No, it’s not a spoof headline. It comes from Atlas Shrugs, the blog of mad Pamela Geller.
Category Archives: USA
Muslim woman sacked by US store for wearing headscarf
A Muslim woman has lodged a complaint with federal officials after she said she was fired from her job at a San Mateo clothing store for refusing to remove her hijab, or head scarf.
Hani Khan, 19, of Foster City said she was fired Monday at the Hollister clothing store at the Hillsdale Shopping Center. She was dismissed a week after a district manager visited the store, called her into a meeting and said she was not supposed to wear the scarf while at work, said Khan, who is of Indian and Pakistani descent.
A representative from human resources joined the meeting by phone, and Khan said she had been told that she was in violation of the store’s “look policy.”
“I thought it was quite unfair,” Khan said in an interview. “It was really surprising, especially in the Bay Area, because everybody’s so open-minded and accepting of everybody. It’s really surprising to see blatant discrimination against someone who is of an Islamic state who is wearing a hijab.”
Khan contacted the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy group. On Tuesday, the organization filed a complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against Abercrombie & Fitch, which operates Hollister stores.
Zahra Billoo, a spokeswoman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Khan’s firing was “unconscionable.” “Firing someone explicitly for a religious reason or practice is, in our view, against the law,” Billoo said.
In September, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued Abercrombie & Fitch for allegedly discriminating against a 17-year-old Muslim in Oklahoma by refusing to hire her because she wore a hijab. The case is pending.
San Francisco Chronicle, 26 February 2010
See also Tracy Clark-Flory, “Abercrombie hates your hijab”, Salon.com, 25 February 2010
And “Fired Calif. Muslim Abercrombie employee threatened”, CAIR news release, 25 February 2010
Muslim woman sacked by US store for wearing headscarf
A Muslim woman has lodged a complaint with federal officials after she said she was fired from her job at a San Mateo clothing store for refusing to remove her hijab, or head scarf.
Hani Khan, 19, of Foster City said she was fired Monday at the Hollister clothing store at the Hillsdale Shopping Center. She was dismissed a week after a district manager visited the store, called her into a meeting and said she was not supposed to wear the scarf while at work, said Khan, who is of Indian and Pakistani descent.
A representative from human resources joined the meeting by phone, and Khan said she had been told that she was in violation of the store’s “look policy.”
“I thought it was quite unfair,” Khan said in an interview. “It was really surprising, especially in the Bay Area, because everybody’s so open-minded and accepting of everybody. It’s really surprising to see blatant discrimination against someone who is of an Islamic state who is wearing a hijab.”
Double standards on terror counterproductive says CAIR
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), along with other national Muslim organizations, today held a news conference in Washington, D.C., to express concerns over a perceived double standard on the use of the label “terrorism” as it relates to acts of political violence committed by people who are not Muslims.
CAIR’s news conference was prompted by coverage of last week’s politically-motivated airborne suicide attack on an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) office in Austin, Texas, which the Muslim civil rights and advocacy group called an act of “terror.”
In a statement read at today’s Capitol Hill event, CAIR Legal Counsel Nadhira Al-Khalili said:
“American law defines ‘terrorism’ as ‘premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets’ or as ‘the unlawful use of force against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.’
“When an act that fits these definitions is carried out by a Muslim individual or group, there is and should be no hesitation in labeling that act ‘terrorism.’
“Regrettably, when an act fitting the legal definitions of terrorism is carried out by someone who is not Muslim, there seems to be a general reluctance on the part of commentators, public officials and law enforcement agencies to use the term.
“Last week’s attack on the IRS office in Texas perfectly fits either legal definition of terrorism, yet it has not been labeled as such. This apparent double standard only serves to render the term ‘terrorism’ meaningless and imbues it with a sense of religious and ethnic bias that is both counterproductive and offensive.”
US conservervatives told ‘Islam itself is the threat’
The speakers participating in “Jihad: America’s Third Rail,” an “unofficial” panel at today’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) wanted their standing-room only audience to know that there’s more to fear than jihad – it’s Islam itself that is the threat.
Sentiments like that are what has made this panel – which just ended here at the Marriott Wardman Hotel in D.C – one of the more controversial at the three-day conservative confab.
“Everyone knows Islam is a religion of peace that has been hijacked by a tiny minority,” said Robert Spencer, sarcastically and to a great amount of applause and guffaws. Spencer, executive director of Jihad Watch and associate director of the Freedom Defense Initiative, which he recently founded with Atlas Shrugged blogger Pamela Geller, told his audience everyone believes that “like they believe in Santa Claus though no one has ever seen it.”
He declared that “conservative media leaders even parrot this line” that Islam is a peaceful religion at its core.
