Category Archives: USA

Staten Island: Church backpedaling on selling convent for mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Bowing to pressure from Staten Island’s xenophobic reactionaries, a local pastor has reversed his decision to sell a convent to an Islamic group that would use it as a community center and mosque.

In the wake of an ugly community meeting last week, Rev. Keith Fennessy, the pastor of St. Margaret Mary Church, sent a letter yesterday to Archbishop Timothy Dolan explaining that upon reflection he had “concluded that the contemplated sale would not serve the needs of the parish.” Fennessy had already signed a contract with the group, the Muslim American Society, to sell the vacant convent for $750,000.

MAS didn’t find out about Fennessy’s reneging until a reporter called to ask them about it – after seeing a press release on the Archbishop’s website.

Gothamist, 18 June 2010

Update:  See “Muslim American Society responds to Staten Island pastor’s bid to cancel sale of convent”, SILive, 18 June 2010

Racial slurs used during attack on Iowa Muslim

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Iowa chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-IA) today called on local state and national law enforcement agencies to investigate an allegedly bias-motivated attack on an Iowa Muslim as a possible hate crime.

CAIR-IA said an 18-year-old Iraqi refugee and his mother were reportedly assaulted following a recent softball game at Cedar Rapids‘ Tait Cummings Park by a member of the opposing team.

During the game, supporters of the opposing team allegedly shouted racial slurs at the victim and his team members. After the game, the victim was allegedly hit in the jaw by an assailant from the opposing team who shouted slurs such as “raghead,” “terrorist” and “camel jockey.” The victim’s jaw was broken in the alleged assault. The victim’s mother was allegedly assaulted by the same person when she tried to defend her son.

CAIR press release, 18 June 2010

‘Ground Zero mosque’ opponents made abusive phone calls

Posted on by Bob Pitt

LOWER MANHATTAN — Community Board 1 has received threatening phone calls since members backed a controversial plan to build a mosque near the World Trade Center.

Shortly after the board voiced support for the Cordoba House, a 13-story mosque and community center two blocks north of the World Trade Center site, the community board office and at least one board member received menacing calls, and notified the NYPD.

The board member, who requested his name not be published, abstained from CB1’s mosque vote and argued at the meeting that the board should not weigh in at all. But that distinction did not matter to the caller. “The guy used four-letter words and said I should die a horrible death,” the board member said. “He just launched into an attack, screaming at me.”

The board member called the police, and they tracked down the harassing caller, who had used a cell phone with a 347 area code. Since the caller had said, “You should die,” not, “I will kill you,” he was protected by the First Amendment, officers told the board member.

DNAinfo, 16 June 2010

National Review interviews Andrew C. McCarthy

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Although the task of monitoring Islamophobia can sometimes be a depressing experience, because of the sheer volume of anti-Muslim bigotry, it does afford the occasional moment of light relief. I couldn’t help laughing aloud at the NRO interview with Andrew C. MCarthy. The first question is: “What do health-care reform and ‘the Grand Jihad’ have in common?” To which McCarthy replies: “They both enjoy the support of Islam and the Left.”

Another mosque faces anti-Muslim bigotry in Tennessee

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Not WelcomeAn Islamic mosque, the second one in as many months, is facing opposition from residents who don’t want the religious house constructed in an area zoned for it.

With a growing Muslim community in Rutherford County, the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro wants to build on Veals Road. The project done in phases could take years to finish: a 52,000-square-foot mosque, with a community center and athletic fields.

Tonight, as many as 17 residents have signed up to speak before county commissioners to express their frustration with the Rutherford County Planning Commission’s May 24 approval of the site plan. The meeting is slated for 6 p.m. in the County Courthouse on the Public Square.

Last month, plans for a separate mosque in Brentwood were soundly defeated when residents who were against rezoning the land mounted a campaign that raised suspicions about the mosque and its leaders. Opponents encouraged residents to write letters to the city commission, and stirred more controversy by questioning links to terrorist groups.

The Muslim community is confused over the opposition. They’ve been good neighbors and residents in Rutherford County, they said. Shortly after the devastating 2009 tornado, Muslim families delivered 2,500 meals to those affected. They volunteered to help the community. They invited Christian and Jews alike to take part on their holidays.

