Economist apologises for libelling Rachid Ghannouchi

The Economist recently published an article entitled “Now is the time” on the subject of Tunisia. In that article, they mentioned Rashid Al-Ghannushi, the leader of Ḥizb al‐Nahḍah, the Tunisian Renaissance Party. Al-Ghannushi is a well-known Islamic intellectual, so it was somewhat surprising to see The Economist portray him as a fundamentalist; but more outrageously, the article claimed (incorrectly) that Al-Ghannushi threatened to hang a prominent Tunisian feminist!

When they were notified of this horrendous error, the editors of The Economist had the decency to issue a public apology, saying:

An apology to Rachid Ghannouchi

IN OUR briefing last week on women and the Arab awakening (“Now is the time“), we said that Rachid Ghannouchi, the leader of Tunisia’s Nahda party, opposes the country’s liberal code of individual rights, the Code of Personal Status, and its prohibition of polygamy. We also said that he has threatened to hang a prominent Tunisian feminist, Raja bin Salama, in Basij Square in Tunis, because she has called for the country’s new laws to be based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We accept that neither of these statements is true: Mr Ghannouchi has expressly said that he accepts the Code of Personal Status; and he never threatened to hang Ms bin Salama. We apologise to him unreservedly.

Did I say you’re a convicted sex offender and that you like to rape little kids? My bad. Sorry about that.

Yes, it’s true that everyone makes mistakes, but don’t you think you should be careful before you accuse someone of wanting to hang a woman? It also indicates that the writer did not know much about Tunisian politics and religious discourse, which begs the question: why does Anglo-American media use “Middle East experts” who don’t know even the basics about the topic?

LoonWatch, 27 October 2011

Frank Gaffney claims Center for American Progress is part of ‘red-green axis’ with Muslim Brotherhood

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=TzeJIvp81jw

The Center for Security Policy’s Frank Gaffney and “lawfare” expert Andrew McCarthy offered their response to the Center for American Progress’ Islamophobia report, “Fear, Inc.“, in a 10-minute segment on Gaffney’s radio show this week.

Gaffney and McCarthy, who both are mentioned in CAP’s report as part of the influential “Islamophobia network,” make a series of unfounded allegations against CAP and the report.

McCarthy, the author of The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America, has made no secret of his dislike for Muslims and progressives. His eagerness to create a grand-conspiracy between the two was on full display during the interview.

But Gaffney and McCarthy take a turn into uncharted, and wildly unsubstantiated, territory when they float the theory that the CAP report was, as Frank Gaffney declares, a product of “a red-green axis between George Soros’ friends and beneficiaries on the radical left like the Center for American Progress and the Islamists, the Muslim Brotherhood most notably.”

Think Progress, 28 October 2011

CAIR asks Sherburne County sheriff to allow woman’s headscarf in jail

A civil rights group Thursday asked a sheriff to accommodate a Muslim woman’s religious beliefs and let her cover her head with a scarf.

Sherburne County Sheriff Joel Brott said that he’d meet with the group, the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, but that he wasn’t changing the policy barring female Muslim prisoners from wearing hijabs. “We do not intend to change our policy on this,” Brott said. “We believe it is a safety and security issue. We don’t allow personal clothing in the facility.”

The state chapter of CAIR sent a letter to the sheriff after the Pioneer Press reported Thursday that Amina Farah Ali refused to leave her cell because she’s not allowed to wear her hijab. Ali, 35, a naturalized U.S. citizen who lived in Rochester, Minn., was jailed after she was convicted in federal court last week of sending money to al-Shabaab, a group in her homeland of Somalia that the U.S. government considers a terrorist organization.

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David Horowitz ad unites Jewish, Muslim communities

Letter published in the UCLA student newspaper the Daily Bruin:

Friendship can be forged under the most unlikely circumstances. Therefore, we formally thank the David Horowitz Freedom Center for providing us with this opportunity to find common ground against a common problem.

On Oct. 13 , the David Horowitz Freedom Center published an ad in the Daily Bruin titled “Not All Fears Are Phobias,” wrongly identifying Islam as a perpetrator of terrorism worldwide. By submitting the ad to our campus newspaper, the DHFC sought to bring its politics of division and fear to our campus community. Instead, it became a rallying point between two populations with viewpoints that often conflict. J Street U at UCLA and the Muslim Student Association have joined in solidarity to demonstrate to campus that we must rise above messages that intend to tear us apart.

