Verse: Send Forth Good Deeds CA: Secret Dossiers Kept on U.S. Muslims

(Union-Trib) CAIR-MI Participates in Human Rights Conference

CAIR-PA Rep Leads Church Forum on Islam

The Turban Effect: Study Participants More Likely to Target Muslims

Studies Reveal Anti-Muslim Bias Among Students

CAIR-NY: Teens Arrested in Anti-Obama Attack on Muslim (Newsday)

MN: Beating Death of Muslim Classified as Bias Crime

TX: Muslim Community Taking Message to Airwaves

(CBS) MA: Center Brings Jews, Christians and Muslims Together

CA: Catholics and Muslims No Strangers to Dialogue (LA Times)

MD: Kids Share Muslim Faith in Event for Educators (Balt Sun)

FL: Muslim Clinic Serves Growing Need (SP Times)

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VERSE OF THE DAY: SEND FORTH GOOD DEEDS - TOP

“As for man, when his Lord tries him through giving him honor and blessings, he says: ‘My Lord is bountiful to me.’ But when He tries him through restricting his subsistence, he says: ‘My Lord has humiliated me.’

“Nay! But you did not show kindness to the orphan, nor did you encourage each other in feeding the poor. Greedily you lay your hands on the inheritance of the weak, and you love wealth with all your hearts.

“Nay! You should know, when the earth will be pounded to powder, your Lord will come, with angels standing in ranks, hell shall be brought in sight. On that Day man will remember his deeds, but how is that remembrance going to profit him?

“He will say: ‘Alas! Would that I had sent forth some good deeds for this life of mine.’”

The Holy Quran, 89:15-24

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FORMER MARINE OUTLINES SECRET DOSSIERS - TOP Muslims, Arabs not targeted, FBI says Rick Rogers, San Diego Union-Tribune, 11/17/08

OCEANSIDE Two years after his arrest, a former Marine gunnery sergeant is talking about the FBI, CIA and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement files he stole from Camp Pendleton for a civilian agency.

In interviews with The San Diego Union-Tribune, Gary Maziarz, 39, said “dozens of files” he gave the Los Angeles Terrorism Early Warning Group while serving as an intelligence specialist at the base were dossiers on Muslims and Arabs living in Southern California.

This marks the first time Maziarz has spoken to the media about the files since pleading guilty in July 2007 to mishandling classified material and stealing government property.

He agreed to the interviews despite signing a plea agreement with the government limiting his comments on the security breach, which might involve a decade's worth of intelligence culled from domestic and foreign sources. The deal also requires him to testify if called on.

“Most of the (monitored) people were from Los Angeles. The ties they had to San Diego were, like, maybe they had a house down here or a relative or came down to visit or went on vacation here,” said Maziarz, who splits his time between North County and Arizona as he looks for work and tries to move on with his life.

Many of the stolen files centered on the meeting spots of “people of interest,” including places of worship, businesses and travel plans, he said.

Maziarz's case could have repercussions well beyond Camp Pendleton.

The existence of CIA, FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement documents profiling specific minority and religious groups in the United States could undermine contentions by the FBI, the primary federal agency for domestic security, that no programs target upstanding Muslims and Arabs. (MORE)

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CAIR-MI PARTICIPATES IN HUMAN RIGHTS CONFERENCE - TOP

(SOUTHFIELD, MI, 11/17/08) The Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI) recently participated in a conference, which focused on the civil and human rights challenges facing American Muslims.

The 2 day conference, held in West Bloomfield, Mich., and themed “Keeping Your Faith in Post 9/11 America: Religious and Ethnic Discrimination and Human Rights,” was sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS).

CAIR-MI Executive Director Dawud Walid spoke on a panel addressing discrimination in accommodation of dress and profiling in public places by law enforcement and government agencies.

Other panelists included Nadia Tonova (ACCESS), Laila Al-Qatami (Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee), Lenora Lapidus (ACLU) and Michael Steinberg (ACLU-MI).

