Category Archives: USA

CAIR shares safety tips with MCB after mosque attacks

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said today it has shared its recently-published security guidelines, “Best Practices for Mosque and Community Safety,” with the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) after a number of incidents targeting that nation’s mosques.

MCB said the guidelines would help to review its own advisory, circulated to all affiliates immediately after the recent killing of a soldier in London. That attack was strongly condemned by CAIR, America’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, and by British Muslim organizations.

CAIR press release, 29 May 2013

Woolwich murder inspires graffiti attack on Georgia mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Islamic Center of North Fulton graffiti (2)

Alpharetta Police are investigating an incident of vandalism at the Islamic Center of North Fulton.

Police officers responded to a call Monday from a witness saying he’d seen an “elderly Caucasian male wearing a rag on his head and short pants” painting graffiti on the center’s entrance sign, according to the incident report. The words painted on the sign read “London Justice” and “Where Is Justice.”

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Posted in USA

Study finds Muslim women wearing headscarfs face job discrimination

Posted on by Bob Pitt

In a study, Assistant Professor Sonia Ghumman from the UH Mānoa Shidler College of Business found that Hijabis (Muslim women who wear headscarfs) encountered discrimination when seeking employment.

“We conducted a field experiment to investigate the extent to which individuals wearing religious attire encounter discrimination during the hiring process,” said Ghumman. “We asked students (ages 19-22) from several ethnic backgrounds to seek employment with and without the hijab (headscarf) at retail stores and restaurants in two shopping malls. The malls were located primarily in middle-income cities in the Midwest. The job seekers were paired with an observer and yielded a total of 112 trials.”

The study measured: 1) formal discrimination, marked by explicit negative behaviors such as outright refusal; 2) interpersonal discrimination, a more subtle expression of discrimination both in nonverbal and verbal behaviors; and 3) expectations to receive job offers.

According to Ghumman, the findings revealed that wearing a hijab had a negative impact in all aspects of the hiring process compared to Muslim women who did not wear a hijab. The field experiment tracked several areas of the hiring process, including the permission to complete job applications, job availability, job call backs, interaction time, and perceived negativity and lack of interest by the employer.

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa news report, 23 May 2013

Islamic School of San Diego threatened: Authorities investigate threatening messages

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Islamic School of San DiegoSAN DIEGO — Investigators sought Tuesday to determine who was responsible for several recent bomb threats directed at a Muslim school in Clairemont.

On Saturday, a woman left three menacing telephone messages on an office answering machine at the Islamic School of San Diego, authorities reported. Among other hostile statements, the anonymous caller said, “I’m going to throw a bomb in your (expletive) school,” according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which reported the incident to the FBI and the San Diego Police Department.

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Evidence doesn’t support fears of Islam in the West

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Why the West Fears Islam“My book Why the West Fears Islam: Exploration of Islam in Western Liberal Democracies (June 2013 by Palgrave McMillan) indicates a persistent predisposition in the West to link Islam to un-civic behaviour and to see assertive Muslims as internal enemies threatening national values and identities as well as external enemies at war with Western civilisation.

“Intriguingly, there is no empirical evidence based on behaviours of Muslims in European countries or the United States that supports this fear. Actually, Muslim political practices are not different from their average fellow citizens. My investigation shows that in Europe and in the United States, Muslims express a greater trust in national institutions and democracy than their fellow citizens and that mosque attendance actually facilitates social and political integration.”

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Bay Area Muslims still face Islamophobia, study finds

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Bay Area Muslim StudyThe quarter-million Muslims live in the San Francisco Bay Area face ongoing, entrenched Islamophobia more than a decade after 9/11, according to a new study.

“The Bay Area Muslim Study: Establishing Community and Identity” found 40 percent of Muslims in the region have experienced personal discrimination and 23 percent have been victims of a hate crime. The discrimination against Muslims was particularly pronounced in school-aged children, the study found.

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Islamophobia increases worldwide: Report

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslims around the world, particularly in Europe and Asia, are facing rising hostility and violence, amid restrictions on their right to wear religious outfits, a US report has found.

“Anti-Muslim rhetoric and actions were clearly on the rise – particularly in Europe and Asia,” said the International Religious Freedom Report cited by Agence France-Presse (AFP). “Government restrictions, which often coincided with societal animosity, resulted in anti-Muslim actions that affected everyday life for numerous believers.”

The report, released by Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday, May 20, sheds light on restrictions facing Muslims and other religious minorities around the world.

OnIslam, 21 May 2013

See also “CAIR welcomes State Department’s recognition of rising Islamophobia”, CAIR press release, 20 May 2013

Hundreds of Texas school districts will stop using curriculum accused of promoting anti-American, pro-Islam values

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A much-maligned curriculum system designed to help teachers adhere to state educational requirements and used by hundreds of school districts across Texas will stop offering lesson plans amid mounting pressure from some conservatives who claimed it was promoting anti-American values.

State Sen. Dan Patrick said Monday that the 20-member board overseeing the CSCOPE system will vote to effectively gut it later this week. He displayed copies of a letter signed by all board members pledging to scrap lesson plans by Aug. 31.

The announcement comes as the Texas Legislature was poised to pass a $1.1 million plan to provide strict state oversight for CSCOPE, which has drawn sharp criticism from tea party lawmakers — even though much of the general public has never heard of the curriculum system. That bill is now largely moot.

“The era of CSCOPE lesson plans has come to an end,” Patrick, a Tea Party favorite who heads the Senate Education Committee, said at a news conference.

CBS Houston, 20 May 2013

Muslims, democracy and liberty

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Kelly James Clark, Senior Research Fellow at Grand Valley State University’s Kaufman Interfaith Institute, examines the findings of the Pew Research Center’s recently published survey of Muslims in non-Western countries. He concludes:

“When all of the data on democracy and liberty are added to data collected about American Muslims, one thing rings loud and clear: Muslims around the world are in favor of peace, harmony, liberty, and tolerance. The stereotype of the Muslim terrorist must finally be laid to rest — this is the view of a very small minority. Those in the West should stop judging Islam in the light of this very small minority.”

Huffington Post, 20 May 2013