Geert Wilders is to speak at the rally being held in New York on September 11 to protest at plans to build a mosque close to the site of Ground Zero, the PVV said on Friday. The rally is being organised by a group called Stop Islamization Of America which says it is wrong to build a mosque so close to the place where some 3,000 died when Islamic extremists flew two planes into the World Trade centre.
See also Atlas Shrugs, 6 August 2010
In the New York Times Laurie Goodstein examines how hostility towards plans for the construction of new mosques has become the focus for anti-Muslim bigotry across the United States. See also Mehdi Hasan’s pieces for the New Statesman and the Guardian. John Esposito’s longer piece, “Do Muslims have equal rights?”, is also worth checking out over at the Washington Post.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, one of the nation’s leading civil rights activists, and the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) have endorsed an open letter by a coalition of Muslim, Sikh, Asian-American, and other civil liberties groups sent to FBI Director Robert Mueller seeking an explanation of why a leader of an anti-Islam hate group was recently invited to train state and federal law enforcement officers.
Robert Spencer, co-founder of the hate group Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA), claimed in a blog post that he “gave two two-hour seminars on the belief-system of Islamic jihadists to the Tidewater Joint Terrorism Task Force.” Those attending the training reportedly included FBI agents.
In its letter to Mueller, the coalition outlined Spencer’s bigoted views on Islam and Muslims, including referring to Islam’s Prophet Muhammad as a “con man.”
SEE: Coalition Letter to Director Mueller
http://www.cair.com/Portals/0/pdf/coalition_letter_to_FBI.pdf
The letter cited the independent national media watch group Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), which identified Spencer as one of “Islamophobia’s Dirty Dozen” who systematically “spread fear, bigotry, and misinformation.”
In its report, FAIR said, “By selectively ignoring inconvenient Islamic texts and commentaries, Spencer concludes that Islam is innately extremist and violent.”
The Daily Kos examines the record of John Joseph Jay, a founding members of the board of Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer’s American Freedom Defense Initiative, the organisation behind Stop Islamization of America.
A sample quote from Jay: “there are no innocent muslims. islam is subject to killing on grounds of political expediency on the same basis as islam kills its victims, and islam cannot ethically and morally claim otherwise.”
Months of rising rhetoric about religious freedom came to a head on Tuesday when a city commission voted that a contentious plan to build a mosque two blocks from “Ground Zero” could move forward.
The proposal to demolish an old Burlington Coat Factory building and replace it with a 13-storey Islamic centre has reopened the wounds of September 11 2001 and provoked some of the most heated anti-Muslim rhetoric since the attacks on the World Trade Center.
On Tuesday, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission voted unanimously that the proposed site of the centre, which includes a mosque, should not be given protected landmark status, a label that would have limited the scope of its development
Developers and opponents of the mosque alike had anxiously awaited the ruling from the landmarks commission to determine the fate of the project, originally called Cordoba House and recently rebranded Park 51 after weeks of criticism. The $100m project hinged on whether the existing structure was considered historically significant, meaning it could be refurbished but not demolished.
About 100 people gathered in an auditorium near Ground Zero to hear the verdict, with a mix of cheers and tears erupting when the commissioners said the mosque could move forward. The stone-faced building with Italian palazzo columns was built in 1858 but was not deemed exceptional enough to warrant city protection.
In spite of the backlash, publicity surrounding the project has made it more likely to succeed. Soho Properties, which owns the building, and Park 51, the non-profit organisation that will be its tenant, say new backers have been “knocking down our door” to make donations.
“The controversy has had a negative impact on us as individuals,” said Daisy Khan, spokeswoman for Park 51 and the wife of Faisal Abdul Rauf, the mosque’s future imam. “We’re still moving ahead with the planning and now it will be easier for us to do a national fundraising campaign.”
A few seats away from Ms Khan at the meeting, Linda Rivera held a sign that read “Islam builds mosques at the site of their conquests”. Another nearby protester screamed “Trojan horse”.
Financial Times, 4 August 2010
See also “Attempt to block ‘Ground Zero mosque’ fails”, BBC News, 3 August 2010
For the admirable stand by the Mayor of New York City in opposition to the outbreak of Islamophobic hysteria over the issue, see “Michael Bloomberg delivers stirring defense of mosque”, Salon, 3 August 2010
See also “Mike Bloomberg’s remarks on the proposed mosque and community center in Lower Manhattan”, mikebloomberg.com, 3 August 2010
Also worth reading is Jeffrey Goldberg, “If he could, Bin Laden would bomb the Cordoba Initiative”, The Atlantic, 3 August 2010
Update: See “Right-wing group sues city over WTC mosque: conservatives try to block Ground Zero construction”, New York Daily News, 4 August 2010
Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite poses the question over at the Washington Post. She takes on the Islamophobic views of veteran Republican right-winger Newt Gingrich who, she writes, “believes that Americans are ‘at risk’ as a nation, not only from the violence of a ‘militant Islam’, but also from the cultural integration of Muslims in the West. The latter he calls ‘stealth jihadists’. A close historical parallel, Gingrich argued in a lengthy address to the American Enterprise Institute entitled America at Risk: Camus, National Security and Afghanistan, where he is now a senior fellow, is the struggle with communism.”
