Category Archives: State Oppression

Zuhdi Jasser and Pete King support NYPD spying operation, call for it to be extended to other US cities

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Zuhdi Jasser & Pete King defend NYPD spying

Muslim groups gathered in support of the New York Police Department in Manhattan this morning following revelations the NYPD set up surveillance of Muslim communities in two New Jersey cities and on 16 college campuses.

Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, the president of the American Islamic Foundation, on Monday thanked the NYPD for monitoring extremists as about three dozen supporters cheered and clapped. Jasser, who narrated the documentary “The Third Jihad,” which warns against the dangers of radical Islam, said the NYPD is doing work that Muslims should be doing.

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New York Times condemns NYPD spying on Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A series of articles by The Associated Press has exposed constitutionally suspect surveillance of Muslims in New York, New Jersey, Long Island and beyond. Unearthed police records noticeably lack any apparent link to suspected criminal activity, or any obvious payoff for public safety.

In particular, the A.P. reports revealed widespread police spying and the creation of police records containing information on Muslim people, mosques and campus groups, as well as luncheonettes, dollar stores and other legitimate businesses owned and frequented by Muslims, with no apparent reason to think anything wrong was going on….

It is a distressing fact of life that mistreatment of Muslims does not draw nearly the protest that it should. But not just Muslims are threatened by this seemingly excessive warrantless surveillance and record-keeping. Today Muslims are the target. In the past it was protesters against the Vietnam War, civil rights activists, socialists. Tomorrow it will be another vulnerable group whose lawful behavior is blended into criminal activity.

Mr. Bloomberg has reacted in the worst possible way – with disdain – to those raising legitimate questions about the surveillance program. Asking about its legality, and about whether alienating innocent Muslims is a smart or decent strategy, does not translate into being soft on terrorism, or failing to appreciate that it is a dangerous world….

We welcome last week’s statement by Attorney General Eric Holder that the Justice Department is beginning to review complaints about the N.Y.P.D.’s surveillance of Muslim and Arab communities to determine whether a full civil rights investigation is warranted. The review’s prompt completion should be a priority.

Meantime, we are wondering what happened to the Michael Bloomberg who stood up for fairness and religious freedom by backing a proposed Muslim community center near ground zero. We hope that mayor re-emerges soon to restore trust.

Editorial in New York Times, 4 February 2012

See also Michael Calderone, “New York Times weighs in on Muslim surveillance program by NYPD, calls out Mayor Bloomberg”, Huffington Post, 4 March 2012

NSW identity law requires veils to be removed for JPs, lawyers

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslim women will be required to remove face veils as part of new identity check laws in NSW.

From April 30, anyone who asks a Justice of the Peace or lawyer to witness statutory declarations or affidavits will have to remove all head coverings including motorcycle helmets and masks to prove who they are.

NSW Attorney-General Greg Smith said JPs and lawyers will in future be required to see the face of anyone making statutory declarations or affidavits and to confirm their identity.

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New York Post and Daily News defend NYPD’s spying on Muslims, denounce Associated Press

Posted on by Bob Pitt

New York Daily News Get Lost headlineBob McManus, editorial page editor of the New York Post, blasted the Associated Press on Tuesday, suggesting that the news organization cares more about winning a Pulitzer Prize than the threat of terrorism.

“It will win its prizes, or not,” McManus wrote. “But to the extent its activities undermine a great city’s will to protect itself from proven enemies, it may someday have much for which to answer.”

McManus’ attack was just the latest journalistic broadside against the news organization in response to its ongoing investigation of the NYPD’s widescale surveillance of Muslims in New York City, several neighboring states and on over a dozen college campuses across the northeast.

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Florida: Senate panel rams through bill Muslims and Jews call discriminatory

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Florida protest against anti-sharia billTALLAHASSEE — Ignoring about 50 people who wanted to testify – and with a total of three minutes of deliberation – a Senate panel Tuesday slammed through a measure that both Muslims and Jews say is discriminatory and would prohibit them from freely practicing their religion.

