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    Muslim American News Briefs, September 20, 2007

Opinion Editorials

News

News Photos

* Hadith: The Adornment of Faith
* TX: Shooting at Mosque a Chance to Show Support
* CAIR-CA: Muslim Groups Sue FBI Over Surveillance (LA Times)
            - CAIR-CA: Muslim Groups Sue FBI Over Records (AP)
            - CAIR-CA: Muslim Leaders in Suit Against Government (P-E)
* CAIR-OH: Rock-Throwers Hit Local Mosque (Dispatch)
            - CAIR-OH Urges FBI to Investigate Mosque Attack (AP)
            - CAIR-OH: Local Hate Crime: Columbus Mosque Attack
* CAIR-San Diego Meets with Delegation from Turkey
* NY: Official Wants Arabic School Principal Reinstated (Daily News)
* PA: Conference on State of Black American Muslim Community
* American Muslims Strive to Become Model Citizens (Spiegel)
* MT: On Being Called an Anti-Semite in Montana
            - Authors Say Israel Lobby Wields Too Much Influence (DMN)
* Iraq Survey: More than 1,000,000 Iraqis Killed

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HADITH OF THE DAY: THE ADORNMENT OF FAITH - TOP

The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) offered the supplication: "O God, beautify us with the adornment of faith, and make us guides who are rightly guided."

Al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 788

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TX: SHOOTING AT MOSQUE A CHANCE TO SHOW SUPPORT - TOP
Corpus Christi Caller-Times, 9/19/07
http://www.caller.com/news/2007/sep/19/shooting-at-the-mosque-gives-us-a-chance-to-show/

It's not known whether Friday's shooting at a Corpus Christi mosque was intentional, but the incident illustrates the vigilance local Muslims must carry, even in a place of worship.

Corpus Christi police and the FBI are investigating the source of a bullet that pierced the front door of the McArdle Road mosque sometime Friday, perhaps early in the morning. Luckily, no one was hurt.

The incident coincides with Ramadan, a month-long religious observance of dawn-to-dusk fasting, prayer, reflection and giving to the poor. In pre-Islamic times, Ramadan was religiously significant as a time when warring Arab tribes observed a truce.

Now, the mosque's 600 members must be more cautious as they gather to pray and study, in a place where they should be safe to practice their religion as they wish without fear of bullets, stray or not. They are installing video cameras as a security precaution and members are being told to be more aware of their surroundings.

Clearly, this is serious business. Local Crime Stoppers is offering $1,000 for information leading to an arrest, with the FBI chipping in another $5,000. Authorities may never know for sure the source of the shooting or the intent, if any, behind it. But it's hard to believe that a bullet from a high-caliber weapon just happened to penetrate Corpus Christi's one mosque right after the Sept. 11 anniversary and at the beginning of Ramadan. Police Chief Bryan Smith believes the incident is a hate crime, not a random act.

As sad as it is, this experience is a chance for the community to show support for its neighbors, to reach out to local Muslims and let them know Corpus Christi is a place where freedom of religion not only exists but is welcomed. Osama Bahloul, spiritual leader at The Islamic Center of South Texas, has said he hopes the shooting was accidental. (MORE)

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CAIR-CA: MUSLIM GROUPS SUE FBI OVER SURVEILLANCE - TOP
Southland Muslim leaders contend the agency withheld information about alleged surveillance after the 9/11 attacks.
H.G. Reza, Los Angeles Times, 9/19/07
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-aclu19sep19,1,7421994.story

Several Islamic groups in Southern California sued the FBI on Tuesday to force the agency to release more documents about the alleged surveillance of individuals and local mosques following the Sept. 11 attacks.

In May 2006, 11 Muslim leaders and community groups sent the FBI a Freedom of Information Act request for documents about suspected surveillance of them and sued after the bureau released just four pages, one of them largely blank.

The ACLU, which filed the request and lawsuit, believes the FBI is withholding information. The civil rights group said in a statement that the FBI "squandered an opportunity" to build trust with the Muslim community by not releasing the information.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana and alleges that the FBI's document search was inadequate. The suit says there is concern that FBI investigations "threaten to erode the constitutionally protected freedom of religion that Muslim Americans enjoy." . . .

