“Fifty-six percent of domestic terrorist attacks and plots in the U.S. since 1995 have been perpetrated by right-wing extremists, as compared to 30 percent by ecoterrorists and 12 percent by Islamic extremists. Right-wing extremism has been responsible for the greatest number of terrorist incidents in the U.S. in 13 of the 17 years since the Oklahoma City bombing.”
Ken Sofer and Molly Bernstein analyse the statistics.
Basra Noor, 23, felt violated after a St. Louis County police officer and jail worker forcibly removed her head scarf, or hijab, after her arrest, and now wants an apology and pledge that it won’t happen to any other Muslim women.
See also CAIR press release, 17 April 2012
Update: See “Muslim’s arrest spurs policy review”, STLtoday.com, 18 April 2012
It’s sometimes easy — too easy — to think, talk or write about the assault on civil liberties in the United States, and related injustices, and conceive of them as abstractions. Two weeks ago, the Editorial Page Editor of The New York Times, Andrew Rosenthal, wrote that ever since the 9/11 attacks, the United States has created “what’s essentially a separate justice system for Muslims.” That should be an extraordinary observation: creating a radically different – and more oppressive – set of rules, laws and punishments for a class of people in the United States based on their religious affiliation is a disgrace of historic proportion. Yet here we have someone occupying one of the most establishment media positions in the country matter-of-factly observing that this is exactly the state of affairs that exists on American soil, and it prompts little notice, let alone protest.
Glenn Greenwald puts some names – Maher Arar, Tariq Ramadan, Sami Al-Arian, James Yee, Gulet Mohamed, Kalifah Al-Akili among them – to the US state’s suppression of Muslim civil liberties.
With the big-name draw of Walid Shoebat, more than 200 people gathered at the Waukesha Expo Center Saturday night to hear the message that Islam is a growing threat to law and peace in the United States.
The rally was an especially strong draw for Brookfield residents who oppose a mosque proposed for the city by the Islamic Society of Milwaukee.
Shoebat, who says he is an ex-terrorist, has been confronted about his past by media outlets like CNN, who reported they could find no evidence to support his background story. But he stood by his case Saturday, saying the media were the real frauds.
“Heck, sometimes even FOX News doesn’t even like what I have to say, because I say Islam is not a peace-loving religion,” Shoebat told the crowd.
LoonWatch analyses the case of Tarek Mehanna, the American Muslim sentenced last week to 17 years in prison.
See also Glenn Greenwald, “The real criminals in the Tarek Mehanna case”, Salon, 13 April 2012
And Carol Rose, “It’s official. There is a Muslim exemption to the First Amendment”, On Liberty, 12 April 2012
The international network of counter-jihadist groups that inspired Anders Behring Breivik is growing in reach and influence, according to a report released on the eve of the Norwegian’s trial.
Far-right organisations are becoming more cohesive as they forge alliances throughout Europe and the US, says the study, with 190 groups now identified as promoting an Islamophobic agenda.
The report, by anti-racism group Hope Not Hate, states that since the 33-year-old’s killing spree, the counter-jihad movement – a network of foundations, bloggers, political activists and street gangs – has continued to proliferate.
Sheila Musaji examines the concocted controversy over the supposed plan to restrict the sale of alcohol at London Metropolitan University, which has been taken up in the US by the likes of Pamela Geller (“Imposing Islam: London University mulls alcohol ban”) and Bonni Benstock-Intall of Bare Naked Islam (“DON’T BAN BOOZE, BAN MUSLIMS!”).
A group of Muslim-Americans filed a lawsuit today against the U.S. government, alleging they were profiled, handcuffed and subject to invasive body searches at the U.S.-Canada border because of their religious and ethnic background.
Filed in Detroit, the lawsuit is the latest case involving allegations that U.S. agents are abusing their power at border crossings between the U.S. and Canada. Three other lawsuits have been filed in federal court over the past year involving women of non-Muslim backgrounds who also say they’ve been subject to invasive strip searches.
Today’s lawsuit was filed on behalf of four local Muslim-Americans by the Council on American-Islamic Relations and Shereef Akeel, a Huntington Woods attorney. The suit was filed after the Council had filed complaints last year with the civil rights office of the Department of Homeland Security. A department official, Margo Schlanger, said last year it was legally unable to deal with the complaints.
And so the lawsuit was filed, said Dawud Walid, head of the Michigan branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
A colleague of Robert George, recently appointed to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom along with Zuhdi Jasser, has defended George’s role as a board member of the Bradley Foundation, which funds the likes of David Horowitz, Daniel Pipes and Frank Gaffney. Nick Sementelli is not impressed.
More than 50 Muslim and non-Muslim civic and religious groups asked leading senators on Thursday (April 12) to rescind the appointment of an outspoken Muslim activist, Zuhdi Jasser, to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
Jasser, a Navy-trained physician, is decrying the effort – and others to oust him from the independent watchdog panel – as a “smear tactic.”
A separate online petition that began circulating last week, also asking for his ouster, has garnered more than 2,000 signatures.