Holding signs that read “Muslims Danced with Joy on 9/11” and “Mosques are Monuments to Terrorism,” about 35 critics rallied across the street from the Islamic Center of Temecula Valley on Rio Nedo Friday afternoon to protest the center’s plans to build a mosque in the city.
Using a bullhorn, the protesters shouted anti-Islamic slogans as Muslim families came to worship Friday afternoon. “Go back home” and “We don’t want you here,” the protesters said.
The worshipers were generally shielded from the protesters as more than 70 mosque supporters – Christians, Mormons, Jews, Muslims and Catholics – lined up outside the center’s doors wearing white shirts and name tags that read, “Friend.”
Hundreds of worshipers attend Friday prayers at the Dar El-Eman Islamic Center in south Arlington. This past Friday, they were greeted by stick figure graffiti in the parking lot, depicting Uncle Sam sexually assaulting Allah. Then early Sunday morning, someone torched the children’s playground behind the mosque.
“The children, when they saw this, they were horrified,” said mosque president Jamal Qaddura. He said the message is clear to young and old alike. Unfortunately, they look at us as someone who doesn’t belong here,” Qaddura said.
Qaddura said whoever did this might also have tried to burn the mosque itself by pulling apart old gas lines, but the building no longer has gas service.
“I think it’s related to igniting people’s feelings and emotions and give people the wrong directions of Muslims and Islam,” he said.
Islamic centers in other cities have been vandalized, and one in Florida fire-bombed. Qaddura says until now, worshipers at the south Arlington mosque have felt completely welcome, and have hosted numerous community events.
Arlington police have stepped up patrols around mosques in the city after vandalism and anti-Islam graffiti appeared at the south Arlington mosque.
On September 11, members of the Dove World Outreach Center – a Gainesville, Florida church – plan to burn copies of the Koran to commemorate the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
The protest is just the latest in a series of provocative actions from the self-described “New Testament Church,” which seems as interested in getting attention as it is in sharing the Word with the world. Unfortunately, their plan seems to have worked – and local investigators began probing the church’s tax-exempt status last year after reports that Dove World Outreach Center is essentially a scam.
The church, which was founded in 1986, has long been controversial in Gainesville. The Koran-burning protest is just the latest in a string of high-profile “protests on other issues, such as homosexuality, same-sex marriage, and abortion,” Religion News Service reports. But it seems clear that taking on Muslims is the one of the church’s central goals. The church’s leader, Dr. Terry Jones – who before heading up the Dove World Outreach Center ran a sister church in Cologne, Germany – has published a book entitled “Islam is of the Devil” and last year posted a large sign outside his church that offered passing commuters the same message. Last year, members sent their kids to public schools wearing “Islam Is Of The Devil” t-shirts (the students were sent home, creating more headlines.) The church’s website features a number of videos where Jones takes on Islam as…well, you can probably guess.
A US Republican politician, Ron Ramsey, who is supported by the controversial Tea Party, has come under fire for likening Islam to a “cult” and casting doubt about whether it is even a religion.
Tennessee’s current lieutenant governor said he had reservations about whether the American Constitution, which guarantees “freedom of religion”, applied to followers of the world’s second largest faith.
Critics denounced the 54 year-old’s comments, made at a party meeting earlier this month, as a part of “disturbing” trend in American politics.
But political experts said the real estate agent, who hopes to win the Republican nomination for governor in next month’s primary with support from Tea Party activists, was using it to garner support after lagging third in the polls.
During a question-and-answer session at the Hamilton County meeting, Mr Ramsey, from Blountville, was asked about the “threat that’s invading our country from the Muslims”, according to local reports.
The question came amid local concern over a proposed local Islamic Centre and mosque to be built outside the town of Murfreesboro, to the south-east of the capital Nashville.
Despite proclaiming his support for the Constitution and the whole “Congress shall make no law” to religion, he said that Islam was more of a “cult” than a faith.
“Now, you could even argue whether being a Muslim is actually a religion, or is it a nationality, way of life, cult whatever you want to call it,” he said in comments that were caught on video and later uploaded to YouTube.