“At a time when hundreds of thousands of Michigan families are hurting, State Rep. Dave Agema, R-Grandville, is waging a silly anti-immigrant crusade that will do nothing but sow fear and distrust among the state’s diverse residents.”
The Detroit Free Press comes down firmly against the Michigan anti-Sharia bill.
The New York Civil Liberties Union on Wednesday released a white paper examining the rise of anti-mosque activities throughout the state.
As you might guess, the paper devotes significant attention to one project in particular, the proposed Park51 community center in Lower Manhattan. One of its developers, real estate broker Sharif El-Gamal, took part in a conference call on the release, along with NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman, the organization’s Advocacy Director Udi Ofer and Prof. Foroque Ahmad Khan, director of the Islamic Center of Long Island.
“The anti-mosque and anti-Muslim sentiment expressed in the opposition to Park51 was not an isolated incident,” Lieberman said, hastening to add that the civil rights group recognizes the right of the mosque’s opponents to speak out.
The report cites nine examples of anti-mosque activity, ranging from the international furor over Park51 to ugly but rather penny-ante vandalism of a mosque in Hudson – many of them occurring during last year’s election cycle, when Mosque Mania ruled the hustings. The report deals with several incidents in which public officials attempted to block the construction or expansion of mosques out of what Lieberman termed “an undifferentiated fear and distrust of their Muslim neighbors”.
Khan noted that too many Americans have little knowledge of their local Muslim communities, a void currently being filled by anti-Islam pundits and activists. “Some people … have made a cottage industry out of this,” he said.
Khan described what he saw as a “double standard”, noting that the vast majority of terrorist acts in North America are not committed by Muslims. He cited coverage of July’s rampage by Sweden’s Anders Breivik and noted a dearth of analysis on his twisted version of Christianity.
Khan praised Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Rep. Jerrold Nadler for “setting the tone” with their opposition to broad-brush intolerance. He noted that one of the promising aftereffects of 9/11 was a strengthening of interfaith and outreach efforts across the country. “That’s the only way you can break down the stereotypes,” he said.
Albany Times Union blog, 24 August 2011
See also NYCLU press release, 24 August 2011
Download the report here
Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the New York Police Department has become one of the nation’s most aggressive domestic intelligence agencies, targeting ethnic communities in ways that would run afoul of civil liberties rules if practiced by the federal government, an Associated Press investigation has found.
The operations have benefited from unprecedented help from the CIA, a partnership that has blurred the line between foreign and domestic spying.
The department has dispatched undercover officers, known as “rakers”, into minority neighborhoods as part of a human mapping program, according to officials directly involved in the program. They’ve monitored daily life in bookstores, bars, cafes and nightclubs. Police have also used informants, known as “mosque crawlers”, to monitor sermons, even when there’s no evidence of wrongdoing.
Neither the city council, which finances the department, nor the federal government, which has given NYPD more than $1.6 billion since 9/11, is told exactly what’s going on.
Encouraging counter-subversion policies condemns peaceful Muslims while turning a blind eye to the threat of Islamophobia, David Miller argues.
Australian authorities said motorists who refused to take off face-covering veils such as the burqa when asked to do so by police could be sent to jail for up to a year.
Under the changes to laws in New South Wales state, police will be able to ask drivers to remove helmets, masks, the face-covering niqab veil and the all-body garment the burqa. Refusal to do so would incur a fine of Aus$220 (US$228), but in the most serious cases could result in up to a year in jail and a fine of Aus$5,500.
A French businessman paid fines Wednesday for two women in Belgium who wore full-face veils in public and said he would take Belgium and France to court over laws banning Muslim niqabs and burqas.
Property dealer Rachid Nekkaz has set up a 1 million euro ($1.4 million) fund to cover fines and paid the first 50-euro penalties imposed in Belgium on two women in Brussels.
“France and Belgium have decided to forbid the possibility and the liberty of women to wear what they want,” he told reporters outside a municipal office in Brussels. The two fined women, both wearing niqabs, were also present.
“I consider that … it’s not acceptable that European governments vote in laws that don’t respect individual rights.”
Belgium’s law banning any covering of the face in public came into effect late last month. France was the first country to introduce a ban in Europe in April.
Nekkaz said he planned a legal challenge in both countries. “I will pursue the French and Belgian states in their national courts and then in the European Court of Human Rights so that they are sanctioned for violating individual liberties.”
Detroit — Prominent Muslim leaders and others on Tuesday announced their opposition to a bill to ban “foreign laws” in Michigan, calling the measure a racist attack on Islam.
State Representatives Rashida Tlaib and Harvey Santana, D-Detroit, joined activists at a press conference outside Cadillac Place in Midtown to denounce a bill sponsored by Rep. Dave Agema, R-Grandville, to outlaw state courts from implementing foreign laws, including Sharia, or Islamic law.