When they announced their plans to build their dream facility, they also invited residents. They didn’t expect a backlash.

Now they are answering to rumors of polygamy, Islamic doctrine and whether they will adhere to the U.S. Constitution, said Essem Fathy, a physical therapist who has lived in Murfreesboro since the 1980s. “We have nothing to hide,” Fathy said. “We do not have a hidden agenda. We’re not affiliated with anyone. Where is the tolerance?”

Delbert Ketner, a retired resident who opposes the mosque, questions the goals of those who practice Islam. “If their goal is to advance Islam, advance their culture, then there is no real affection for our Constitution and the precepts we were founded on,” Ketner said.

Daily News Journal, 17 June 2010

Update:  The Tennessean reports: “Hundreds of residents packed Thursday’s Rutherford County Commission meeting where more than 20 voiced opposition to a planned Islamic center on Veals Road off Bradyville Pike. ‘We have a duty to investigate anyone under the banner of Islam’, said Allen Jackson, the pastor of World Outreach Church in Murfreesboro.”

WSMV Nashville reports: “A plan to build a mosque and Islamic center in Rutherford County encountered heavy opposition Thursday night. So many people turned up for the public hearing at the Rutherford County courthouse, authorities wouldn’t let them all in. Upstairs, a stream of residents told the county commissioners they believe a mosque is a threat to public safety. Karan Harrell said the community needs to ‘wake up before it’s too late’. She said, ‘everybody knows who’s trying to kill us, but we’re not allowed to say it’.”

Supporters of Staten Island mosque launch Facebook page

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Midland Beach protest placardThe Midland Beach mosque controversy [see here and here] recently expanded to the pages of Facebook, when people identifying themselves as members of the Class of 2011 of Susan E. Wagner High School in Sea View created a group on the social networking site called “Supporters of New Mosque in Staten Island“, which by late this morning had grown to 151 members.

One of them, Zara, wrote that she cannot understand “why there is this fear, this hate toward an entire society and it is provoked blindly.”

“I did not create this group to call your neighborhood bigots or racists,” she wrote. “I don’t believe that’s true in any respect…. I grew up in that area. Now, my case may be somewhat different because I moved away before 9/11 and that’s when Islamophobia was born.”

Islam Allan, identified as one of the administrators of the group and wearing a headscarf in her Facebook photograph, responded to a message from a person named Johann Conrad, who wrote on Monday: “Go back to your own country. You don’t belong here. Just get out. We don’t want you here.”

Ms. Allan replied: “This IS my country. I was born here,” adding that a mosque is “a place of worship, just as a church or synagogue might be.”

SILive, 16 June 2010

Update:  See “Foes of Midland Beach mosque start rival Facebook page voicing their opposition”, SILive, 16 June 2010

Civil rights groups decry US Muslim’s no-fly plight

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Yahya WehelieU.S. civil liberties groups are protesting the case of a 26-year-old Muslim-American man who was placed on the no-fly list and barred from returning to the States after spending 18 months in Yemen.

Yahya Wehelie, an American citizen, remains stranded in Cairo after being stopped there by FBI agents while en route back to his Virginia home six weeks ago, The New York Times reports. The agents questioned Wehelie about his contact with other Americans in Yemen, including a New Jersey man suspected of joining al-Qaida and killing a hospital guard in Yemen.

Yehelie and his family, who live in Burke, Va., told the Times he despises al-Qaida and went to Yemen to study and meet a wife. Though issued a temporary passport and cleared by the FBI to return to the U.S., he remains on the federal no-fly list, unable to travel home by plane and fresh out of other options.

“How can he travel home if he can’t fly?” Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said in an interview with AOL News. “We’re just concerned that this is part of a pattern of government officials stopping Muslim travelers, American Muslim citizens, to pressure them to give up the constitutional rights that they would normally have if they were on American soil.”

Hooper said Wehelie was interrogated several times, subjected to “psychological pressure” and denied access to an attorney. He told AOL News he emphatically objects to allowing anyone who is a danger to America to board a flight here, but said that does not seem to be the case with Wehelie. “These no-fly lists are vast,” he said. “There needs to be some legal type of oversight on who should really be on it.”

