Work on Murfreesboro Islamic Center delayed as construction companies show reluctance to bid

Not WelcomeLeaders of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro said this summer that breaking ground on their mosque would bring relief after a tumultuous year.

But an August target date slipped past, and a lack of contractor interest led to an extended deadline – still open – for construction companies to offer bids to build the new center.

“It’s not a secret that we could not get the bids that we would hope to get,” said Saleh Sbenaty, a member of the mosque planning committee. “That can be for various reasons. Some contractors are busy … and sometimes you find a contractor who really would like to get the job who is feeling some pressure from the community.”

While contractors remain fiercely competitive when most projects crop up, mosque leaders are left wondering why some companies backed out and never returned calls. It’s their latest frustration after a year of protests and court hearings over the mosque plans.

Sbenaty and fellow board member Essam Fathy said they extended the bidding deadline and have accepted bids from a wider area, including outside of Tennessee.

Going into the bidding process, mosque leaders believed construction companies would be eager to find work amid the economic downturn – and that is the case on most projects, said contractors in Rutherford County.

But market conditions are not the only factor in play. Fathy said one local contractor backed out of the mosque bidding process after describing pressure inside his church. “He was interested and then he actually said, ‘You know what, it’s going to be tough for me to do this job…. The pastor is talking about your outfit almost every week, and it would be very hard for me to take the job’,” Fathy said.

Contractors may also worry about equipment vandalism at the mosque site on Veals Road off Bradyville Pike, where in August 2010 police investigated a suspicious fire that scorched construction gear. Fathy said security cameras will be installed. “Of course, every (contractor) talked about that,” he said. “We need to secure the place.”

Since CNN re-aired a documentary about the mosque this month, Fathy has received emails and calls from across the country, including some contractors interested in the project, he said.

The Tennessean, 14 September 2011

Posted in USA

US Muslim receives hate message with burger

Happy September 11

He wanted to grab a meal at one of his favourite Texas burger joints, but what he got was a sick joke about one of the darkest days in U.S. history.

Tarek Ghalayani said he went to Petrol Station, a Houston, Texas, bar on Sunday with a friend to watch the Dallas Cowboys-New York Giants game. But when they decided to watch the second half at home, he ordered a burger to go, and was shocked by what came out of the kitchen. Scrawled on the to-go box was a message that read “Happy September 11th” with a plane flying into two towers.

Mr Ghalayani, a Muslim, said he was working near the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001, and found the image disturbing. He told ABC 13: “It’s a sad day in this country’s history, where we lost 3,000 innocent lives and I don’t ever think there’s ever going to be a time when that’s OK.”

Mr Ghalayani said he demanded a refund, which he got from the manager – but without an apology or explanation. He also said he could hear someone behind the bar repeating “Allahu Akbar”, an Arabic phrase meaning “God is great”, that has also been heard by Islamic extremists in several terror attacks, including the crash of United Flight 93 outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania on 9/11.

Struck by the eatery’s actions, Mr Ghalayani went home and wrote about his experience on the popular review site Yelp.com. He wrote:

“Within earshot, [the bartender] called my friend and I ‘a**holes’ for complaining about what he clearly thought was funny. Go there if you want a good burger – but know that you’re dealing with people who have no regard for you or what it means to be in this country. Some things are still sacred – and making light of the day that 3,000 innocent people lost their lives and being unapologetic about it is, in my view, a bit much.”

The review sparked a firestorm on social networking sites like Twitter, where it reached the bar’s owner, Ben Fullelove, who said he was not at the bar at the time of the incident. On Monday, the restaurant tweeted: “I am really sorry. Please don’t let this idiot be a reflection of Petrol.”

By that afternoon, the bartender responsible was fired. Mr Fullelove told ABC 13: “I just don’t understand how somebody could think that’s a joke. I mean, it’s not a joke. It’s not how I run my business.”

Later, Mr Fullelove met with Mr Ghalayani personally, and formally apologized, prompting Ghalayani to update his Yelp post. He wrote: “I wanted to update this – I was able to speak to the owner and have a good conversation about my experience at Petrol. He sounded sincere and I appreciated his swift response once he was notified of the issues by the local community.”

Mr Fullelove said his employees would be receiving sensitivity training as a result of the incident.