CAIR, America's largest Islamic civil liberties group, has 35 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-MI Executive Director Dawud Walid, Tel: 248-559-2247, E-Mail: dwalid@cair.com

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WOMEN’S FORUM SET ON ISLAM - TOP Daily Times, 11/15/08

WAYNE — November at Central Baptist Church will include a learning community on Islam, a “Night Out for Women Who Love Women,” a film forum on the role of dissent and protest in a healthy democracy, a women’s Torah study and an interfaith Thanksgiving service.

Each Sunday in November at 9:30 a.m., the question of religion and the state in relation to Islam will be the study topic of the adult Learning Community, led by Iftekhar Hussein, chair of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

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THE TURBAN EFFECT: THE INFLUENCE OF MUSLIM HEADGEAR AND INDUCED AFFECT ON AGGRESSIVE RESPONSES IN THE SHOOTER BIAS PARADIGM - TOP Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, September 2008

Does Islamic appearance increase aggressive tendencies, and what role does affect play in such responses? In a computer game, participants made rapid decisions to shoot at armed people, some of whom wore Islamic head dress.

We predicted and found a significant bias for participants to shoot more at Muslim targets. We also predicted and found that positive mood selectively increased aggressive tendencies towards Muslims, consistent with affect-cognition theories that predict a more top-down, stereotypical processing style in positive mood.

In contrast, induced anger increased the propensity to shoot at all targets. The relevance of these results for our understanding of real-life negative reactions towards Muslims is discussed, and the influence of affective states on rapid aggressive responses is considered.

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TWO RECENT STUDIES CONDUCTED IN TWO VERY DIFFERENT SETTINGS REVEAL A DISTURBING ANTI-MUSLIM BIAS AMONG STUDENTS - TOP Tom Jacobs, Miller-McCune.com, 11/17/08

The election of the United States' first African American president has been welcomed as evidence the nation is belatedly moving beyond bigotry. But two new studies suggest that at least one unconscious prejudice -- a fear or dislike of Muslims -- remains very much alive.

"Islamophobia," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said Wednesday at a two-day United Nations interfaith dialogue, "has emerged as a new term for an old and terrible form of prejudice."

When rumors began circulating during the recent presidential election that Barack Obama was a Muslim, observers from former Secretary of State Colin Powell to comedian Jon Stewart responded by asking, "Why would it matter if he was?" But whoever was circulating that misinformation was playing into a widely held prejudice -- one that has infected even the minds of sophisticated, educated Westerners. At least, that's the conclusion of two recently published studies, which detected anti-Muslim bias in two very different settings.

The first is "The Turban Effect," published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology by a team from the University of New South Wales in Sydney. It suggests that simply noticing someone is a Muslim increases aggressive tendencies on the part of non-Muslim Westerners. (MORE)

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STATEN ISLAND TEENS ARRESTED IN ANTI-OBAMA ATTACK - TOP Daniel Edward Rosen, Newsday, 11/16/08

Two 18-year-olds were among a group of men who yelled "Obama!" as they assaulted a black teenager with a baseball bat on Staten Island just hours after Sen. Barack Obama clinched the presidency, the victim and a spokesman for the Richmond County district attorney's office said yesterday.

Ralph Nicoletti and Bryan Garaventa, who are white and live in the Shore Acres section of Staten Island, were arrested Friday and charged with second-degree assault as a hate crime and criminal possession of a weapon, a New York City Police Department spokesman said.

Alie Kamara, 17, who moved to the borough from Liberia in 2000, said yesterday that he was relieved. "I feel a little better now," he said from his home. "They were wrong for doing what they did to me."

Kamara was treated for cuts and lacerations at a hospital the day of the attack, Nov. 5, and released the next day. Police said he needed three staples to close a head wound.

Authorities are seeking at least two more people in connection with the alleged assault, said William J. Smith, a spokesman for District Attorney Daniel M. Donovan Jr.

Authorities are looking into similar attacks on Staten Island possibly by members of the same group late Nov. 4 and early Nov. 5, a source close to the investigation said.

