limited seating. RSVP mandatory at (954) 272-0490.

DR. ROBERT PAPE is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago specializing in international security affairs. His most recent book is dying to win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (Random House, June 2005).

DR. MOHAMED NIMER is research director at the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington, DC. His research has focused on Muslim politics and development and the American Muslim experience. His most recent publication is the forthcoming edited volume "Islamophobia and Anti-Americanism: Causes and Remedies" (Amana Publications, 2007).

DR. AISHA MUSA is an Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies in the Department of Religious Studies at FIU. She received her PhD in Arabic and Islamic Studies from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. Her forthcoming book, "Hadith as Scripture," explores the development of the doctrine of duality of revelation and issues surrounding the relative authority of the Quran and the Prophetic Traditions in Islam.

CONTACT: Altaf Ali, CAIR-FL Executive Director, Tel: 954-272-0490, Email: aali@cair.com

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CAIR-CAN: NO-FLY LIST GROUNDS UP TO 2,000 PEOPLE - TOP
Minister defends program critics say violates key rights
Gloria Galloway, Globe and Mail, 6/19/07
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070619.NOFLY19/TPStory/National

As many as 2,000 people have secretly been declared security threats by government officials, including CSIS and the RCMP, and will be denied airplane boarding passes as a result of the Canadian no-fly list that went into effect yesterday.

Critics say the list must be scrapped because it jeopardizes fundamental human rights to privacy, liberty and the freedom of movement.

But Transportation Minister Lawrence Cannon says the new program, called Passenger Protect - which passed its first full day yesterday without any problems - has been thoroughly assessed to ensure it does not violate rights guaranteed under the Constitution.

"We've met with the civil-liberty groups. We've met with people who are interested in this file, whether they be air carriers or stakeholders or legal authorities. The Ministry of Justice has gone over this," Mr. Cannon said yesterday. "So, I'm quite satisfied that the regulations that were published are the right regulations."

There are "roughly between 500 and maybe 2,000" on the Canadian list, Mr. Cannon said. Compared with the U.S. list, which was compiled after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, "ours is much more limited in terms of the criteria."

But Faisal Kulty, who wrote a report for the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations that damns the list, said his group has identified at least nine different reasons why it should not be used. "They are actually putting people on a list, not telling them why, not having a hearing before they do it, and their Charter rights are being violated."

There is a presumption of innocence that is being removed here, he said. "You are guilty without being given an opportunity for any kind of process." (MORE)

SEE ALSO:

CAIR-CAN: NO-FLY LIST NEEDS SAFEGUARDS - TOP
Gazette, 6/19/07
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/editorial/story.html?id=7

1b25477-5fbd-45b2-8678-6a62ee10b211

We have argued in this space that no-fly lists shouldn't exist at all. Either someone is charged with and convicted of a crime, in which case their movements are already restricted, or they should enjoy the same rights as any other citizen.

But now that Canada's Passenger Protect program has become a reality - the list went into effect yesterday - the debate should focus on the rules of the game. The no-fly list is still being fiercely contested. The Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations, for instance, is the most vocal, fearing with justification that such a list is bound to single out Arabs and Muslims unfairly. Ottawa and spy agencies reply that after 9/11, the threat to civil aviation from Muslim extremist groups like Al-Qa'ida remains real and that it would be irresponsible not to implement such a system to protect Canadians who fly. It will require Canadian airlines to cross reference their flight passenger logs against the no-fly list to make sure people who are deemed to pose a terrorist risk are not allowed to board.

The U.S. no-fly list has been a debacle - and an abuse of power. The number of people prohibited from boarding airplanes in the U.S. went from 16 before 9/11 to more than 120,000; people are on the no-fly list who died years ago; a horde of unfortunate souls with the same first and last names as those suspected of security threats are hassled for hours each time they try to board an aircraft (often missing their flight). Dead Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is still on the list, and 14 of the 19 9/11 hijackers, etc.

We should learn from the U.S. example and not impose the same glitches, injustices and hardships on Canadians. (MORE)

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CAIR-CAN: MUSLIMS SAY LIST A NO-GO - TOP
Canadian Press, 6/19/07
http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Canada/2007/06/19/4272160-sun.html

The federal government should scrap the "no-fly" list until it fixes fundamental flaws in the program, said the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations.

"For a list that so severely impacts the civil liberties and mobility rights of the people -- that should be debated in Parliament," said spokesman Sameer Zuberi.

"That's why we're asking the government to scrap the list."

The Specified Persons list, which came into effect yesterday, is provided to all airlines that fly within or in and out of Canada, includes the name, date of birth and gender of anyone the federal government considers an immediate threat to aviation security.

Airlines are required to screen each person's name against the list before issuing a boarding pass and to ensure every passenger who looks to be 18 years of age or older carries one piece of valid government-issued photo ID or two pieces without photo.

Transport Canada officials say the list is meant to safeguard the security of airline passengers. However, passengers won't know until they check in at the airport whether they will be allowed to fly.

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NJ: AN IRAQI GIRL TRAVELS TO CLIFTON FOR LIFE-CHANGING SURGERY - TOP
Betsy Querna, Herald News, 6/19/07

Zainab Jabbar, 11, of Baghdad holds flower petals in the backyard of her temporary home in Clifton, where she and her mother are staying with a local family while she receives care for severe scoliosis, a debilitating curvature of the spine.

The mood is tense. Zainab Jabbar, an 11-year old with severe scoliosis, a debilitating curvature of the spine, lies in a stretcher just minutes away from life-changing surgery.