Last year, local Islamic leaders said they turned to the ACLU for help after the FBI provided little information in response to their concern about government monitoring. They said mosquegoers reported being questioned by the FBI about their religious practices and the sermons given during prayer services.

"We're baffled why this information is not being released. The onus is on them to show our community is not under surveillance," said Shakeel Syed, executive director of the Anaheim-based Islamic Shura Council of California. The council, identified in the suit as a federation of more than 60 mosques, and Syed are plaintiffs.

The four pages the FBI released pertain to Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Southern California chapter of the Council of American-Islamic Relations, and his group. Two pages recount a 2006 meeting between Ayloush and an FBI agent about improving relations between the FBI and Muslims. Another page had four lines about an offending e-mail the group had received.

"We hope that CAIR has not been under surveillance, because every thing it's engaged in fits within the 1st Amendment," Ayloush said. "We have views that aren't popular around certain circles of government, but they are legal."

Ayloush said he asked the FBI for information about himself because "I want to know why I get stopped at airports every time I return from an overseas trip." He said he hoped to learn that "I'm being stopped for a reason other than I'm Muslim." He and CAIR are also plaintiffs.

FBI officials in Los Angeles declined to comment on the lawsuit.

But Assistant Director J. Stephen Tidwell said last year that the FBI does not investigate individuals or groups "based on their lawful activities, religious or political beliefs." (MORE)

SEE ALSO:

CAIR-CA: MUSLIM GROUPS SUE FBI OVER RECORDS - TOP
Associated Press, 9/18/07
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iMldYaEw8bDALJoW6IIrSncyTP3g

Muslim advocacy groups sued the FBI and the Department of Justice for failing to turn over records they requested on surveillance in the Muslim-American community.

The complaint filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana alleges the FBI only turned over four pages in a response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request the community leaders made more than a year ago. The documents were not related to surveillance.

The FOIA request sought records that described the FBI's guidelines and policies for surveillance and investigation of Muslim religious organizations. It also sought specific information about FBI inquiries targeting 11 different groups or individuals.

The lawsuit states that all the plaintiffs - who include some of the most prominent Muslim leaders in California - have reason to believe they have been investigated by the FBI in recent years. The FOIA, a federal law which can provide individuals with access to information about the operation of federal agencies, requested documents dating back to January 2001. . .

The FBI responded to the FOIA first by saying it couldn't identify any records that met the criteria requested. After an appeal, the agency turned over four pages that dealt with the Council of American-Islamic Relations and Hussam Ayloush, CAIR's executive director for Southern California.

Those documents dealt with an alleged hate crime at a mosque that CAIR had reported to the FBI and a conversation that Ayloush had with an FBI agent about cooperating with federal law enforcement, said Ranjana Natarajan, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the plaintiffs.

Natarajan said she believes there are many more records because all of the individual plaintiffs have been interviewed by the FBI or stopped at airports for questioning. She said the FBI, in its responses, indicated it searched only files that hold information on active criminal investigations instead of more general files that could encompass surveillance activities.

Ayloush, who says he is questioned by federal agents every time he flies internationally, said he had hoped the FOIA request would help him determine why he's stopped.

"Either ... we're being stopped because we're Muslims - which is morally wrong - or that the government must have some erroneous info linked to me that I need to be able to clear," he said. "The only way I can access that information is by filing this FOIA." (MORE)

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CAIR-CA: MUSLIM LEADERS IN SUIT AGAINST GOVERNMENT - TOP
Paige Austin and Sonja Bjelland, Press-Enterprise, 9/18/07
http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_S_aclu19.3ef2018.html

Islamic leaders and local Muslim residents sued Tuesday to find out if federal investigators are monitoring them.

The lawsuit filed in federal court by the American Civil Liberties Union accuses the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI of essentially ignoring public records requests for information about the surveillance of prominent Muslims.

A year after the request was filed, the government produced only four pages of documents, three of them concerning an interview the FBI had with a Corona official of an Inland Muslims group.

The Corona resident, Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Southern California chapter of the Council on American- Islamic Relations, said the interview was about improving relations between the FBI and the Muslim community.

Ayloush is one of two Corona residents who are plaintiffs in the suit. The other is Rafe Husain, former president and board member of the Islamic Society of Corona-Norco.

