Category Archives: USA

NPR fires Juan Williams over Muslim remarks

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Juan WilliamsUS broadcaster National Public Radio has fired news analyst Juan Williams for saying on Fox News that he gets nervous if he sees Muslims on a plane.

Williams, who has written several books on the US civil rights movement, made the remarks last week on chat show The O’Reilly Factor.

NPR said in a statement that Williams’s contract had been ended on Wednesday.

Fox News later signed Williams up as a contributor on a multi-year contract, reportedly worth $2m (£1.3m).

In a discussion on Muslims and 9/11 on the O’Reilly Factor, outspoken conservative presenter Bill O’Reilly said: “The cold truth is that in the world today jihad, aided and abetted by some Muslim nations, is the biggest threat on the planet.”

Williams said he concurred with O’Reilly.

“I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country,” Williams replied. “But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations said before Mr Williams was sacked that such commentary from a journalist about other racial, ethnic or religious minority groups would not be tolerated.

In its statement, NPR said Mr Williams’s comments “were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR”.

Mr Williams has also served as a reporter and columnist for the Washington Post.

Later on Thursday, Fox News chief Roger Ailes offered Williams a deal to appear on Fox programmes and to write for FoxNews.com.

“Juan has been a staunch defender of liberal viewpoints since his tenure began at Fox News in 1997,” Mr Ailes said in a statement, according to the Los Angeles Times, with a reference to National Public Radio. “He’s an honest man whose freedom of speech is protected by Fox News on a daily basis.”

BBC News, 21 October 2010

Murfreesboro: anti-mosque campaign lawyer suggests ‘flag of Shariah’ may already be flying over White House

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A hearing over plans to build a mosque southeast of Murfreesboro will continue in Chancery Court today despite a Justice Department brief supporting Islam as a religion.

Attorney Joe Brandon Jr., in a press conference on the Public Square Tuesday in response to the brief, said plaintiffs contend the real issue is Shariah Law, not Islam. “Is Shariah entitled to Constitutional protection or is it sedition, which we intend to prove,” Brandon said.

The Smyrna attorney – who is representing local residents Kevin Fisher, Lisa Moore and Henry Golczynski – vowed to continue presenting testimony supporting that claim when the hearing resumes before Chancellor Robert Corlew at 8:30 a.m. today at the Rutherford County Judicial Building.

Brandon has argued in court that the local Islamic Center supports Shariah Law and is a threat to the community and the country. He spoke of terrorists and said that “the same group of people” were responsible for the 9/11 attacks in 2001 that killed around 3,000 Americans.

Brandon questioned if the flag of Shariah is already flying over the White House.

Standing behind an encased historic Bible outside the courthouse Tuesday afternoon, Brandon told media to question why the same U.S. government that got involved with opposing Arizona’s immigration enforcement law should be taking a position involving the plaintiffs here.

The Tennessean, 20 October 2010

Muslim woman fired for wearing headscarf is reinstated

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Muslim saleswoman from Philadelphia, who was fired from her job for refusing to remove her religious head scarf, was reinstated Tuesday and will be reimbursed for her lost wages.

Khadijah Campbell, 23, moved to Dover, Del., when her husband was accepted to graduate school. On Oct. 6, she filled out an application at the Dover store of Bare Feet Shoes, the Montgomery County-based retailer. She interviewed wearing her hijab and was hired on the spot, she said.

On Oct. 7, her first day of work, a district manager visited the Dover store and ordered her to remove the scarf or work in the store’s stockroom. She told the manager that she wore the scarf for religious reasons. He told her the chain did not allow anyone to display their religion and then dismissed her in front of the other workers, said Moein Khawaja, executive director for the Pennsylvania chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

On Monday, CAIR filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. On Tuesday, Campbell was reinstated and the district manager who fired her was suspended, Khawaja said. Though the store offered her the job back, Campbell said she would not be returning.

“I normally have tough skin, but I’m very sensitive when it comes to my religion. The whole thing was very embarrassing,” Campbell said. “This is America, not a third-world country.” She said she would continue looking for work. “It’s back to square 1,” she said.

