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Muslim American News Briefs, June 23, 2007

June 2007 News Links

June 2007 News Photos

 June 2007 Opinion Editorial Links

* Verse: The Revelations of Abraham and Moses
* CAIR-NY Rep Tells Teachers About Islam
            - IL: Islam's Diverse Faces (Chicago Trib)
* CAIR-CA: Muslim Girl Told to Remove Scarf (MC Herald)
            - Video: CA Girl Asked to Remove Religious Scarf
            - CAIR-MN: Muslim Harassment Resolved (Star Trib)
* CAIR: 'Obsession' Stokes Fears, Controversy (Haaretz)
* Psychologists Central to Detainee Abuse (Salon)
            - VA: Al-Arian's Contempt Citation Prolonged (Wash Post)
* Majority Says Iraq War Made U.S. Less Safe from Terror
            - US Air Strike Kills 25 Afghan Civilians (Guardian)
* PBS to Air Bill Moyers Interview with Imam Zaid Shakir
* Keeping Talk Radio Pro-Israel (Jewish Week)
            - Report: Right Wing Domination of Talk Radio
* Program: Arab-American Leadership Training

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VERSE OF THE DAY: THE REVELATIONS OF ABRAHAM AND MOSES - TOP

"Those who purify themselves (in this world) will prosper (in the life to come). . .But (O mankind,) you prefer the life of this world, although the life to come is better and more enduring. Surely the same was said in the earlier revelations - the revelations of Abraham and Moses."

The Holy Quran, 87:14-19

HADITH OF THE DAY: THE PROPHET'S SHARE

Once a vessel containing milk or water was brought to the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) while he was sitting with a boy on his right and elderly men on his left. The Prophet asked the boy: "Would you allow me to give (the drink) to the elder people (first)?" (It is Islamic custom to pass to the right.) The boy replied: "I do not prefer (that) anyone have my share from you, O God's Apostle!" So, the Prophet gave the vessel to the boy first.

Sahih Al-Bukhari, Volume 3, Hadith 554

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CAIR-NY REP PARTICIPATES IN RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY PANEL - TOP

(NEW YORK, NY, 6/22/07) - The New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-NY) today participated in a panel discussion entitled "Muslim Communities in America and NYC." The event, sponsored by the Interfaith Center of New York, was part of a series of events designed to educate secondary school teachers from different parts of the United States about major world religions.

SEE: http://www.interfaithcenter.org/education.html

"Religious intolerance is rooted in ignorance and misinformation," said CAIR-NY Communications Coordinator Faiza N. Ali, who spoke on today's panel. "It is imperative that educators understand the religious beliefs and practices of their diverse student body."

At the event, Ali spoke about being a young Muslim in New York and the generational differences and new challenges within religious traditions. She added that CAIR-NY and CAIR chapters nationwide offer cultural sensitivity training about Islam to school administrators and teachers.

She said CAIR publishes a booklet, called "An Educator's Guide to Islamic Religious Practices," designed to help teachers understand the faith and practices of their Muslim students.

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-NY Communications Coordinator Faiza N. Ali, 212-870-2002, E-Mail: fali@cair.com

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IL: ISLAM'S DIVERSE FACES TAKE CENTER STAGE - TOP
Festival is expected to unite Muslim Americans from around the nation in Marquette Park to celebrate their often-misunderstood faith and spiritual identity in America
Margaret Ramirez, Chicago Tribune, 6/22/07
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/north/chi-streetsjun22,1,2991965.story

For many young Muslim Americans, Grammy-nominated hip-hop artist and Chicago native Lupe Fiasco is more than a rapper with cool beats.

To them, Fiasco, a devout Muslim who often slips his faith into his music, symbolizes the struggle of young Muslims to reconcile their spiritual identity with their place in American society.

Early in his music career, Fiasco touched on that conflict in a personal song called "Muhammad Walks." Using music from the Kanye West hit "Jesus Walks," Fiasco rapped about the tenets of Islam in a way that his generation could understand. The song appeared on no album, but "Muhammad Walks" traveled by word of mouth and the Internet, reaching Muslims worldwide and becoming a contemporary religious anthem.

This Sunday, Fiasco is the headline performer for "Takin' It to the Streets," one of the largest community festivals in southwest Chicago and what organizers say is the only event of its kind in the nation put together by Muslim Americans.