Islamic leaders filed the request to quell fears that the government is conducting unwarranted surveillance on Muslim Americans, said Shakeel Syed, the executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California.

The government's failure to respond is unsettling particularly in light of the fact that hundreds of people say they are being harassed by federal investigators in their homes, businesses and outside mosques, he said. . .

In June, the agencies released four pages of documents, three of them about Ayloush, of Corona.

Reached by phone Tuesday, Ayloush said he has reason to think the FBI is holding back.

"The report is based on a meeting I had with the FBI in my office where we discussed ways to improve relations with the Muslim Community and the FBI," he said.

"I hope there is not more, but there must be something more to explain why I always get stopped in airports," Ayloush said. "It has happened eight times now, and I am either being stopped for the fact that I am a Muslim which is morally and ethically reprehensible, or the other reason is that some government agency might have some erroneous information about me.

"The only way for me to clear it up is with this Freedom of Information Act request." (MORE)

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CAIR-OH: ROCK-THROWERS HIT LOCAL MOSQUE - TOP
Meredith Heagney, Columbus Dispatch, 9/19/07
http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2

007/09/19/mosqueattack.ART_ART_09-19-07_B1_7H7UNOV.html

A Muslim-American advocacy group is calling on the FBI to investigate an attack on Muslims outside a South Linden mosque as a possible hate crime. A Columbus police report said a large group of black men yelled derogatory statements and threw rocks, hitting one mosque-goer in the back and breaking two windows at Masjid AsSahaaba, 795 E. Hudson St., just before midnight Friday.

The attack was a "biased attack on Muslim men leaving the mosque after prayer during the Ramadan season," the report said.

Ramadan is an Islamic holy month during which Muslims fast during daylight hours and spend additional hours in prayer.

But the mosque's imam and a witness say they don't think the attack was motivated by prejudice. They say the group who threw rocks at Muslims would've caused trouble for anyone they came across.

Romin Iqbal, staff attorney for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Ohio, said it wasn't clear what motivated the group to throw rocks, and he wants the FBI to investigate.

The mosque's imam, Abdiiaziz Abdi, said police told him they had thrown rocks at an old man down the street before coming to the mosque.

A witness said last night that a group of 20 or more teenage boys walked down E. Hudson Street past the mosque before a few turned around and threw rocks. The man identified himself as Robert but would not give a last name. (MORE)

SEE ALSO:

CAIR-OH: MUSLIM GROUP URGES FBI TO INVESTIGATE MOSQUE ATTACK - TOP
Associated Press, 9/18/07
http://www.wtol.com/Global/story.asp?S=7093946

An advocacy group for American Muslims is calling for the FBI to investigate an attack on Muslim worshippers outside a mosque in Columbus.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations says the attack occurred Friday night as the worshippers attended prayers marking the month-long fast of Ramadan.

According to a police report, the attackers made derogatory statements and then began throwing rocks, striking one worshipper in the back and smashing two windows on the front of the mosque.

Romin Iqbal, Ohio staff attorney for the council, says the group hopes it wasn't a bias-related attack, but wants the FBI to investigate with that possibility in mind.

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CAIR-OH: LOCAL HATE CRIME: COLUMBUS MOSQUE ATTACK - TOP
WSYX-TV, 9/19/07
http://www.wsyx6.com/newsroom/oh/topstory/topstory2.shtml

It's a crime that deeply concerns the Muslim community and the worshipers in central Ohio.

The Columbus police report called it a biased attack on Muslim men leaving a mosque after prayer during the Ramadan season, a holy times of year for people of the Muslim faith.

Friday night, as two worshipers were leaving the mosque after prayers a group of young men started swearing at them. The suspects then threw rocks and bottles at the victims, hitting one person, and shattering a glass door.

Spokesmen for the Ohio Council on American Islamic Relations, Ahmad Al-Akhras and Romin Iqbal, say the mosque is certainly a target. Police have recorded these crimes as actual hate crimes and will prosecute.

It's coming on the evening of Ramadan: giving, sharing, feeling the suffering of everybody, its considered is a special month of prayer. (MORE)

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CAIR-SAN DIEGO MEETS WITH DELEGATION FROM TURKEY - TOP

(SAN DIEGO, CA, 9/19/07) - On Tuesday, September 18, representatives of the San Diego office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-San Diego) met with a nine-member delegation of judges, lawyers and legal scholars from Turkey.