So defined the event, which repeated the group’s message, that political correctness was preventing the American people – elected officials and the government included – from acknowledging – in Geller’s words – that Islamists “have infiltrated at every level of society and all levels of government.”
Sensationalised TV report provokes attack on Nashville mosque
Vandals spray-painted insults on a mosque overnight and left a hate-filled letter to Nashville’s Muslims.
Islamic leaders blame Channel 5’s sensationalized two-night report about a crackpot organization’s unfounded accusations of terrorist ties against a Middle Tennessee Muslim community.
“Muslims Go Home” and a Crusade-style cross were scrawled across the front of Al-Farooq Islamic Center on Nolensville Road, says Salaad Nur, a spokesman. He says the mosque, which primarily serves members of the Somali community, has contacted the police and the FBI.
“They also left a letter at the youth center that says Muslims are friends of Satan and we are here to destroy the United States and to destroy Israel and things of that nature,” he says. “We’re a little bit shaken up. I hope this is just a scare and things don’t get any worse than this.”
“It’s unexpected,” he adds. “The only thing I can think of is the sensationalized reporting [by Channel 5] over Sunday and Monday. That’s the only thing I can think of. Even after 9/11 we have never had any vandalism.”
Nashville Scene, 10 February 2010
Via LoonWatch
See also “Community reaches out to local Islamic Center after hate crime”, City Paper, 11 February 2011
Muslim women ‘radicalised’ in UK
“On Monday a female suicide bomber killed 54 people in north-east Baghdad. The attack may have happened on another continent, but there are increasing concerns that violent extremism among women may now also be increasing in the UK. It is believed that the process of radicalisation often takes place at universities. One Islamist group linked with this practice is Hizb ut-Tahrir.”
The suicide bombing not only happened on another continent, it had no connection with Hizb ut-Tahrir whatsoever. The article goes on to say that HT is “not itself connected to any terrorist acts”. So what possible relevance does the attack in Iraq have to HT? This is the kind of scurrilous journalistic amalgam that you’d expect from the likes of the Daily Mail or the Sun.
The effect of the article is to portray Muslim women in the UK as some sort of terrorist threat. Unsurprisingly, this gets the support of the Centre for Social Cohesion, on whose behalf Houriya Ahmed explains:
“You do see women being radicalised in the UK. You also have terrorist organisations like al-Qaeda which state that it is an obligation for women to take part in jihad. For example, the wife of al-Qaeda’s second-in-command issued a letter to Muslim women worldwide. You have also seen suicide bomb attacks by women in Iraq supported by the al-Qaeda narrative, so there is a strong possibility that this could occur in Britain and this needs to be taken seriously.”
Predictably, the article has been seized on by Robert Spencer over at Jihad Watch.
Veiled threat
“The woman in niqab is the figurehead of a subversive movement that threatens all democratic nations.”
Nidra Poller in the Wall Street Journal, 29 January 2010
California: Republican party asked to repudiate councilwoman’s anti-Islam posting
The Greater Los Angeles Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-LA) today called on the California Republican Party to repudiate anti-Islam comments posted on Facebook by a Republican member of the Lancaster, Calif., city council.
CAIR-LA also sent a letter to the councilwoman asking her to meet with members of the American Muslim and interfaith communities to discuss the negative impact of the inflammatory remarks.
In her recent Facebook post, Council Member Sherry Marquez wrote in reference to a murder trial in New York involving a Muslim defendant:
This is what the Muslim religion is all about – the beheadings, honor killings are just the beginning of what is to come in the USA. We are told this is a small majority [sic] of Muslim’s [sic] in America, but it is truly what they are all about… You disrespect/dishonor them or their religion and you should die (they don’t even blink at killing their own wives/daughters, because they are justified by their religion)…
US lifts bans on Tariq Ramadan and Adam Habib
In a major victory for civil liberties, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has signed orders that effectively end the exclusion of two prominent scholars who were barred from the United States by the Bush administration. The American Civil Liberties Union challenged the denial of visas to Professors Adam Habib of the University of Johannesburg and Tariq Ramadan of St. Antony’s College, Oxford University, in separate lawsuits filed on behalf of American organizations that had invited the scholars to speak to audiences inside the United States.
“The orders ending the exclusion of Adam Habib and Tariq Ramadan are long overdue and tremendously important,” said Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU National Security Project. “For several years, the United States government was more interested in stigmatizing and silencing its foreign critics than in engaging them. The decision to end the exclusion of Professors Habib and Ramadan is a welcome sign that the Obama administration is committed to facilitating, rather than obstructing, the exchange of ideas across international borders.”
ACLU press release, 21 January 2009
See also New York Times, 20 January 2010