More than another summer festival, the "Streets" event brings together artists, entertainers, religious scholars and activists to show the diversity of young Muslim America and how the next generation is trying to improve their communities. The 6th biennial festival, organized by the Inner-City Muslim Action Network (IMAN) is expected to draw nearly 4,000 people from California to Canada. (MORE)

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CAIR-SFBA: MUSLIM GIRL TOLD TO REMOVE SCARF - TOP
Employee offers apology; public statement sought
Clarissa Aljentera, Monterey County Herald, 6/22/07
http://www.montereyherald.com/ci_6201309

A confrontation over a head scarf in the lunchroom of Seaside High School between a school supervisor and a 13-year-old student has led for a call for a public apology from the official by a major Islamic organization.

The San Francisco/Bay Area chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, known as CAIR, said the girl, an incoming freshman, was told by the supervisor Tuesday to remove her hajib, an Islamic head scarf.

After explaining that she wore it for religious reasons, the supervisor, according to the CAIR statement, then demanded in front of more than 100 other students, "You have to take it off now."

The girl, who was taking a summer algebra class, then broke down in tears, said CAIR, but did not remove her scarf.

CAIR and Seaside High both declined to identify the girl's family.

School officials said the supervisor has offered to apologize.

"The employee involved did offer an apology on the day of the event," said Sydney Renwick, Seaside High principal. "We offered to make a personal one, because of the situation."

But Safaa Ibrahim, CAIR's chapter executive director, said in a statement that "because the student was humiliated in public, it is only reasonable to make an apology or statement in public to mitigate the damage caused by the supervisor's unacceptable actions." (MORE)

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CAIR-SFBA: LOCAL GIRL ASKED TO REMOVE RELIGIOUS SCARF - TOP
Family Demands Public Apology
Tomas Roman, ABC7 News, 6/21/07
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=local&id=5411591

VIDEO: http://tinyurl.com/ys9ee8

VIDEO: Alleged Religious Descrimination Case Under Investigation (KSBW)
www.theksbwchannel.com/video/13549874/index.html?taf=mty

The Muslim community is outraged tonight that a girl was ordered to remove her head scarf -- or hijab during her second day of summer school. The family of the Sudanese-American girl is demanding a public apology for what happened at a high school in Seaside -- near Monterey.

Summer school is in session at seaside high school in Seaside. At lunchtime last Tuesday, 14-year-old Eduardo Munoz heard screaming.

Eduardo Munoz, Seaside High School Student: "Robo told her to take off her scarf. She can't where she comes from, so she started crying because Robo started screaming at her."

Robo, he says is what students call the lunch supervisor. The young woman he says was very upset.

Eduardo Munoz: "She was just crying she was just putting her head down and she walked out of class."

The incident was over a scarf like this woman is wearing called a hijab. It's the scarf some Muslim women choose to wear as part of their religious practice. . .

Azima Subedar is with the Council on American Islamic Relations called CAIR. Her organization and the young woman's parents are upset that an educator doesn't understand the importance the hijab has to Muslim women. They say the teenager was hurt and publicly humiliated in front of her peers, and an apology is needed. We spoke to the girl's father Yosif Omer by phone -- the family did not want to appear on camera. (MORE)

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CAIR-MN: CHARGE OF MUSLIM HARASSMENT IN BLAINE RESOLVED - TOP
Star Tribune, 6/21/07
http://www.startribune.com/462/story/1261313.html

Blaine school, civil rights group strike a quick accord in a complaint over Muslim students being harassed.

A complaint about the harassment of Muslim students at a Blaine middle school has been resolved, with the school district being praised for its response.

The Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Minnesota) filed a complaint last month that a Muslim student at Westwood Middle School was called a "terrorist." Two other Muslim students alleged that food was thrown at them.

In an agreement announced Thursday, the school will incorporate information about world religions into its geography curriculum, assign a diversity coordinator and create a "school climate task force" of students and faculty.

"They have really made a wonderful effort," said CAIR Vice Chair Thasneem Ahmed. "We are very pleased with the steps they have taken."

Don Helmstetter, superintendent of the Spring Lake Park School District, said he still regrets that the matter reached the complaint stage but is happy with its resolution.

"I feel bad when any parent has an issue that they need to take to an outside party," he said. "But the good news is that the people at CAIR know who we are now, and they know that if they have another issue, they can call us up and feel that we will deal with it quickly and appropriately."

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CAIR: 'OBSESSION' STOKES PASSIONS, FEARS AND CONTROVERSY - TOP
Daphna Berman, Haaretz, 6/22/07
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/873843.html

A documentary produced in Israel and screened widely throughout the U.S. is stirring furious debate over its depiction of Muslims.

The film, "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West," is gaining a quick following among conservative Americans, evangelicals and Jews. U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney is said to have seen the film and though it hasn't technically been released yet, segments have been screened several times on Fox News and shown on nearly 200 university campuses.