The 5-2 vote by the Senate Criminal and Civil Justice Subcommittee approved legislation, SB 1360, that would ban any court or legal authority from using any sort of religious or foreign law as part of a legal decision or contract.

Some supporters acknowledge the bill was targeting Sharia law, the Koran-based code used by Muslims that, in the words of the Florida Family Association that supports the bill, “authorizes polygamy, pedophilia and perpetuates violence toward women and death for dishonoring the faith.” Similar bills have been filed by conservative Republicans in other states and in Congress, where Rep. Sandy Adams, R-Orlando, is a prime sponsor.

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Bloomberg defends intelligence-gathering on Muslim communities

Posted on by Bob Pitt

New York’s mayor served notice Friday that his police department will do everything in its power to root out terrorists in the U.S., even if it means sending officers outside the city limits or placing law-abiding Muslims under scrutiny. “We just cannot let our guard down again,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg warned.

The mayor laid out his doctrine for keeping the city safe during his weekly radio show following a week of criticism of a secret police department effort to monitor mosques in several cities and keep files on Muslim student groups at colleges in Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and upstate New York.

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With cameras, informants, NYPD eyed mosques

Posted on by Bob Pitt

NYPDWhen a Danish newspaper published inflammatory cartoons of Prophet Muhammad in September 2005, Muslim communities around the world erupted in outrage. Violent mobs took to the streets in the Middle East. A Somali man even broke into the cartoonist’s house in Denmark with an ax.

In New York, thousands of miles away, it was a different story. At the Masjid Al-Falah in Queens, one leader condemned the cartoons but said Muslims should not resort to violence. Speaking at the Masjid Dawudi mosque in Brooklyn, another called on Muslims to speak out against the cartoons, but peacefully.

The sermons, all protected under the First Amendment to the Constitution, were reported back to the NYPD by the department’s network of mosque informants. They were compiled in police intelligence reports and summarized for Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.

Those documents offer the first glimpse of what the NYPD’s informants – known informally as “mosque crawlers” – gleaned from inside the houses of worship. And, along with hundreds of pages of other secret NYPD documents obtained by The Associated Press, they show police targeting mosques and their congregations with tactics normally reserved for criminal organizations.

They did so in ways that brushed against – and civil rights lawyers say at times violated – a federal court order restricting how police can gather intelligence.

The NYPD Intelligence Division snapped pictures and collected license plate numbers of congregants as they arrived to pray. Police mounted cameras on light poles and aimed them at mosques. Plainclothes detectives mapped and photographed mosques and listed the ethnic makeup of those who prayed there.

“It seems horrible to me that the NYPD is treating an entire religious community as potential terrorists,” said civil rights lawyer Jethro Eisenstein, who reviewed some of the documents and is involved in a decades-old, class-action lawsuit against the police department for spying on protesters and political dissidents.

Associated Press, 23 February 2012

See “NYPD intelligence chief wanted sources in every mosque within 250 miles”, Guardian, 24 February 2012

Also “NYPD spying on N.J. Muslims leads to calls for state Attorney General investigation”, NJ.com, 23 February 2012

And “NYPD spied on Paterson mosque, report reveals”, NorthJersey.com, 23 February 2012

NYPD built secret files on NJ, Long Island mosques

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Americans living and working in New Jersey’s largest city were subjected to surveillance as part of the New York Police Department’s effort to build databases of where Muslims work, shop and pray. The operation in Newark was so secretive even the city’s mayor says he was kept in the dark.

For months in mid-2007, plainclothes officers from the NYPD’s Demographics Units fanned out across Newark, taking pictures and eavesdropping on conversations inside businesses owned or frequented by Muslims.

The result was a 60-page report, obtained by The Associated Press, containing brief summaries of businesses and their clientele. Police also photographed and mapped 16 mosques, listing them as “Islamic Religious Institutions.” The report cited no evidence of terrorism or criminal behavior. It was a guide to Newark’s Muslims.

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