Monthly Archives: December 2011

Islamic Center gains annexation into Naperville

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Whether the Islamic Center of Naperville‘s next mosque is built five years from now or 20, it will be built according to the same rules and conditions as each of the city’s other religious institutions.

City council members Monday unanimously approved the residential zoning and annexation of the center’s 14-acre lot at 9931 S. 248th Ave. on the city’s far southwest side in Will County. In doing so, they also rejected demands of neighboring homeowners to insert conditional restrictions on lighting, traffic and parking and the installation of berming and landscaping.

Daily Herald, 19 December 2011

Posted in USA

Islamic Center gains annexation into Naperville

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Whether the Islamic Center of Naperville‘s next mosque is built five years from now or 20, it will be built according to the same rules and conditions as each of the city’s other religious institutions.

City council members Monday unanimously approved the residential zoning and annexation of the center’s 14-acre lot at 9931 S. 248th Ave. on the city’s far southwest side in Will County. In doing so, they also rejected demands of neighboring homeowners to insert conditional restrictions on lighting, traffic and parking and the installation of berming and landscaping.

Daily Herald, 19 December 2011

Man shouted ‘jihad’ at Indian men outside Michigan bar, police allege

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BAY CITY — A Bangor Township man was charged with ethnic intimidation after Bay City police alleged he shouted “Osama bin Laden” and “jihad” at two men outside a bar in Bay City’s Midland Street Historic District.

Delane D. Bell is scheduled to appear Thursday for a preliminary evidence hearing before District Judge Timothy J. Kelly.

Bell, 25, is charged with single counts of ethnic intimidation, a two-year felony, malicious destruction of property, a one-year misdemeanor, and assault or assault and battery, a 93-day misdemeanor.

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Man urinated on Muslim’s trainers

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Bracknell man who admitted urinating in a Muslim man’s trainers, during a racist “happy slapping” incident, will be sentenced for the “vile and disgraceful” act in January.

IT worker Darren Scott and his friend Aidan Ostintelli, of Camberley, were drunk and high on cannabis when they abused and attacked Mustapha Himedean after a trip to Amsterdam in July.

Scott, of Northbrook Copse, Forest Park, admitted religiously aggravated common assault, religiously aggravated harassment and aggravated harassment. Ostinelli, who denied the charges, was jailed for six months at Maidstone Crown Court on Tuesday, December 12, for his part in the attack.

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FIFA endorsement of hijab proposal may end dispute with Iran and Muslim women

Posted on by Bob Pitt

World soccer body FIFA has endorsed a proposal to lift a controversial ban on women wearing a hijab in a move that brings closer a resolution to demands by religious female Islamic soccer players that they be allowed to wear a headdress in line with their interpretation of their faith.

At its executive committee meeting in Tokyo this weekend, FIFA decided to submit to the International Football Association Board (IFAB), which governs the rules of association soccer, the proposal put forward by Asian Football Confederation (AFC) vice president Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein, a half-brother of Jordanian King Abdullah.

IFAB is expected to discuss the proposal that calls for the sanctioning of a safe, velcro-opening headscarf for players and officials at its next scheduled meeting on March 3.

The FIFA executive committee’s endorsement follows an earlier approval of the AFC proposal that resulted from a workshop convened in October in Amman by Prince Ali that was attended by prominent soccer executives, women players and coaches, including head of FIFA’s medical committee Michel D’Hooghe, AFC vice president Moya Dodd, members of FIFA’s women committee and representatives of the soccer bodies of Jordan, Bahrain, Iran and England.

The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, 19 December 2011

Hate slogans sprayed on mosque near Hebron

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Mosque graffiti IsraelAttackers sprayed a West Bank mosque with anti-Islamic and pro-settler graffiti on Monday, a Palestinian official said, in an assault that bore the hallmarks of another raid by Jewish extremists.

The mayor of Bani Naim south of Hebron said that slogans in Hebrew sprayed on walls surrounding the village’s Sahaba mosque included “curses against the Prophet Mohammed” as well as “price tag” and “Yitzhar youth,” a reference to a hardline settlement and nearby outpost in the northern West Bank.

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Imams from Memphis who were kicked off flight sue Delta Air Lines

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Masudur Rahman and Mohamed Zaghloul

Standing near the Delta Air Lines ticket counter Monday, Muslim cleric Masudur Rahman described what it felt like to be kicked off a flight in Memphis earlier this year while traveling to a religious conference.

“It was really a humiliation,” said Rahman, an adjunct instructor of Arabic at the University of Memphis.

On May 6, Rahman and Mohamed Zaghloul, who were both dressed in traditional Muslim attire, were on their way to a conference in Charlotte, N.C., hosted by the North American Imams Federation. The topic of the conference was “Islamaphobia.”

At Memphis International Airport, the two clerics were cleared to fly during an initial TSA checkpoint and again after a random, secondary check and search at the gate. They boarded the plane, but were soon booted off.

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Martin Bright continues his campaign to poison relations between Jewish and Muslim communities

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jihad and Jews

The current edition of the Jewish Chronicle has yet another piece by the paper’s political editor Martin Bright attacking the East London Mosque. Entitled “Jihad and Jews don’t go together”, this is just the latest installment in the JC‘s obsessive (and so far entirely futile) campaign to destroy the relationship between community organisers London Citizens and ELM (see here, here, here, here, here, here and here).​ An outraged Bright relates the shocking news that Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg of North London Synagogue “agreed to take part in a ‘multi-faith peace procession’ alongside the chairman of East London Mosque, Mohammed Abdul Bari”.

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Detroit protest against Lowe’s

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Lowe's protest

ALLEN PARK, Mich. — Protesters descended on a Lowe’s store in one of the country’s largest Arab-American communities on Saturday, calling for a boycott after the home improvement chain pulled its ads from a reality television show about five Muslim families living in Michigan.

About 100 people gathered outside the store in Allen Park, a Detroit suburb adjacent to the city where “All-American Muslim” is filmed. Lowe’s said this week that the TLC show had become a “lightning rod” for complaints, following an email campaign by a conservative Christian group.

Protesters including Christian clergy and lawmakers called for unity and held signs that read “Boycott Bigotry” and chanted “God Bless America, shame on Lowe’s” during the rally, which was organized by a coalition of Christian, Muslim and civil rights groups.

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