The question has been posed by Wired and others. The answer, unsurprisingly, is no. Pamela Geller will be disappointed.
Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia
Britons are suspicious towards Muslims, study finds
The British public are concerned at the rise of Islam in the UK and fear that the country is deeply divided along religious lines, according to a major survey.
More than half the population would be strongly opposed to a mosque being built in their neighbourhood, the study found.
A large proportion of the country believes that the multicultural experiment has failed, with 52 per cent considering that Britain is deeply divided along religious lines and 45 per cent saying that religious diversity has had a negative impact.
The findings, to be published later this month in the respected British Social Attitudes Survey, show that far greater opposition to Islam than to any other faith and reveal that most people are willing to limit freedom of speech in an attempt to silence religious extremists.
Sunday Telegraph, 10 January 2010
Update: See also ENGAGE, 11 January 2010
Muslim-American subjected to religious profiling at airport
Nadia Hassan is a frequent flier. Imagine her surprise when she arrived at the security checkpoint at Washington’s Dulles International Airport Tuesday and encountered what she calls, “racial, religious profiling.”
The 40-year-old Michigan-born Muslim-American, headed to Los Angeles, says she was singled out for what she calls a “humiliating” full-body search. When she asked why this was happening “the gentleman who was working there specifically told me that the reason I’m being put through this type of search is because I’m wearing a head scarf…. He actually came out and told me that that’s the reason why you are being targeted.”
She’s not alone. On Monday, a Muslim-Canadian woman says she was made to feel like a terrorist because she was wearing a headscarf. She says she was berated and banned from boarding a flight to the United States – all because of her faith.
The Council on American Islamic Relations calls these textbook cases of profiling. “It’s violating the law. It’s unconstitutional and un-American to single people out because of their religion. It’s a knee-jerk measure that’s going to cause panic and fear,” says the council’s national executive director, Nihad Awad.
UCL student union stands up for freedom and tolerance
Hugh Muir interviews James Hodgson, student union activities officer at University College London, who emphatically rejects calls for a ban on UCL’s Islamic Society. He tells Muir:
“Of course it is going to be difficult and I am sure we will get some stick, but we are going to defend the Islamic Society and its right to hear from controversial speakers. We will not allow extremist activities. But at the same time we are determined not to yield. The Islamic Society is not a hotbed of extremists. Its activities are prayer meetings, cultural events, debates and music. We are going to stand up for freedom and tolerance. Surely that’s what the terrorists want to destroy.”
Update: See also the Al Jazeera interview with FOSIS president Faisal Hanjra and “Islamic Societies Exposed” on the FOSIS website.
US grocery chain pulls calendar that listed Islamic new year
Bowing to complaints from angry customers, Publix has agreed to remove a free 2010 calendar from its stores that mentions the beginning of the Islamic new year but not the anniversary of Pearl Harbor.
The flap started when South Florida radio talk show host Joyce Kaufman complained on her WFTL 850-AM program earlier in the week that the calendar identifies Dec. 7 as the start of the Islamic new year. She told her listeners to let Publix know if they were offended. “Not Pearl Harbor Day. Instead Happy new year, Islam, or some such?” she said on air Thursday.
“We have great diversity in our customers and wanted to include as many of them as we could, which is why we included the Islamic new year along with Passover, Palm Sunday and a number of the national holidays of our customers,” said Publix spokesman Shannon Patten. “Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day wasn’t included because it’s not a holiday.” Memorial Day and Veterans Day are included. But because of the complaints, said Patten, the free calendar is no longer available in stores.
“Getting the calendar pulled is more about a cottage industry of Muslim bashers who seek every opportunity to demonize Islam than it is about Pearl Harbor Day,” said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington, D.C. “Certainly, no one has an issue with including Pearl Harbor Day,” said Hooper, “But that’s not what this is about.”
Kaufman objected because she didn’t want World War II veterans “to be disappointed” and because she views Muslims as “an enemy who declared war on us,” Kaufman told the St. Petersburg Times. Furthermore, she said, she thought it was inappropriate to have holidays for people from the Caribbean and Central and South America on the calendar. “Why pander to Islamics and people from Peru, Belize, Cuba and Haiti?” she said on the phone. “It’s irrelevant in America.”