No, really. This wouldn’t have happened if you had not published this. David Horowitz, you are truly a peacemaker.

The ad presents one step in a campaign to isolate the American Muslim community, all but labeling the entire community a security threat. The David Horowitz Freedom Center attempts to legitimize a policy of exclusion and suspicion of American Muslims and galvanize a susceptible population against them.

The Horowitz ad has made students on campus feel uncomfortable, upset and unsafe. While Muslim students feel it attacks their personal identity, others see the ad as unrepresentative of their values. This ad creates an environment where a specific community feels unsure of whether it can express its identity without fear of backlash or condemnation. The university has an obligation to protect its students in this capacity, especially when UCLA is among the most diverse campuses in the United States.

The campus Muslim community expressed widespread dismay and unease over the message embedded in the ad. They were outraged at being implicated in the actions of extremists, a tiny percentage of the overall population. Many members of the MSA felt unsafe and wary of a campus that might have endorsed a blanket criminalization of a religion rather than attributing blame to the individuals who committed the crimes.

If the David Horowitz Freedom Center really wanted to combat extremism, it would be urging us to communicate and learn from our classmates instead of preaching a dogma of intolerance. In actuality, placing the ad encourages the spread of extremism, divides our community and leads to demonization of student populations.

How can an organization that is against anti-Semitism condone Islamophobia? We feel that anyone against the former yet allowing the latter is applying a double standard to our neighboring communities. From J Street U’s standpoint, the Jewish values that we have been brought up on will not allow us to condone the oppression of any society, for our community is not exclusive to this experience. Our religious and ethnic memory is stained with millennia of oppression, and we pity those who have not learned from it. Our community suffered greatly, and we will do whatever we can to make sure others do not have to.

The solidarity shown by non-Muslim students for fellow Muslim students has helped to mitigate the dismay experienced by the MSA and wider Muslim community. Several members of the Muslim community stated that they felt reassured by the display of shared sympathy and very much appreciated the verbal expressions of support. The MSA and J Street U at UCLA decided to take this opportunity to collaborate and show the campus that personal friendships and logical arguments always trump fear.

It’s not only about the Jewish and Muslim communities. No community on or off campus should be demonized or disrespected. Instead of fostering fear and rejection, it’s our duty to try to understand each other’s cultures or viewpoints. The great thing about UCLA is the diversity of its student community. It takes special courage to approach the “other,” but it is always worth the risk.

J Street U and the Muslim Student Association at UCLA envision a campus where we’re not afraid to share our experiences, our cultures and our identities. Everyone does not need to agree, but everyone should be allowed to present their own viewpoints. The kind of ad that propagates fear of the “other,” but doesn’t allow that “other” community to speak for itself, is not what we need on campus. We don’t want a campus where people are scared of each other and where students are discouraged from interacting with people whom they disagree with or see as different. With this collaboration, we have taken our first step toward realizing this vision. We invite the campus community to join us.

This message is a joint response from J Street U at UCLA and the Muslim Student Association, written in collaboration between Fowzia Sharmeen, Jared Schwalb and Gabriel Levine, a UCLA alumna, fourth-year student and third-year student, respectively.

Lawsuit: man was fired over Muslim prayers

A Chicago man is suing his former employer in federal court, claiming he was fired because of his religious beliefs. As WBBM Newsradio’s David Roe reports, Nathan Henderson is suing the American Bottling Company, headquartered at 15320 S. Halsted St. in Harvey.

Henderson claims he was fired as a delivery man after he asked his boss to allow him to plan his breaks on Fridays around Islamic prayers.

Henderson says he would conduct a prayer during his downtime between soda deliveries, which usually lasted 5 to 10 minutes. But when he asked to take a lunch break from 1 to 2 p.m. on Fridays so he could participate in weekly Jumu’ah prayers, his manager Bill Hatten said “No, we don’t do that,” the suit said.

Henderson then asked if he could work on Saturdays instead of Fridays to make up the hours, to which he was told Saturday shifts were reserved for employees with the most seniority.

Hatten allegedly said: “I wish you would have told me you had this obligation before we hired you. We would not have hired you. Maybe you need to look for another job.”

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IRNA interviews Chris Nineham on Islamophobia

Islamophobia is being used as a form of propaganda in the so-called war on terrorism, according to British peace campaigner Chris Nineham.