“I’m appalled as the first Muslim woman serving in the Michigan legislation,” Tlaib said. “This is taking a community and casting suspicion on them … targeting them, and it’s completely wrong. It’s racism at its core.”
Santana said the bill “polarizes people based on fear”. “Dave Agema has a history of making bigoted comments,” Santana said.
Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, attended the event Tuesday and said his group plans to file a lawsuit if the legislation is passed. A House committee has yet to take up the bill.
Darnell White, the interim director of the Detroit Branch NAACP said, “We have too many issues – jobs, (home) foreclosures – to be focused on this”. “This is wrong and we denounced this type of legislation,” White said at Tuesday’s news conference.
See also MLive.com, 16 August 2011
The family of a terror suspect has launched a fresh petition urging the government to finally give him his day in court.
This month marks seven years since Babar Ahmad, from Fountain Road, Tooting, was imprisoned without trial following an extradition request from the United States.
To mark the unhappy milestone, his family has set up an e-petition calling on the official government website urging them to put him on trial in the UK. They are aiming to get 100,000 signatures to force a parliamentary debate about the case.
Mr Ahmad’s father, Ashfaw Ahmad, said: “This anniversary brings back dreadful memories of that day seven years ago when I received a call from the police telling me that my son had been arrested. Babar – it’s been 7 years but we will not let you be forgotten.”
Babar Ahmad remains in a maximum security prison in Worcestershire where he has become the longest-serving British terror detainee without a formal charge.
An IT technician at Imperial College, London, he was believed to be the leader of a small UK based group providing “logistical support, financial assistance, recruits and computer expertise” for overseas Jihadi groups when he was arrested.
He was later released without charge but was placed back in custody in August, 2004, awaiting extradition to the United States on terror charges. His final appeal against extradition is currently with the European Court of Human Rights, with a judgement expected later this year.
Wandsworth Guardian, 13 August 2011
Sign the petition here
A state lawmaker wants Michigan to join the trend of states banning “foreign laws”, but Muslim activists say the effort is a thinly veiled attack on Islam.
Rep. Dave Agema, R-Grandville, is pushing a bill to bar the implementation of foreign laws. It doesn’t mention Sharia – Islamic law – but he acknowledged it would be prohibited in courts under the legislation intended to prevent anyone “who tries to shove any foreign law down our throats”.
“No foreign law shall supersede federal laws or constitution or state laws or constitution,” Agema said. “Our law is our law. I don’t like foreign entities telling us what to do.” Agema said his bill would protect the “vast majority” of Muslims, whom he contended “come to this country to get away from Sharia”.
The legislation comes at a time of heightened debate about Sharia, a set of religious rules governing personal conduct, family relationships and religious practice for Muslims. Critics fear Sharia could supersede civil law and have an impact on divorce and child custody cases, and similar legislation has been introduced in 25 states.
Some say the bills are unnecessary and pander to anti-Muslim paranoia. “Agema … is a reflection of a segment of the GOP that is openly xenophobic and Islamophobic,” said Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Michigan chapter.
State Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit, plans to speak out about the bill during a press conference Tuesday in Midtown. Victor Begg, a prominent Republican and co-founder of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan, called the bill “appalling”. “Some in our party find it politically opportune to target my faith by sponsoring an innocuous sounding bill, knowing well that their intent is so-called ‘creeping Sharia,'” Begg said.
Agema called the criticism “hogwash”. “If anybody has a problem with this that means they don’t agree with U.S. laws,” he said. “If they don’t want it passed then they have an ulterior agenda.”
The Irish Independent reports: “immigration officials have been concerned about him for some time and have blocked his entry to Ireland for the past three years. A visa application made by Mr Al-Qaradawi in June 2008 was refused. Since then he has been ‘red flagged’. This means he would be arrested and immediately deported if he turned up at an Irish port of entry. The decision is believed to have been made after consultation with other governments who imposed similar bans. No official reason was given for the red flagging and it is unclear if other religious figures have been the subject of similar bans.”
Update: Over at Harry’s Place the inimitable Edmund Standing predictably applauds the decision to exclude Qaradawi, under the headline “Ireland refuses entry to notorious fascist activist”. In support of the assertion that Qaradawi is a fascist, Standing provides a link to a 2004 article from Arab News and claims that “2,500 Muslim intellectuals from 23 countries” signed a petition attacking Qaradawi as a promoter of terrorism and asking the United Nations to take action against him.
What was the background to this petition? As HP’s favourite website MEMRI reported: “The idea to petition the U.N. with this request was raised by the Jordanian writer and researcher Dr. Shaker Al-Nabulsi in early September 2004, in response to the fatwa issued by Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi … which called for the abduction and killing of U.S. citizens in Iraq.”