Daily Mail, 14 September 2011

Posted in USA

Sign outside Buffalo mosque is smashed on 9/11

Buffalo mosque sign smashed

BUFFALO, NY — Was the sign at a mosque on the city’s east side intentionally damaged? What makes this incident suspicious is that it happened on Sunday, the 10 year anniversary of the September 11th, 2001 attacks on America.

Police are investigating and have not determined whether it was a was deliberate act, but some residents we talked to believe this was no accident. Geneva’s Auto owner Walter Johnson said, “That was deliberately done and I think it’s awful.”

Buffalo Police Chaplain Bilal Abdullah said, “I guess it was a 9/11. People maybe looked at it as a way to get back at Muslims in general.” Police say a truck drove over the lawn in front of the mosque and smashed the sign, which was found in pieces around the parking lot.

WIVB, 12 September 2011

See also CAIRtv, 14 September 2011

Peter King defends his witch-hunt of US Muslims, endorses Prevent

Peter King protestPeter King testified before a British Parliamentary committee on Tuesday, defending his three congressional 9/11 hearings and saying he will not be stopped by political correctness.

The New York Republican appeared before the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee inquiry entitled “Roots of Violent Radicalisation“, presenting his findings from the three hearings he has held on radicalization within the Muslim-American community as the House Committee on Homeland Security chairman.

He told the Parliamentary hearing he “would not back down to political correctness” and will continue to tackle what he called a “dangerous problem”, according to a copy of his testimony provided to POLITICO by his office.

“Undoubtedly, Congressional investigation of Muslim-American radicalization is the logical response to the unquestionable fact that homegrown radicalization is part of Al Qaeda’s strategy to continue attacking the United States and its allies,” King said. “I would not back down to political correctness.”

King also praised the United Kingdom’s government for its work on stemming radicalization, noting that its “Prevent” strategy “offers a candid assessment of the problem and a model for effectively addressing and countering this problem”.

King told the hearing he is “concerned that within the United States, political correctness has prevented many from sufficiently acknowledging and tackling this dangerous problem” and said studying homegrown terrorism must remain of the highest priority for both the U.S. and UK.

“While I have no doubt that the Committee’s radicalization hearings have had a significant and beneficial impact in fostering an honest dialogue about the growing issue of radicalization within the United States, I remain concerned that this problem is far from resolved,” King said, according to his prepared remarks.

Politico, 12 September 2011

CIA investigates whether laws broken helping NYPD spy on Muslims

The CIA inspector general is investigating whether the agency broke the law by helping the New York Police Department build intelligence-gathering programs that monitored life in Muslim communities, the agency said Tuesday following an investigation by The Associated Press.

The agency’s unprecedented cooperation with the NYPD was part of an eight-month investigative reporting project by The Associated Press. The AP found that NYPD intelligence officers analyzed hundreds of mosques and student organizations, infiltrating dozens of them. Undercover officers eavesdropped in cafes and restaurants and wrote daily reports about what they overheard. The department also maintained a list of 28 countries that, along with “American Black Muslim,” the department labeled “ancestries of interest.”

A CIA officer, Lawrence Sanchez, helped create and guide these programs. From 2002 to 2004, when these programs were being built, Sanchez was on the CIA payroll and maintained an office at both the NYPD and the CIA’s offices in New York. The programs have continued with at least the tacit support of President Barack Obama, whose administration has repeatedly sidestepped questions about them.

Associated Press, 13 September 2011

See also “CAIR ‘cautiously’ welcomes CIA probe of role in NYPD mosque spying”, CAIR press release, 13 September 2011

Spiegel on Islamophobia in the USA

Ullrich Fichtner of Spiegel interviews Brigitte Gabriel of ACT! for America:

To support her ideas, Gabriel jumps from the 7th to the 21st century and back, from the suras of the Koran to Europe’s transformation into “Eurabia,” from the Islamic militant group Hezbollah to American textbooks, and from the Crusades to the massacre of Israeli athletes during the Munich Olympics (which she seems to think took place in 1971, rather than 1972). She juggles Hitler and Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini and explains why each and every devout Muslim is a potential terrorist, and how all the pieces fit together in one grand scenario of doom: America is being infiltrated. Sharia law is coming soon. The government is looking away. Government agencies are asleep at the wheel.