Philadelphia Inquirer, 20 October 2010

Fox News ‘liberal’ says America is at war with Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Last week, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly said on ABC’s The View that “Muslims killed us on 9/11,” prompting The View co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar to walk off the set in disgust. “If anybody felt that I meant all Muslims, then I apologize,” he said later in the program.

But now, O’Reilly, with handy assistance from his colleagues at Fox News, is defending his original claim. “There’s no question there is a Muslim problem in the world,” he said last night on his show. “The Muslim threat to the world is not isolated. It’s huge!” he said, adding, “It involves nations and millions of people.”

O’Reilly asked Fox News’ “liberal” Juan Williams if he’s wrong. Surprisingly, Williams joined with the other Fox Newsers in circling the wagons around O’Reilly, citing “political correctness” and seemingly because Muslims scare him:

WILLIAMS: Well, actually, I hate to say this to you because I don’t want to get your ego going. But I think you’re right. I think, look, political correctness can lead to some kind of paralysis where you don’t address reality.

I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.

Williams justified his defense, saying that the would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad “said the war with Muslims, America’s war is just beginning, first drop of blood. I don’t think there’s any way to get away from these facts.”

Think Progress, 19 October 2010

Update:  See “NPR fires Juan Williams over anti-Muslim remarks”, Washington Post, 21 October 2010

Right-wing group launches media blitz to win yes vote in Oklahoma anti-Sharia ballot

Posted on by Bob Pitt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=onGxKNSDT3Q

A group vowing to fight “Islamofascism” has launched a media blitz in Oklahoma supporting a state constitutional amendment that would prohibit the courts from considering Islamic or other international law when ruling on cases in Sooner State courtrooms.

The campaign by Act! For America, founded by Lebanese American journalist Brigitte Gabriel, includes a radio ad that began airing Monday, opinion articles and robo-calls from former CIA director and Tulsa native James Woolsey urging residents to vote for the ballot initiative.

The group says the constitutional amendment will prevent the takeover of Oklahoma by Islamic extremists who want to undo America from the inside out.

“We want to make sure that the people in Oklahoma are educated about what Shariah law is all about and its ramifications,” Gabriel, president and CEO of the group, told FoxNews.com. “We’re not taking any chances with this initiative passing marginally. We hope it passes with great victory.”

In two weeks, Oklahoma voters will decide the fate of State Question 755, or better known as “Save Our State” amendment after the Republican-controlled state legislature passed it with an 82-10 vote in the House and a 41-2 vote in the Senate.

A poll by The Tulsa World in July found that 49 percent of voters support the amendment compared to 24 percent who opposed it and 27 percent who were undecided.

The group’s radio ad recounts the story of a New Jersey family court judge’s decision not to grant a restraining order to a woman who was sexually abused by her Moroccan husband and forced repeatedly to have sex with him. The judge ruled that her ex-husband felt he had behaved according to his Muslim beliefs and that he did not have “criminal desire to or intent to sexually assault” his wife.

“This is just one chilling example of how Islamic Shariah law has begun to penetrate America,” the narrator says. “Help us stop Shariah law from coming to Oklahoma.”

The ad did not mention that New Jersey’s Appellate Court overturned the decision in July, ruling that the husband’s religious beliefs were irrelevant and that the judge, in taking them into consideration, “was mistaken.”

Gabriel argued that Shariah law is taking hold in Europe, noting that at least 85 Shariah courts are operating in Britain. “When we look at Europe, it is a preview of what’s coming to the United States,” she said. “We want to make sure this does not happen here.”

Fox News, 20 October 2010

Geller has nothing against halal food (it says here)

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Campbell Soup Co., the Camden, N.J., food giant, has been fighting a grass-roots boycott of its products after its Canadian subsidiary rolled out a line of soups certified as halal, meaning they’re prepared according to Islamic dietary laws.

Campbell Co. of Canada introduced the soups in a few Canadian markets in January, although American bloggers didn’t catch up to the news until earlier this month. That’s when the tempest in a tomato-soup can started.

Blogger Pamela Geller began calling for a boycott earlier this month via her widely read site, Atlas Shrugs. Other bloggers soon joined in.