Delegation members spoke with CAIR-San Diego Public Relations Director Edgar Hopida on the topics of civil rights and CAIR's advocacy work. The meeting was sponsored by the U.S. State Department.

Each member of the delegation received as a gift, a copy of the Quran, Islam's revealed text, and a copy of CAIR's 2007 annual civil rights report.

CONTACT: Edgar Hopida, Public Relations Director, CAIR-San Diego, Tel: 858-278-4547 or 619-913-0719, E-mail: ehopida@cair.com

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BEEP BACKS ARABIC SCHOOL, URGES CONTROVERSIAL PRINCIPAL BE REINSTATED - TOP
RACHEL MONAHAN, NY Daily News, 9/19/07
http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/brooklyn/2007/09/19/2007-09-1

9_beep_backs_arabic_school_urges_controver.html

Brooklyn borough President Marty Markowitz is backing Boerum Hill's controversy-plagued Arabic-language school and its ousted principal.

Markowitz is slated to join other elected officials and a coalition of community groups today in supporting the Khalil Gibran International Academy and calling for the city to reinstate ousted Principal Debbie Almontaser.

"I wouldn't be opposed to it if it did happen," said Markowitz of the call for Almontaser's return to the school. "She was dumped on, and she doesn't deserve it."

Markowitz praised Almontaser for her work over the past 20 years in conflict resolution and diversity in Brooklyn. (MORE)

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PA: CONFERENCE ON STATE OF BLACK AMERICAN MUSLIM COMMUNITY - TOP

The Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA) will host a conference on "The State of the BlackAmerican Muslim Community."

WHAT: Conference: "The State of the BlackAmerican Muslim Community"
WHEN: November 2-4, 2007
WHERE: Philadelphia Convention Center, Philadelphia, PA

CONTACT: Tel: 859-296-0206, www.mana-net.org

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AMERICAN MUSLIMS STRIVE TO BECOME MODEL CITIZENS - TOP
Marc Hujer and Daniel Steinvorth, Spiegel, 9/13/07
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,505573,00.html

After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Muslim immigrants were seen as a potential threat in the United States. They have since become model citizens -- and now they want a greater say in politics.

It is almost 1 p.m., time for noon prayers, and Abdul Malik Mujahid, 55, is in his office on the second floor of Chicago's Downtown Islamic Center, preparing for his sermon. On his desk are a Koran, a pad of paper and a Blackberry. A telephone rings in the next room as people hurry through the corridors.

Soon Mujahid takes the elevator to the fourth floor, carrying the text of his sermon under his arm. The 200 men waiting for him in the prayer room are dressed in jeans and in suits. They have slipped away from their offices for lunch, removed their shoes and staked out their spots on the carpet. Now they want to hear Mujahid's Friday sermon.

He nods to the congregation. Mujahid is a short, elegant man. His gray beard is carefully trimmed and he has a smooth voice. He turns toward Mecca and recites the Fatiha, the opening Sura in the Koran. Then he quickly gets to his point: "My brothers, we can all contribute to reducing our energy consumption," he says. "That must be your very own jihad, your fight against global warming."

When he speaks he sounds like Al Gore, the former vice president of the United States and the man who is now leading America in the battle against climate change. "This wonderful country," says Mujahid, "depends on its immigrants. Show that you are good Americans and good Muslims."

Councillors, Advisors, and an Ambassador

Six years after Sept. 11, 2001, America and its Muslim immigrants seem to be on surprisingly good terms. They get along, they discover common interests, and it almost seems as if America's latest immigrants want to prove to everyone that they are the better Americans. (MORE)

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MT: ON BEING CALLED AN ANTI-SEMITE IN MONTANA - TOP
Is booking a critic of the Israel lobby to speak on your campus anti-Semitic?
Richard Drake, American Association of University Professors, 9/19/07
http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2007/SO/Feat/Drak.htm

As the coordinator of a university lecture series, I am always on the lookout for good speakers. I thought that I had found one in Stephen Walt, a political scientist at Harvard University and the academic dean of its Kennedy School of Government. His name had been given to me by John Mearsheimer, a University of Chicago political scientist, who in April 2005 had spoken in the series.