The problem has less to do with the fact that nothing, or next to nothing, of what Gabriel and her disciples are spreading among the American people is actually true. The problem is that many Americans – perhaps half, perhaps the majority – see the world today in a very similar way.

Burnt Qur’an sent to Bronx mosque

A Bronx Imam received a partially burnt Koran, delivered in an envelope to his mosque the day before Sept. 11th.

The Imam found the Koran in a brown envelope, which showed up at his mosque on East 198th Street at around noon Saturday. There were also papers inside the envelope covered with cartoon like drawing depicting hatred towards Muslims.

The Imam also found white powder inside the envelope. Tests determined the powder was actually pieces of the burnt Koran.

The incident is being investigated by the hate NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force.

WABC, 13 September 2011

Posted in USA

US citizen on no-fly list detained in UK

Michael MiglioreA 23-year-old Muslim convert who traveled by train and boat from the West Coast to England because of his apparent placement on the no-fly list has been detained in Great Britain.

Michael Migliore of Oregon tried unsuccessfully for months to fly to Italy, where he planned to live with his mother.

Migliore says he was told he is on the no-fly list, though U.S. officials refuse to confirm it. He believes he’s on the list because he refused to cooperate with FBI agents who wanted to question him after an acquaintance was charged in a plot to bomb a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland.

He ended up taking a trans-Atlantic cruise that arrived in England Tuesday. His mother says British police told her that he’d been arrested.

Associated Press, 12 September 2011

See also CAIR press release, 12 September 2011

Update:  See “US citizen to Italy after detention in England”,Associated Press, 12 September 2011

US rabbis take part in anti-Islamophobia event

Jewish rabbis took part in an anti-Islamaphobia in Washington on Thursday, days before the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 Twin Towers attack in New York, JTA reported.

“Ten years after 9/11, it has somehow become respectable to verbally attack Muslims and Islam in America,” Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the president of the Union of Reform Judaism, reportedly said at an event organized by Shoulder to Shoulder, a group founded a year ago to combat anti-Muslim rhetoric.

“There are very real consequences when entire populations are represented in the public imagination by their worst elements, when the sins of the few are applied to the group as a whole. I have watched in astonishment as prominent politicians, including candidates for president of the United States, have found it politically opportune to peddle divisive anti-Muslim bigotry,” Yoffie added.

Rabbi Burton Visotzky from the Conservative movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary said Muslims “have always been part of the fabric of America,” the JTA report said.

Steve Gutow, a Reconstructionist rabbi and the president of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the public policy umbrella group reportedly spoke at the event as well, saying “a great people and a great nation do not let their brothers and sisters suffer from bigotry and persecution.”

He condemned those who discriminate against Muslims throughout the United States, saying “our Muslim brothers and sisters suffer exactly that in all corners of this great country of ours. Today is a day to stand up and say we have had enough,” the report said.

Rabbi Marc Schneier, co-founder of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, Rabbi Jack Moline, representing the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly, Rabbi Sidney Schwarz, representing the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association and the Faith and the Common Good project, and Rabbi Dr. Nancy Fuchs-Kreimer, representing the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, were also in attendance, the JTA report said.

Haaretz, 11 September 2011

NY congressional election – Republican candidate continues to exploit 9/11 and ‘Ground Zero mosque’

NY Republican flier

New York Republicans have sent out a kitchen-sink mailer in the hotly-contested Queens congressional special election depicting a mosque superimposed over the scarred Ground Zero site on one side, and Democrat David Weprin alongside President Barack Obama on the other.

The mailer is one of a string that the New York State Republican Party sent out in this close race between state Assembly member Weprin and Republican businessman Bob Turner for the 9th congressional district seat that was held by scandal-singed Democrat Anthony Weiner.

But it’s also one of the more incendiary fliers in the contest that was supposed to be a lock for Democrats in a reliably blue district, but has turned into a dogfight in which Turner has the momentum.

The front of the flier features a golden-domed mosque rising in front of the demolished World Trade Center site, a shell of metal rising near a photo of Weprin and a quote of his from last September, saying: “I support the right of the mosque to build …”

The reverse page is a picture of Weprin juxtaposed against a photo of the president, and text reading: “Weprin stands with Obama – and they stand together in support of the mosque at Ground Zero.”

The piece was received by a registered voter in NY-9 in the past week, landing in the days leading up to the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Politico, 10 September 2011