But critics of the film dismiss it as "fear-mongering" propaganda aimed at bashing Muslims and inciting bigotry and hate.

"Obsession" is a one-hour look at radical Islam with footage of Arab and Iranian television, interspersed with rallies from Nazi Germany in an attempt to draw parallels between the two. Comprised mostly of news clips from recent years, it includes scenes of thousands of people chanting "Death to America" and children talking about their dream of becoming a martyr. "I hope Bush dies in flames and I want to go to Ariel Sharon and stab him with a sword," one little girl in Bahrain tells the camera. The film also features interviews with prominent neo-conservative figures, like Daniel Pipes, who warn about the danger of radical Islam and its growing prominence in some circles. . .

Critics, however, say the film is demagogic and insist it presents a fringe element as representative of broader religious trends - despite what its creators say are several disclaimers reminding viewers that "most Muslims do not support terror."

"It's a typical cherry picking of inflammatory images and splicing them together to create fear," Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said in a telephone interview from the group's headquarters in Washington, D.C. "When these smear techniques are used against any other religious or minority group, it is recognized as bigotry. When it's aimed at Islam or Muslims, it has gained unfortunate levels of acceptance within our society." The film, he said, "has an agenda to make Muslims look bad." (MORE)

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'PSYCHOLOGISTS WERE CENTRAL TO THE ABUSE' - TOP
Salon, 6/21/07
http://www.salon.com/news/primary_sources/2007/06/21/open_letter/index_np.html

A letter from a group of psychologists to the American Psychological Association charges psychologists with responsibility for abusive interrogations.

Editor's note: On Wednesday, dozens of psychologists released an open letter to American Psychological Association president Sharon Brehm, expressing concern that psychologists may have played a central role in the development of abusive interrogation tactics since 9/11. Psychologists affiliated with the military's Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape program are under particular scrutiny. That program subjects elite U.S. soldiers to brutal mock interrogations to teach resistance in case of capture by an enemy that does not abide by the Geneva Conventions. Military psychologists helped reverse-engineer that training to interrogate suspected terrorists. Increasing evidence shows that the CIA employed SERE psychologists as contractors to do the same. Screen shots of the text of the letter are contained on this page and the following pages; the full letter, including the list of signatories, is available for download here. (MORE)

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VA: EX-PROFESSOR'S CONTEMPT CITATION PROLONGED - TOP
Jerry Markon, Washington Post, 6/22/07
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/21/AR2007062102032.html

A federal judge has extended the contempt citation against a former Florida professor who has refused to testify in the investigation into whether Islamic charities in Northern Virginia were financing terrorist organizations.

Sami al-Arian will remain jailed until at least October under Wednesday's ruling by U.S. District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee in Alexandria, Arian's wife and sources familiar with the decision said yesterday. Nahla al-Arian said Lee issued the decision at a closed hearing and indicated that he thought Arian -- who has served six months on the contempt charge -- still could be persuaded to testify to be reunited with his five children.

Not so, according to his wife.

Nahla al-Arian said her husband, who was acquitted in one of the nation's highest-profile terrorism cases and then pleaded guilty to a single charge, will never break his silence. "My husband is a man of principle, and he will never turn into an informant. We admire him and are proud of him," she said. "In our culture, as Palestinians, if a person becomes an informant for the government, this is very shameful."

A federal jury in Tampa deadlocked in 2005 on nine charges that Arian aided terrorists and acquitted him of eight counts. He then pleaded guilty to one count of supporting a Palestinian terrorist organization. Sentenced to 57 months, including time served, he was expected to be released from prison and deported this year. (MORE)

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MAJORITY BELIEVES INVASION OF IRAQ HAS MADE U.S. LESS SAFE FROM TERRORISM - TOP
PR Newswire, 6/22/07
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/news_press_release,127181.shtml

The War on Terror: What is it? Who Are Our Enemies and How Likely Are Different Types of Terrorist Attacks in the U.S.?; Majority Believes Invasion of Iraq Has Made U.S. Less Safe From Terrorism.

About half (49%) of all adult Americans believe that the "war on terror" really is a war. Most Republicans (76%) and half of all Independents (49%) think it is a war, while only about one-third (31%) of Democrats agree with them. One of the stated reasons given for supporting the invasion of Iraq was to make this country less vulnerable to terrorist attacks by Al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorists. Most people (55%) now think the invasion of Iraq has made this country less safe and only one-third (33%) believe it has made us safer. (MORE)

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US AIR STRIKE KILLS 25 AFGHAN CIVILIANS - TOP
Peter Walker, Guardian Unlimited, 6/22/07
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,2109039,00.html

A US air strike in southern Afghanistan has killed up to 25 civilians, a local police chief said today.