The halal soups, designated with a special label, are available only in Canada. The company has no plans to offer a similar line in the United States, said John Faulkner, a company spokesman.

In an interview, Geller, who was instrumental in whipping up opposition to an Islamic community center and mosque in Lower Manhattan, said she has no objection to the halal certification itself. Rather, she said, she opposes Campbell’s decision to have its Canadian products certified by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), an organization that government prosecutors alleged had ties to the terrorist group Hamas in a 2007 conspiracy case.

“No one is suggesting they refrain from this line,” Geller said. “No one is suggesting they not have halal food. I’m not against halal food any more than I’m against kosher food. My issue is who’s doing the certifying.”

Washington Post, 18 October 2010

Yup, that’s the same Pamela Geller whose response to the Mail‘s recent scaremongering about halal meat in the UK was to complain about non-Muslims having to consume “meat slaughtered in a barbaric, torturous and inhuman method, Islamic slaughter. Ugh.”

Racists are ‘trying to form a transnational challenge to Islam’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Tentative links are developing between supporters of the reactionary Tea Party movement in the US and right-wing fringe groups in Britain opposed to what they call the “Islamification” of Europe.

The movements are not yet formally aligned, but the racist English Defence League (EDL), which insists that Islamic fundamentalism will soon engulf Britain, is busy building bridges with US figures who take a similar anti-Islamic position.

One such is candidate for the California state legislature Rabbi Nachum Shifren, who plans to visit England next week in a trip partly sponsored by the EDL. The trip was organised by EDL activist Roberta Moore, who has formed a “Jewish division” of the group. She said that the rabbi would speak at an October 24 rally in London.

“He plans to speak about the dangers of Islamification both in this country and in America,” she said. “We have the same objectives as the groups in the US, and we want to exchange information and work with them.”

Nottingham University Professor Matthew Goodwin, an expert on extremist groups in Britain, warned:

“We’re seeing groups across Europe trying to form a transnational challenge to Islam. Going to the US is particularly interesting because the far-right in Britain has never gone that way before. It has always gone toward Europe. If it does forge strong links to the Tea Party, it would be important because the Tea Party has significant resources.”

Rabbi Shifren, who has given anti-Islamic talks at Tea Party events, boasted in an interview that he planned to warn Britons their country is being lost as “fundamentalist Islam” gains strength. “I see England going down and I want to cry out and do everything I can to prevent that, to work with the EDL,” he said.

Morning Star, 16 October 2010

Civitas (!) defends right to wear veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Well, according to a report in the Daily Telegraph and a Civitas press release, it does. Alveena Malik, one of the contributors to a new report from the right-wing think-tank entitled Women, Islam and Western Liberalism, is quoted as writing that “the wearing of religious symbols, including the full veil, should be a fundamental human right of an individual in both the public and private sphere”.

Which is not at all the sort of thing we’ve come to expect from Civitas, who have been the source of a series of scaremongering publications directed against the Muslim community.

Indeed it’s not so long since the Civitas blog carried a piece that quoted al-Qaeda’s Ayman al-Zawahiri as saying that every veil-wearing Muslim woman in the west was “a soldier in the battle of Islam against Zionist-Crusader”, went on to assert that the niqab represented a serious security threat and concluded that “there are enough genuine concerns as to who and what may really lie behind the veil to justify its proscription in public places”.

Bigotry and Islam: the real problem isn’t Bill O’Reilly but the millions of Americans who agree with him

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Bill O’Reilly and his inflammatory speech was on The View this week, and everybody knows it. But, the attention should go elsewhere.

His baseless anti-Muslim rhetoric that led Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg to walk off the set earlier this week was a ratings boon for him and the show. O’Reilly appeared on the Glenn Beck show and The View hosts are scheduled to discuss Thursday’s show on Monday.

The show is likely to grab more ratings and headlines, but really, it’s time to shift gears and focus on the anti-Islam hysteria sweeping over the U.S. Bill O’Reilly is getting bashed in the press, but thousands, maybe millions, agree with him. Some of them are silent. Many are not. It has become mainstream to bash Muslims.

John Esposito and Sheila Lalwani at the Huffington Post, 16 October 2010