“One of the reasons why Islamophobia has become so virulent in the last 10 years in British society and elsewhere is that is used as a way to try to justify the wars the West is fighting against Arabs and Muslims in the Middle East, in Africa and south-east Asia,” said Nineham, a national officer of Stop the War Coalition (SWTC).

“It is a kind of war propaganda in a way really and that is the link,” he said in an interview with IRNA. “It has been no coincidence that in the last decade, Islamophobia has rose because the West is fighting these wars,” he said.

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Put Babar Ahmad on trial in the UK NOT the US

Have Faith in British Justice: Put Babar Ahmad on Trial in the UK NOT the US

The Muslim Council of Britain urges all British Citizens to sign the petition calling for Babar Ahmad, a 37 year old British Muslim held for 7 years without charge on an extradition request by the US, to be put on trial in the United Kingdom.

Farooq Murad, Secretary General of the MCB, commented, “The case of Babar Ahmad is problematic: here is a British citizen who is alleged to have committed crimes that can be prosecuted under British law and yet he is being shipped off to the United States, under the controversial Extradition Act 2003. The United States has a troubling record in dealing with terror suspects and therefore the British government has a responsibility to ensure the rights of its citizens are protected while at the same time ensuring justice is served.”

The Rt Hon Sadiq Khan MP, Member of Parliament for Tooting said: “As Babar’s Member of Parliament, I have worked with his family and legal team for a number of years arguing that any trial should be held in the UK. I have known Babar for many years – we grew up in the same area of south London. This petition is a good way to raise public awareness of Babar’s case.”

The MCB is supporting a call to designate Friday 28th October as “Babar Ahmad Day” encouraging mosques across the country to get their congregations to sign the petition.

To sign the e-petition, click here:
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/885

Muslim Council of Britain press release, 27 October 2011

CAIR seeks Senate hearing on ‘shocking’ report of NYPD spying on Muslims

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today called on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee to hold hearings on what the Washington-based civil rights and advocacy organization said is the New York City Police Department’s (NYPD) “apparently unrestrained and unconstitutional multi-state monitoring and surveillance of law-abiding American Muslims engaged in almost every activity of normal daily life.”

CAIR issued that call in a letter to the committee after “shocking” revelations by the Associated Press (AP) that “Muslims who change their names to sound more traditionally American, as immigrants have done for generations, or who adopt Arabic names as a sign of their faith are often investigated and catalogued in secret New York Police Department intelligence files.”

CAIR press release, 26 October 2011

See also Associated Press, 26 October 2011

French court backs private nursery over Islamic headscarf sacking

Baby LoupA French court has ruled that a private nursery had the right to fire an employee for wearing Islamic head-cover, leading its lawyer to hail an advance for secular forces in the country.

An appeal court in Versailles backed up an earlier ruling by a labour court that the Baby Loup nursery in Mantes-la-Jolie was within its rights to sack Fatima Afif in 2008 for refusing to take off her headscarf.

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Islamophobia OFF our campuses!

Enough flyer

Islamophobia OFF our campuses!

Public meeting, called by the Enough Coalition Against Islamophobia

6:30pm, Thursday 27th October 2011

Room 3E, University of London Union, Malet Street, London

Following on from the successful Enough Coalition against Islamophobia summer conference in May 2011, we are now focusing on a very important aspect of Islamophobia that has affected many of us and that will continue to be a source of great injustice for many more if we do not speak out now.

Join the Enough Coalition on Thursday 27th October to discuss Islamophobia and Anti-Muslim hatred on our campuses.

Joining us on the panel are:

Dr Daud Abdullah (British Muslim Initiative)
Sanum Ghafoor (Student, blogger and activist)
Alaa Al Samarrai (FOSIS)
Hicham Yezza (Nottingham Uni – Editor of Ceasefire – and student who was arrested for printing the Al Qaeda manual)
Chris Nineham (Stop the War Coalition and Enough Coalition against Islamophobia)

Others To Be Confirmed!

Free entry, all welcome.

Facebook event page – https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=293831367311653
Facebook – Enough Coalition Against Islamophobia
Twitter – @enoughcoalition Event Hashtag #ECiphobiaUni

The Enough Coalition was established to tackle the rising tide of Islamophobia in the UK and confront anti-Muslim hatred. It brings together a coalition of organisations including Stop the War Coalition, Friends of Al-Aqsa, British Muslim Initiative, Federation of Students Islamic Societies, One Society Many Cultures, Unite Against Fascism, London Muslim Centre and the Islamic Forum of Europe.