The Rev. Al Sharpton has spoken with Kamara's mother and pledged to ask the U.S. Justice Department to investigate the attack as a hate crime.

The New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations praised the arrests in a statement yesterday and called on the FBI to investigate the incident as a hate crime. Kamara is a Muslim.

"This apparently bias-motivated attack should be viewed as a direct challenge to the inclusive nature of our nation's political process," said Ailya Latif, the group's civil rights director. (MORE)

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ROCHESTER MAN'S KILLING IN DOWNTOWN ALLEY WAS A BIAS CRIME - TOP Janice Gregorson, Post-Bulletin, 11/13/08

The beating death of a Somali man in a downtown alley has now been classified as a bias crime by Rochester police.

But that won't change any of the charges filed against two 25-year-old Rochester men, the county attorney says.

Adam Brandrup and Joshua Lee are each charged with second-degree unintentional murder in the death of Muhidin Mumin, 42, who was found beaten to death in a downtown alley in the early-morning hours of Oct. 1.

Members of the victim's family and the Somali community in Rochester have contended from the beginning that this was a hate crime, based on the victim's race.

The two suspects are white. (MORE)

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TX: MUSLIM COMMUNITY TAKING MESSAGE TO AIRWAVES - TOP CBS 11 News, 11/16/08 Khaled Anwary is living history. He's still in awe after the presidential election.

Nearly 30 years after moving to the United States, Khaled admits is has not always been easy being a Muslim American, especially after 9/11.

"They look at you as a terrorist they think you are Muslim and a terrorist."

Clearing up misconceptions is what American Muslim Voices hopes to do.

For one hour on Sundays, two hosts -- Saad Chisty and Abu Hashim -- want to eliminate the stereotypes surrounding Islam. (MORE)

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CENTER BRINGS JEWS, CHRISTIANS AND MUSLIMS TOGETHER - TOP Yadira Betances, Eagle Tribune, 11/17/08

NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. — Prayer services led by a rabbi, an imam and a priest; courses on Judaism; and lectures on the relationships between Jews, Christian and Muslims.

All these programs take place on the campus of Merrimack College, a Catholic university, which established a Center for the Study of Jewish-Christian Relations 14 years ago.

The school is now adding Islam to the center's studies. (MORE)

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LOS ANGELES-AREA CATHOLICS AND MUSLIMS NO STRANGERS TO DIALOGUE - TOP Raja Abdulrahim, Los Angeles Times, 11/17/08

World Roman Catholic and Muslim leaders made headlines this month when they met in a first-of-its-kind interfaith forum at the Vatican. Locally, some faithful saw the forum not as something new but as an affirmation of efforts they have been making for years. (MORE)

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KIDS SHARE MUSLIM FAITH IN EVENT FOR EDUCATORS - TOP John-John Williams IV, Baltimore Sun, 11/16/08

Samina and Rashid Chotani's Ellicott City home will be relatively silent in the coming weeks, compared with the past month and a half.

That's when up to 42 children gathered each Sunday to prepare for their performance during the third Howard County Public School System Teachers Appreciation Dinner.

The event, held Monday at Toby's Dinner Theatre in Columbia, was sponsored by the Howard County Muslim Council. The program, "Islamic Holidays," was an opportunity for educators in the county to learn more about the Muslim faith. There were a number of plays and songs, speeches and a quiz that tested what the teachers learned.

"It's a night to celebrate, appreciate, educate and to say thank you for what they've done," said Rashid Chotani, the president of the organization. (MORE)

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CRESCENT CLINIC SERVES A GROWING NEED, WANTS TO DO MORE - TOP Beth N. Gray, St. Petersburg Times, 11/17/08

BROOKSVILLE — A local resident in his 50s suspected he had cancer — a lump in his throat he discovered a year and a half ago — but had not the wherewithal to visit a doctor.

Along came the Crescent Clinic, a no-pay primary care medical facility staffed by volunteers, mainly Muslim doctors who want to pay back the community that has nurtured their careers. The doctors worked to get the man immediate care. (MORE)

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