Rev Mullen continues to spout anti-Muslim bigotry
ENGAGE has the details.
Southern California Muslims targeted in hate crimes
Costa Mesa police have stepped up patrols near the Islamic Educational Center of Orange County, the target of recent anti-Islamic acts including vandalism, hate mail and the burning of two copies of the Koran.
Vandals also recently defaced part of an outdoor interfaith holiday display in Mission Viejo, according to the Los Angeles office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which denounced both acts as “incidents of anti-Islam hate targeting the local Muslim community.”
The two incidents are thought to be unrelated but appear to be part of a recent uptick in anti-Muslim acts nationally, especially since the attempted terrorist bombing of a jetliner headed to Detroit on Christmas, council spokeswoman Munira Syeda said Saturday.
Via Loon Watch
Massachusetts college bans veil – Daniel Pipes welcomes ‘preventative step’ against terrorism
A Massachusetts pharmacy college instituted a ban on clothing that obscures the face, including face veils and burqas, weeks after a Muslim alumnus who is also the son of a professor was charged with plotting terror strikes.
The policy change at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Services, announced in a campus-wide e-mail last month, went into effect Friday.
Michael Ratty, a college spokesman, said the policy was developed in the fall during the school’s annual review of its public safety procedures and was unrelated to the arrest of 2008 graduate Tarek Mehanna.
Mehanna, of Sudbury, was arrested Oct. 21. He is accused of conspiring with two men to randomly shoot mall shoppers and kill U.S. public officials and soldiers in Iraq. Mehanna’s family has denied the charges and Mehanna has drawn strong, public support from friends and students he taught at a Muslim school in Worcester. Mehanna’s father, Ahmed Mehanna, teaches at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy’s campus in Boston.
The school’s revised ”identification policy” reads that for ”reasons of safety and security, all students must be readily identifiable while they are on campus and/or engaged in required off-campus activities. … Therefore, any head covering that obscures a student’s face may not be worn, either on campus or at clinical sites, except when required for medical reasons.”
The policy would effectively ban face veils, as well as burqas and niqabs, which either cloak the entire body or cover everything but the eyes. Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said he has contacted school officials about providing a religious exemption, and said it’s required because the policy makes a medical exemption.
He said the revision was aimed at two female Muslim students who wear face veils due to their religious beliefs. Hooper said a minority of Muslims believe that covering the face is required, but that stopping them from practicing their faith is “un-American”.
Hooper said strong security can be maintained at a college without sacrificing religious freedom. “If you can get on an airplane wearing a face veil, you can go to class at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy wearing a face veil,” he said.
Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum and a frequent critic of militant Islam, applauded the college for the policy change, noting numerous terrorist attacks have been committed by people hiding themselves and their weapons under veils.
“I think the college was alerted to the dangers that could come from its student body by the arrest of Tarek Mehanna … and realized that it needs to take preventative steps to protect itself, its student body, its staff,” he said.
Associated Press, 5 January 2010
Update: See “Massachusetts college alters policy banning face coverings”, CNN, 8 January 2010
Universities don’t create extremists
In blaming universities for radicalised students, we risk serious damage to freedom of speech and civil liberties, Sunny Hundal argues.
Muslim woman searched by US airport security because she wore a headscarf
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today called on the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to clarify whether Islamic head scarves, or hijab, will now automatically trigger additional security measures for Muslim travelers.
CAIR made that request after a Muslim woman traveler taking a flight Tuesday from Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD) to Los Angeles (LAX) reported that TSA personnel first requested that she take off her hijab, then put her through a “humiliating” public full-body pat-down search when she refused. After the pat-down, the Muslim traveler’s luggage, coat, shoes, laptop, and cell phone were searched and tested for bomb-making chemicals.
When the traveler, a resident of Maryland, questioned TSA staff about the way she was being treated, she was allegedly told that a new policy went into effect that morning mandating that “anyone wearing a head scarf must go through this type of search.”
CAIR press release, 6 January 2010
See also Dawud Walid, “Religious profiling won’t help anti-terror security”, Detroit News, 6 January 2010
Update: See also “Muslim woman treated like ‘terrorist’ at U.S. customs”, CTV News, 6 January 2010
And “Another hijab-wearing Muslim traveler reports mistreatment”,CAIR press release, 7 January 2010