Her mother, Azhar, sits next to her, as she has for weeks, ever since Zainab entered St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center in Paterson. She sits stiffly, her face raw with tears. Sometimes she leans in to her daughter to comfort the girl, and likely herself. It's hard for Azhar to relax. She has waited more than a decade and brought her daughter here from their home in Baghdad for this operation.

Zainab's father calls their cellphone from Iraq. He tells his daughter that he is too nervous to eat. She tells him not to worry, that Mom will cook for them all when they come home.

Zainab's mischievous personality is all that lightens the mood. When she wins a hand of Uno, the card game, she smiles and points under her bed sheets, saying, "I got cards over here."

Born with severe scoliosis, Zainab leans severely to her left side. Her shoulders are lopsided and, on an X-ray, her spine looks like a meandering river winding up her back. She tires easily and can walk only short distances because her spine curves into her right lung, impeding her breathing. Without surgery, she likely would have lost function in her legs, doctors at St. Joseph's say. (MORE)

SEE ALSO:

FEW IRAQIS FIND REFUGE IN US - TOP
Brian Padden, Voice of America, 6/19/07
http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-06-19-voa42.cfm

June 20th is International Refugee Day so we are turning our attention to the refugee situation in Iraq. The United Nations says nearly four million Iraqis have fled from their homes seeking refuge in either safer regions of their country or abroad. And every month at least 40,000 more people are displaced.

The United States faces increasing criticism for not doing more to solve the refugee crisis there or allowing more Iraqi refugees into the U.S. In 2006 the United States allowed only 202 Iraqi refugees into the country. VOA's Brian Padden found one of the few -- in Dearborn, Michigan.

There is a large Iraqi community in Dearborn, Michigan. It makes up a significant part of the 500,000 Arab-Americans who live in or around the Midwest city of Detroit.

Most of the men at the Karbala Islamic Center, like the vast majority of Iraqis here, came in the early 1990s after the first Gulf War. But Ahmed Kareem arrived just a year ago. Before he left Iraq, Kareem says he was working as a journalist in Baghdad for an American-supported Iraqi newspaper. He says he fled after he was targeted for assassination for helping Americans. . .

Dawud Walid is executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Michigan. He says the government is discriminating against Arabs and Muslims. "We believe it is partly due to the demonization of Arabs in the post-9/11 era." (MORE)

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INCITEMENT: ANTI-ISLAM GROUP IS ALSO ANTI-AFRICAN AMERICAN - TOP

These racist quotes were taken from the web site of the Society of Americans for National Existence (SANE), an anti-Islam group that is also apparently anti-African-American.

"There is a reason the founding fathers did not give women or black slaves the right to vote."

http://www.saneworks.us/On-Race-A-Tentative-Discussion-Part-II-article-64-25.htm

"Is there something unique about the Black American (or, at least the Black New Yorker) that leads him to murder so disproportionately and to most often kill and victimize his own? Do we see patterns of Black culture that arise out of Africa and the wanton murder of blacks by blacks there? Why have the colonized blacks of the African continent, after having acquired their freedom and independence, so willingly slaughtered their own and live in despicable disease and squalor despite a land of enormous riches while Indians of the Indian sub-continent have successfully moved from British rule to democracy and relative civility even in a country that still maintains social inequalities as a fact of their culture?"

http://www.saneworks.us/On-Race-A-Tentative-Discussion-Part-II-article-64-25.htm

SEE ALSO:

WASH. TIMES PROMOTES HATE GROUP THAT WOULD OUTLAW ISLAM
http://www.cair.com/default.asp?Page=articleView&id=510&theType=AA

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DC CONFERENCE: 'RESOLVING THE KASHMIR DISPUTE: INNOVATIVE MODELS' - TOP

The Association of Humanitarian Lawyers Kashmiri American Council/Kashmir Center invites you to attend the Seventh International Kashmir Conference "Resolving Kashmir Dispute: Innovative Models."

WHERE: Capitol Hill, Rayburn House Office Building, Gold Room, Independence Ave & New Jersey Ave, Nearest Metro: Capitol South, Orange/Blue lines.

WHEN: Thursday, July 26, 2007; Registration at 8 a.m.

Admission to the Conference is free but registration is required

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IRAQ: A WAR ON REWIND, IN A BLEAKER BAGHDAD - TOP
Associated Press, 6/19/07
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/4902578.html

In Iraq, after four years and three months of war, the echoes have begun to echo themselves.

American troops are taking Baghdad's streets back from insurgents. The prime minister has a plan for national reconciliation. To the south, in the ``triangle of death,'' two U.S. soldiers are missing, captives in enemy hands.

Those were the headlines a year ago. Now they're being heard again in the newscasts of today, like some grim rewinding of a movie tragedy, of a story that never ends.

At the White House last June, back from a secretive trip to Baghdad, an upbeat President Bush told reporters assembled in the Rose Garden, ``I sense something different happening in Iraq.''

It's June again and those roses are once more in bloom. But in Baghdad the scene looks only bleaker.

To a visitor returning after a year, the something different is the spread of concrete blast barriers across ever more of the city, the accumulation of still more rubble, the sectarian ``cleansing'' of neighborhoods, the ruin of still more lives - of friends whose loved ones have fled, been kidnapped, been killed. And for those left behind, life is worse.

Old Baghdad's constants remain: The sun, boiling orange, still slips below the western desert each evening; the river Tigris snakes, shallow and sluggish, through the city's heart; the muezzins' call to prayer still blares from countless mosques.

The constants of war also remain: the thud of sunrise explosions, somewhere; the zigzagging of convoys down the dangerous roads; the roar of Black Hawk helicopters skimming the tops of Baghdad's minarets. (MORE)

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CAIR
Council on American-Islamic Relations
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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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