Category Archives: USA

Man charged with firebombing Oregon mosque described himself as a ‘Christian warrior’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Cody CrawfordThe 24-year-old man being held in last year’s firebombing of an Oregon mosque ranted about Muslims and referred to himself as a “Christian warrior” weeks after the arrest of a Muslim man accused of plotting to set off a car bomb in Portland, according to court documents.

Cody Crawford was arrested Wednesday night in the Nov. 28 firebombing in Corvallis. He was indicted on charges of damaging religious property for racial reasons, which is a hate crime, and using fire to commit a felony.

Court documents show that three weeks after the mosque firebombing, in unrelated encounters with police, Crawford ranted about Muslims, said Christians are capable of jihad and told an officer he resembled President Barack Obama. “You look like Obama. You are a Muslim like him. Jihad goes both ways. Christians can jihad too,” a court document quotes Crawford as telling a McMinnville officer Dec. 14.

The document says Crawford told officers “only Christians could understand him, that he was a Christian warrior that they were persecuting,” and that “you will never know the truth about the mosque.” Crawford also said he did not torch the mosque, according to the affidavit.

He had been arrested Dec. 14 after causing a disturbance at a gas station by shining a flashlight at a car, “talking about terrorists and Muslims,” and telling a witness he would “come back and kill you if you call the cops,” according to the document.

Associated Press, 26 August 2011

Can we take it that if Crawford is convicted Fox News etc will describe him as a “Christian terrorist”?

Update:  See Adam Serwer, “Alleged Oregon arsonist on ‘secret Muslims’ and ‘Christian warriors'”, American Prospect, 26 August 2011

Ohio Catholic school cancels Muslim goodwill event due to anti-CAIR campaign

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Complaints and a request from the archbishop have led a Cincinnati Roman Catholic high school to drop plans for a Ramadan dinner to build goodwill with Muslims.

Kirsten MacDougal, president of Mother of Mercy school, says Archbishop Dennis Schnurr received “emotionally charged” emails, mostly from outside the area, and asked the girls’ school to cancel its Friday night plans. The event instead will be held at a church parish center.

A spokesman for Schnurr tells the Cincinnati Enquirer the complaints centered around the school’s partnership with the local chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Associated Press, 26 August 2011

‘Bordering on xenophobia’: Freep condemns Agema’s anti-Sharia bill

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“At a time when hundreds of thousands of Michigan families are hurting, State Rep. Dave Agema, R-Grandville, is waging a silly anti-immigrant crusade that will do nothing but sow fear and distrust among the state’s diverse residents.”

The Detroit Free Press comes down firmly against the Michigan anti-Sharia bill.

Plymouth Minnesota: city council votes unanimously to approve Islamic centre

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslim families in the northwest metro suburbs, who for years have moved from one place to another for prayer services, won approval Tuesday night for a mosque that will share space with Plymouth’s post office.

The Plymouth City Council voted unanimously to approve the Northwest Islamic Community Center’s purchase and move into the building. The center plans to remodel it for family activities and to serve the worship needs of about 40 Muslim families centered in the Plymouth area.

“We welcome you to our community,” Council Member Bob Stein said after the vote.

The center would be open for daily prayer and might begin a Sunday school program, said Najam Qureshi, a database manager who chairs the Islamic center’s board. Activities will be offered to the public, including tutoring sessions for kids.

The post office was scheduled to close, but the Islamic center proposes to keep open the customer service counter by leasing part of the building back to the U.S. Postal Service. Most other operations at the post office were moved last year to St. Louis Park.

The vote, which followed an hour of respectful testimony and deliberation in a meeting of about 250 people, came on the heels of a more contentious Planning Commission meeting last week. At least two people during that meeting suggested allowing the mosque would be inappropriate and even treasonous.

Star Tribune, 23 August 2011

With CIA help, NYPD built secret effort to monitor mosques, daily life of Muslim neighborhoods

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the New York Police Department has become one of the nation’s most aggressive domestic intelligence agencies, targeting ethnic communities in ways that would run afoul of civil liberties rules if practiced by the federal government, an Associated Press investigation has found.

The operations have benefited from unprecedented help from the CIA, a partnership that has blurred the line between foreign and domestic spying.

The department has dispatched undercover officers, known as “rakers”, into minority neighborhoods as part of a human mapping program, according to officials directly involved in the program. They’ve monitored daily life in bookstores, bars, cafes and nightclubs. Police have also used informants, known as “mosque crawlers”, to monitor sermons, even when there’s no evidence of wrongdoing.

Neither the city council, which finances the department, nor the federal government, which has given NYPD more than $1.6 billion since 9/11, is told exactly what’s going on.

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Alleged mosque bombing plotter not fit for trial, judge finds

Posted on by Bob Pitt

DETROIT — A Wayne County Judge on Monday ruled Roger Stockham, the California man accused of making terrorist threats toward the Islamic Center of America, is not mentally competent to stand trial.

Stockham is charged with making terrorist threats and possession of illegal explosives with unlawful intent. He now will remain in custody at a mental institution until he is either rehabilitated enough to stand trial or is committed to the facility.

Dearborn Police arrested Stockham in January in the Islamic Center’s parking lot with a paper grocery bag full of some legal and illegal fireworks. A local pub manager who said Stockham had just left his bar after threatening an explosion at a mosque alerted police.