The American Civil Liberties Union has also decried Wehelie’s case and those like it, saying the “vast majority” involve American Muslims. “There is absolutely no legal basis for placing a U.S. citizen into effective exile. There’s no question that it’s illegal to do so,” Ben Wizner, an ACLU senior staff attorney, told AOL News. “If the U.S. wants to investigate [Wehelie], there is unquestionably a safe way to bring him home to do so.”

AOL News, 16 June 2010

See also CAIR press release, 16 June 2010

Wilders and the US Israel lobby

Posted on by Bob Pitt

In the last televised debate before the Dutch elections on 9 June, the party leaders were asked which country they would fly to if there was a plane ready to go. Geert Wilders, as ever setting out his own path, said Israel, because it was a country that deserved support. In the context of the recent mayhem surrounding the Gaza convoys, this answer stood out.

But Wilders has good contacts in Israel who support his political movement. Likewise in the United States.

A crucial detail about Wilders’ party, the PVV, is that it only has two official members: himself, and the Friends of the PVV Foundation which he formed as a finance-gathering apparatus.

Dutch law states that every party with a membership of 100,000 or more can receive state subsidy. Wilders’ decision to keep his party in his own hands therefore also has severe financial consequences.

Someone else aside from the Dutch state has to provide the money. Much of it comes from the US, where Wilders travels regularly. According to the Volkskrant, in 2008 Wilders even changed the statutes of the Foundation to ensure that it could be used to accept donations for legal cases – the grounds of which remain unspecified in the document – that he might be faced with.

The Dutch press has tracked down several of the principal financial sources for the PVV in the US. Two figures stand out: David Horowitz and Daniel Pipes. Horowitz runs the online FrontPage Magazine and the David Horowitz Freedom Center, which with an annual budget of around 5 million dollars is an important financier of outlets such as Jihad Watch and Islam critic Robert Spencer.

Continue reading →

Brooklyn: interfaith marchers in support of mosque are jeered and abused

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sheepshead Bay anti-mosque protestorA peace march in support of a controversial proposed mosque in Sheepshead Bay turned ugly on Thursday after residents jeered marchers, most of whom were from outside the area.

“This is a Jewish neighborhood – build a mosque in your own neighborhood,” yelled Stan Yunatanov, who lives across the street from the proposed house of worship and cultural center planned for Voorhies Avenue between East 28th and East 29th streets. Another woman, who refused to give her name, yelled, “[Muslims] don’t love America. They hate America.”

There were no arrests, but tensions – which were already high ever since the Muslim American Society purchased the property earlier this year – was definitely of Biblical proportions during the “Children of Abraham Interfaith Peace Walk,” the seventh annual march for the Park Slope-based group.

The peace group originally planned to have its march in Coney Island, but decided to have it in Sheepshead Bay to support the embattled mosque project. “It’s a show of support for the right of all faiths to worship,” said Rabbi Ellen Lippmann, one of the event organizers and the head of Kolot Chayeinu, a Jewish congregation that holds its services in a Park Slope church.

The show of support had a distinct “outsider” feel, however. Organizers said that they tried to get locals involved, but failed. “We tried to recruit local clergy, but nobody wanted to join the walk,” said Rev. Tom Martinez, another Park Slope-based cleric.

As a result, the march started on Voorhies and Ocean avenues. In all, about 200 children and adults – many waving American flags – walked peacefully down Emmons Avenue and up Bedford Avenue before turning down Voorhies, where they were greeted with the catcalls. Some opponents held photos of Muslims burning an American flag and denounced the mosque’s affiliation with the Muslim American Society, which has been tied to Hamas and Hezbollah.

The Brooklyn Paper, 11 June 2010

Protests continue against Staten Island mosque and community centre

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Midland Beach protest placardDozens gathered in Midland Beach on Sunday to protest a plan to convert a former neighborhood convent into a mosque.

Demonstrators wanted the New York Archdiocese to back out of a proposed deal with the American Muslim Society, which plans to build a house of worship and a community center for the south shore’s growing Muslim population.

Protesters said they are concerned the group may have connections to radical organizations, and that the project is out of scale with the neighborhood.

NY1, 14 June 2010