The victims included women, children and a cleric as well as 20 suspected Taliban militants, according to Mohammad Hussein Andiwal, the Helmand province police chief.

The air strike - which happened late yesterday - was launched in response to an attack on police posts near the town of Gereshk by militants.

It killed 25 civilians including nine women, three babies and the mullah of a local mosque, Mr Andiwal said.

In a statement, Nato said a compound "assessed to have been occupied by up to 30 insurgent fighters, most of whom were killed in the engagement", had been attacked.

"We are concerned about reports that some civilians may have lost their lives during this attack," Lieutenant Colonel Mike Smith, a Nato spokesman, said.

However, he blamed the deaths on Taliban fighters for sheltering among civilians. (MORE)

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BILL MOYERS INTERVIEWS IMAM ZAID SHAKIR - TOP
Bill Moyers Journal, 6/22/07
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY2isjhO3Wg

PBS Airdate: Friday, June 22, 2007 at 9PM (check local listings)

Bill Moyers interviews Imam Zaid Shakir, who has been called a voice of conscience for American Muslims, but his views on Islam in America put him at the center of a heated debate about faith and culture.

SEE ALSO: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/06222007/profile.html

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KEEPING TALK RADIO PRO-ISRAEL - TOP
Publisher of Talkers, Presidents Conference work around the dial.
Jonathan Mark, Jewish Week, 6/22/07
http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=14212

Three years after Air America first came on the air, intended to be a leftist voice in the mostly conservative world of talk radio only to go bankrupt as ratings sank, it has been newly "relaunched" under former Democratic politician Mark Green on 64 stations (1600 AM, WWRL in New York).

Michael Harrison, publisher of Talkers magazine, the leading industry publication for talk radio, told the Cybercast News Service that Air America Radio is "heading in the right direction ... You have to look at Air America in context. Too many people have said, 'Look, it's liberal. It failed,' as if that's why. The fact that they're liberal or progressive is irrelevant to me. It has to do with talent and a good business plan."

But whether talk radio, be it left or right, is fair to Israel, is, in fact, very important to Harrison. For the past five years, Harrison and his publication have been shepherding more than 50 talk show hosts to Israel in conjunction with America's Voices for Israel (AVI), a group founded and presided over by Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Harrison, a member of AVI's board of directors, recently devoted an entire glossy front page of Talkers to these Israel trips. And on one trip, several weeks ago, conducted in conjunction with United Jewish Communities, among the radio personalities traveling with Harrison was Lionel, the uni-monikered host newly hired as Air America's 9 a.m. mid-morning slot. (MORE)

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REPORT: THE RIGHT WING DOMINATION OF TALK RADIO AND HOW TO END IT - TOP
Think Progress, 6/20/07
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/06/20/radio-report/

The Center for American Progress and Free Press today released the first-of-its-kind statistical analysis of the political make-up of talk radio in the United States. It confirms that talk radio, one of the most widely used media formats in America, is dominated almost exclusively by conservatives.

The new report - entitled "The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio" - raises serious questions about whether the companies licensed to broadcast over the public radio airwaves are serving the listening needs of all Americans.

While progressive talk is making inroads on commercial stations, right-wing talk reigns supreme on America's airwaves. Some key findings:

* In the spring of 2007, of the 257 news/talk stations owned by the top five commercial station owners, 91 percent of the total weekday talk radio programming was conservative, and only 9 percent was progressive.

* Each weekday, 2,570 hours and 15 minutes of conservative talk are broadcast on these stations compared to 254 hours of progressive talk - 10 times as much conservative talk as progressive talk.

* 76 percent of the news/talk programming in the top 10 radio markets is conservative, while 24 percent is progressive. (MORE)

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ARAB-AMERICAN LEADERSHIP TRAINING: SEPT. 22-26, OCT. 24-28, NOV. 15-19 - TOP

The Hala Salaam Maksoud Foundation for Arab-American Leadership is now welcoming applications for its next intensive, 5-day leadership training seminars scheduled for Sept. 22-26, Oct. 24-28, and Nov. 15-19, 2007, in Washington, DC. All applications for the Sept. 22-26 seminar should be received by July 20, however applicants for all three seminars are encouraged to apply as soon as possible.

Applicants should send a letter of interest explaining their desire to become community leaders or activists, a CV and a writing sample or any other relevant material to:

The Hala Salaam Maksoud Foundation, 815 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC, 20006

Or email them to director@halafoundation.org

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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

Opinions expressed in various sections are the sole responsibility of their authors and they may not represent ccun.org.

editor@ccun.org