Stockham’s mental competency has been the source of differing opinions since the case against him began in January. His first court-appointed attorney requested a competency exam, but was subsequently rejected as counsel by Stockham. Then, Evans stepped in and didn’t see any issue with Stockham’s mental state.

But after Stockham sent a letter to Islamic Center officials while he was in custody, Wayne County Judge Bruce Morrow ordered a competency hearing.

A Vietnam veteran and diagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder sufferer, Stockham has a lengthy history of mental issues. At his arraignment in 19th District Court, Stockham’s initial court-appointed attorney – who he subsequently rejected – re-quested a mental competency exam.

Dearborn Press & Guide, 23 August 2011

Tennessee: protestors oppose Wilders film

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Cookeville protestCOOKEVILLE — A crowd of more than 100 peaceful protestors gathered outside the courthouse last night with signs saying “We love Muslims” and “All religions believe in justice,” among many others, showing their opposition to the Tennessee Freedom Coalition’s showing of what they call a highly controversial film about the Islamic religion.

“A Warning to America,” by Geert Wilders, a Dutch politician who has spoken out against Islam, was shown in the county commission chambers last night. DVDs of the film were also available for purchase at the event.

“We’re here to voice another side,” Pat Handlson, minister of Cookeville First Presbyterian Church and event organizer said. “I think it’s sad there’s been such negativity surrounding the Murfreesboro mosque.”

Wilders, according to Rachel Welch, organizer of the film showing and vice-chair of the Putnam County Republican Party, has been under persecution in his country for hate speech and speaking out against Shariah law. “This is certainly not a hate film,” Welch said. “It’s about facts and Islam being a political ideology shrouded in a religion.”

Very few confrontations between the two sides were reported and both Welch and Handlson were pleased with how peaceful it was.

“I just wanted everyone here to be a witness to this event,” Handlson continued. “To be a witness to love your God and love your neighbor. We all can co-exist.” Handlson is concerned about this film being shown locally because Cookeville is home to a large group of Saudi Muslims.

Herald-Citizen, 20 August 2011

See also Cookeville Times, 20 August 2011

Mosque plan goes forward despite opposition

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Plymouth, Minn. — A proposal to house a mosque in a soon-to-be-closed suburban post office is now heading to the Plymouth City Council, after being reviewed by the city’s planning commission Wednesday night.

About 200 people attended the hearing, which commissioners tried to limit to a discussion about logistics such as parking spaces, access and building use. But of the 16 or so people who spoke before the commission, two raised objections to the mosque on religious grounds, and the atmosphere sometimes grew heated.

“The center of Plymouth is not the appropriate place for this,” said resident Connie Sambor, who invoked the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and said the community was forgetting the attacks too soon. She was interrupted by commission chair Jim Davis. “Ma’am, I’m going to have to cut you off. We’re here to talk about the building and the land use issues, not to talk about political opinions,” he said.

Jeff Baumann, of Coon Rapids, went a step further. “Aiding the enemy is treason,” he said.

“These are not my enemies, sir,” Davis replied. “Will you please sit down?”

“They are the enemy – they are saying they are the enemy,” Baumann insisted before finally yielding the floor.

Some commissioners also reported they received anti-Islamic e‑mails in the run-up to the meeting.

Many of the people who spoke at the public hearing were local Muslims such as Tamim Saidi, who told the commission his family is glad to belong to the Plymouth community, enjoyed living there, and wanted a place near home to worship. “This is our home. This is our country, and we love this country,” he said. “We have been here for a long time, and it’s time for us to have a place where we can worship.”

Non-Muslims, including Plymouth resident Steven Miller, also expressed support for the mosque. “I want the community to know that I not only approve of this facility but I do plan on going there and visiting and learning from the people who are there. I hope that you approve this,” he said as meeting attendees clapped.

The proposal goes to the Plymouth City Council next week for approval.

Minnesota Public Radio, 18 August 2011 

See also KARE who spoke to Ms Sabor after the meeting. “What’s it going to take for Americans to wake up to the Islamic agenda in this country?” she demanded.

‘NUTS!’ Allen West’s response to CAIR’s call to break links with anti-Muslim extremists

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Congressman and possible senator Allen West lives in his own serene and strange reality where, no doubt, his recent response to a local Islamic group makes perfect sense.

In early August, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) sent a 679-word letter to West urging him to cut ties with “anti-Islamic extremists”. CAIR singled out Brigitte Gabriel, Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, and Rev. Neil Dozier as Muslim-haters with whom West has shared stages.

“Muslims protect and serve our great country and are afforded equal protection under law,” the letter read. “We shouldn’t have to defend our rights to worship freely or participate in the governing of our society.”

Soon afterward, CAIR received the following letter, which was first reported by CBS4. The Muslim group sent us a copy, which we’ve embedded below. We believe it might be the dumbest thing ever written on congressional stationery.

Executive director Nezar Hamze tells Riptide he’s befuddled: “Obviously, I was expecting a little more from an elected official. I don’t know if he was calling me nuts or calling my request nuts or what.”

(West’s spokesperson has yet to explain to New Times what the congressman meant.)

Hamze doesn’t think he’ll write West back. “How can I respond to this?”

Miami New Times, 16 August 2011

Allen West NUTS