But Qaradawi didn’t call for the abduction and killing of US civilians in Iraq – on the contrary, he vigorously opposed it. Qaradawi himself immediately denied that he had made the statement attributed to him, and this was confirmed by the leading Egyptian journalist Fahmi Huwaydi, who acquired a tape of the meeting where Qaradawi was supposed to have issued the call. After arguing that the people of Iraq were obliged to resist the US occupation by force of arms, Qaradawi continued: “the constitution of war in Islam is a constitution of ethics, and by those rules we must not kill except those who kill us, and therefore all of those who do not carry weapons it is not upon us to kill”.
Huwaydi condemned “the distortion which these words have received, and the clamour which it aroused in world capitals”. He pointed out that Qaradawi had held a press conference to refute the misrepresentation of his views “which was attended by some members of the American and French embassies at the side of a large number of journalists and media, where he said ‘Islam does not permit kidnapping of civilians or their killing’ … but his corrections have been completely ignored, and everyone continues to deal with the first position attributed to him rather than the truth”.
Shaker Al-Nabulsi was part of a tendency calling themselves “neo-liberals” who, in Nabulsi’s own words, advocated “freedom, democracy, and free markets” in the Middle East and, “in light of the inability of the domestic elite and the fragile political parties” to achieve these objectives, saw “no harm in asking for assistance from outside forces”.
Al-Jazeera journalist Faysal al-Qassem criticised Nabulsi and his co-thinkers as follows: “Are they not closer to the neo-conservative Americans who are destroying the world, than to the real liberals…? … Why do they lean blindly toward anything Western? … Why do they depict America as a benevolent angel who has come to save us from our evils? … How is it that the neo-liberal Arabs call for tolerance while taking the lead in accusing [others] of heresy? Doesn’t liberalism advocate acceptance of others and interaction with all factions? Why are they antagonistic to anyone who opposes them? Is this Liberalism or a repulsive Fundamentalism? Are they anything more than a fifth column?”
As Raymond Baker demonstrated in his book Islam Without Fear, Qaradawi is part of a reformist Islamist tendency which urges political change but, in contrast to the “neo-liberals”, rejects Western hegemony and seeks to promote an indigenous democratisation movement. Islam Online reported Qaradawi as saying in August 2004 that, whereas Washington “seeks a kind of change serving its own interests” in the Middle East, the reform that Muslims want is one “which is emanating from inside, and that serves their own interests and visions”.
This approach, which has of course borne fruit in the Arab Spring, brought Qaradawi into conflict with the pro-US perspectives of Nabulsi and the “neo-liberals”. After Qaradawi gave a talk in June 2004 stressing that “democracy is the essence of Islam”, rather than welcome this as a contribution to the struggle for democratisation Nabulsi instead launched a bitter attack on Qaradawi, declaring that “the term ‘democracy’ does not exist at all in Islam”.
The petition to the UN organised by Nabulsi was an integral part of this campaign to discredit Qaradawi and reformist currents within Islamism, by portraying them as no different from the supporters of Al-Qaeda. Thus the leading moderates Qaradawi, his fellow Egyptian “New Islamist” Mohammed al-Ghazali and the Tunisian democrat Rachid al-Ghannouchi were lumped together with two Saudi Wahhabists who were quoted as supporting the 9/11 attacks. All were categorised by the authors of the petition as “psychotic members of dogmatic Muslim groups encouraging the commission of terrorist acts in the name of and under the banner of Islam”.
(It is also worth mentioning that another of the individuals behind the petition against Qaradawi was Nabulsi’s friend Jawad Hashim, who was convicted in absentia in the United Arab Emirates of embezzlement from the Arab Monetary Fund. In a further court case in Britain he was ordered to repay over $130 million to the AMF. Before that, Hashim was Saddam Hussein’s minister of planning.)
As for Standing’s assertion that “2,500 Muslim intellectuals from 23 countries” signed the petition, by the end of 2004 the number of signatories reportedly came to 4,000. But these were just random individuals who had visited the website of the online journal Middle East Transparent which carried the petition. Since the publisher was claiming “2,000 to 3,000 visitors per day” to the site at the time, we would have to conclude that only a tiny minority of them actually supported the petition.
So the Arab News report that Standing quotes against Qaradawi is basically a load of nonsense. Standing knows nothing about the issues, hasn’t bothered to check his sources and just repeats slanders in an attempt to discredit a leading supporter of the Palestinian cause in order to promote HP’s Zionist agenda.
But what can you expect from Edmund Standing, other than ignorant idiocy? After all this is a man who has seriously argued that the BNP don’t really hate Muslims and recently presented a joke by Shahid Malik as evidence that the former Labour MP was plotting the Islamification of parliament.