Mearsheimer mentioned to me during his visit that he and Walt were working on an article about the influence of the pro-Israel lobby on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. The article appeared in March 2006 in the London Review of Books to intense controversy.

The excitement over the article stemmed both from what Mearsheimer and Walt wrote about the Israel lobby and from what they were perceived to be saying about an always-touchy issue: the power and influence of Jews.

They indicted the lobby for manipulating America's Middle East policy in ways that jeopardize the international standing and physical safety of the United States. In particular, they pressed hard on the most sensitive issue in American politics, the war in Iraq.

Just as most Americans were coming to view the war as a terrible mistake, Mearsheimer and Walt declared, "There is little doubt that Israel and the [l]obby were key factors in the decision to go to war. It's a decision the [United States] would have been far less likely to take without their efforts."

Furthermore, the authors identified neoconservatives, "many with ties to Likud," the main right-wing Israeli political party, as the driving force within the Bush administration for war. Mearsheimer and Walt pronounced the policies associated with the long-standing special relationship between Israel and the United States dysfunctional and dangerous for both countries. (MORE)

SEE ALSO:

THE ISRAEL LOBBY WIELDS TOO MUCH INFLUENCE, AUTHORS OF NEW BOOK ARGUE - TOP
Dallas Morning News, 9/19/07
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stor

ies/DN-mearsheimerwalt_19edi.ART.State.Edition1.423dade.html

Excerpts from an editorial board meeting Monday with John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, authors of "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

How do you answer the criticism that you see clearly what Israel does wrong, but you are blind to what Israel does right?

Walt: We talk [in the book], for example, about how vibrant and open a democracy they have, particularly for the Jewish citizens. There's a problem [for] the Arab population of Israel, separate from the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. But even the Arab population of Israel tends to be treated as second-class citizens. There are many features of Israeli democracy that are quite impressive. Moreover, this is a society with lots of cultural and scientific achievements that are deeply admirable. We bear [them] no ill will. We point out that they clearly have faced security problems throughout their history, and they face a terrorism problem today. All of those things are true. ...

That said, what policies should the United States be adopting vis-à-vis Israel and the other countries in the region, and in particular, what should the United States be doing when Israel's conduct or actions are contrary not only to American interests, but to American values?

Mearsheimer: I think what's going on here is that there is a conventional wisdom in the United States about the state of Israel that we are challenging. And that conventional wisdom tends to portray Israel in the most positive light. And that's due in good part to the fact that the [pro-Israel] lobby works very hard to shape public discourse about Israel. For example, you know, and everybody who works for a major newspaper in this country knows, that if you write articles critical of Israel, or talk about the U.S.-Israeli relationship in a critical way, you'll feel a tremendous amount of heat from pro-Israel readers. As a consequence of this, we have a discourse in this country that's out of sync with No. 1, the history of Israel, and No. 2, what's going on in the Middle East today.

We don't love Israel. It's not that we dislike Israel. Our argument in the book is simply that Israel should be treated like a normal country. (MORE)

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IRAQ: MORE THAN 1,000,000 IRAQIS MURDERED - TOP
Opinion Research Business, 9/19/07
http://www.opinion.co.uk/Newsroom_details.aspx?NewsId=78

In the week in which General Patraeus reports back to US Congress on the impact the recent 'surge' is having in Iraq, a new poll reveals that more than 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens have been murdered since the invasion took place in 2003.

Previous estimates, most noticeably the one published in the Lancet in October 2006, suggested almost half this number (654,965 deaths).

These findings come from a poll released today by ORB, the British polling agency that has been tracking public opinion in Iraq since 2005. In conjunction with their Iraqi fieldwork agency a representative sample of 1,499 adults aged 18+ answered the following question:-

Q: How many members of your household, if any, have died as a result of the conflict in Iraq since 2003 (i.e. as a result of violence rather than a natural death such as old age)? Please note that I mean those who were actually living under your roof.

None 78%
One 16%
Two 5%
Three 1%
Four or more 0.002%

Given that from the 2005 census there are a total of 4,050,597 households this data suggests a total of 1,220,580 deaths since the invasion in 2003.

Detailed analysis (which is available on our website) indicates that almost one in two households in Baghdad have lost a family member, significantly higher than in any other area of the country. The governorates of Diyala (42%) and Ninewa (35%) were next. (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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