Category Archives: USA

Islamic convert found guilty on terror conspiracy charge

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jose Padilla (2)Jose Padilla, a young American convert to Islam, who was jailed without charge in the aftermath of the 11 September attacks and allegedly tortured, was convicted on terrorism conspiracy charges yesterday.

Mr Padilla achieved notoriety when the former US Attorney General John Ashcroft announced on television from Moscow that he was part of an “unfolding terrorist plot to attack the United States by exploding a radioactive dirty bomb” with the intention of causing “mass death and injury.” Despite the hysteria whipped up by Mr Ashcroft, no evidence was ever presented linking Mr Padilla to such a plot.

Yesterday’s verdict was a rare legal victory for the Bush Administration however. It has seen charges thrown out against virtually all those swept up after the al-Qai’da attacks on America. A federal jury took little more than a day to reach its verdict and Mr Padilla, 36, can now expect to spend the rest of his life in jail.

Anthony Natale, one of Mr Padilla’s lawyers said he was never connected to al-Qai’da and had no intention to support terrorism. “In this case, you will see how in the absence of hard evidence, a suspicion can be fuelled by fear, nourished by prejudice and directed by politics into a criminal prosecution,” Mr Natale said.

Independent, 17 August 2007

NYPD warns – watch out for Muslims with beards

Posted on by Bob Pitt

They preferred bookstores or hookah bars to mosques. They stopped listening to pop music and instead surfed Web sites promoting radical Islam. They threw away their baseball caps and grew beards. New York Police Department intelligence analysts have concluded those were some of the telltale signs of homegrown terrorists in the making – a mounting threat as grave as that from established terrorist groups like al-Qaida.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations accused the NYPD analysts of distorting the innocent behavior of observant Muslims. “Is Islamic attire or giving up bad habits … now to be regarded as suspicious behavior?” asked the group’s chairman, Parvez Ahmed.

Kareem Shora, legal adviser for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, called the findings faulty and inflammatory. “The report is at odds with federal law enforcement findings, including those of the recently released National Intelligence Estimate, and uses unfortunate stereotyping of entire communities,” Shora said in a statement. “The use of such language by the NYPD is un-American and goes against everything for which we stand.”

Associated Press, 16 August 2007

CAIR calls for hate-crime investigation in California mosque arson

Posted on by Bob Pitt

ANTIOCH, Calif. — An Islamic group called on authorities Monday to launch a hate-crime investigation into a fire that caused $200,000 in damage to an Antioch mosque.

Investigators with the Contra Costa County Fire Protection District said they are treating the fire that broke out early Sunday morning at the Islamic Center of the East Bay as possible arson, but have found no evidence it was motivated by religion.

Safaa Ibrahim, executive director of the San Francisco Bay area chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the fire was part of an ongoing campaign to “terrorize” members of the local Muslim community. The mosque had been vandalized several times in recent months – including multiple shots being fired through the windows and walls one night, graffiti scrawled on the walls and a break-in Friday.

Ibrahim said the blaze was apparently started by the burning of religious texts and is the latest attempt to frighten local Muslims. “It’s an act of terror, it’s an act of violence against this community and this mosque,” she said. “They targeted this as an Islamic mosque. They didn’t go to just any other building.”

Emily Hopkins, spokeswoman for the fire protection district, said investigators believe the one-alarm fire was intentionally set and have leads on a possible suspect. However, Hopkins said, there was no evidence that it was a targeted attack against Muslims.

Associated Press, 13 August 2007

Guantánamo man’s family release torture dossier

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A British resident held by the US as an alleged terrorist has claimed his captors repeatedly tortured him, subjecting him to beatings, sexual abuse and threats of execution.

Omar Deghayes, 37, is one of five British residents who the United Kingdom government last week asked the US to release from Guantanámo Bay, after years of refusing to help them because they were not UK citizens.

Yesterday the family of Mr Deghayes decided to release a detailed dossier of alleged torture which the former law student dictated to a lawyer who visited him in the Cuban internment camp.

Guardian, 11 August 2007

Footbaths at US university provoke charges of ‘Islamification’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

DEARBORN, Mich. — When pools of water began accumulating on the floor in some restrooms at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, and the sinks pulling away from the walls, the problem was easy to pinpoint. On this campus, more than 10 percent of the students are Muslims, and as part of ritual ablutions required before their five-times-a-day prayers, some were washing their feet in the sinks. The solution seemed straightforward. After discussions with the Muslim Students’ Association, the university announced that it would install $25,000 foot-washing stations in several restrooms.

But as a legal and political matter, that solution has not been quite so simple. When word of the plan got out this spring, it created instant controversy, with bloggers going on about the Islamification of the university. On her Web site, Debbie Schlussel, a conservative lawyer and blogger in Southfield, Mich., posted, “Forget about the Constitutionally mandated separation of church and state … at least when it comes to mosque and state.”

New York Times, 7 August 2007

‘Comedian’ accused of racist hate speech is member of NSS

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pat Condell“The atheist comedian Pat Condell (who we are pleased to say is a member of the NSS) placed a five minute ‘video monologue’ entitled ‘The Trouble with Islam’ on the web and it has now scored over a million hits. If you haven’t seen it yet, take a look.

“Pat Condell reveals: ‘It has also received well over 100,000 hits on YouTube, proving that there is an enthusiastic audience for comedy ideas and opinions which are routinely censored out of existence in the UK’s mainstream media, thanks to misguided political correctness.’

“In May this year, members of the City of Berkeley’s Peace and Justice Commission drew widespread ridicule when they publicly condemned the video as racist hate speech.”

National Secular Society Newsline, 10 August 2007

Well, you can understand why Condell’s bigoted rant would attract a lot of traffic, given the way it has been enthusiastically embraced by the racist Right, including fascists. See for example here.

For the Berkeley controversy, see here.

Guantánamo inmates could finally go free

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Guantanamo inmatesHuman rights activists congratulated the Brown government on Tuesday for requesting the return of five British residents being detained at the US concentration camp at Guantánamo Bay. The Foreign Office and Home Secretary Jacqui Smith have announced that they will request the return to Britain of Jamil el-Banna, Omar Deghayes, Shaker Abdur Raheem Aamer, Binyam Mohammed and Abdennour Sameur. Foreign Secretary David Miliband has written to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to formally make the request.

Amnesty International campaigns director Tim Hancock called on the government to “move quickly. We’ve been saying for several years that Britain should have been seeking the fair trial or safe release of the British residents imprisoned at Guantánamo,” Mr Hancock pointed out. “Guantánamo is a travesty of justice and it’s important that the government starts speaking out about the hundreds of men who are still held there – they must not become Guantánamo’s forgotten prisoners,” he insisted.

Omar Deghayes’s sister Amina said that she was “getting mixed messages” and would not be able to celebrate until her brother is back in Britain. “Some people are telling me he is definitely coming back, but others are saying that they may not be successful for a while,” Ms Deghayes reported.

The British government has admitted that negotiations with Washington “may take some time.” US ambassador to London Robert Tuttle vowed to “study the request to release them very seriously and get back with all due, deliberate speed.”

Mr Aamer’s father-in-law Saeed Ahmed Siddique said that his family felt let down by the government because it had taken so long to seek his release. “The government should have done more because all his family members, his wife and four children are British nationals and it is not fair to separate a husband from his family,” Mr Siddique noted. “His youngest child has never seen his father. It’s not justice,” he added.

Progressive legal firm Reprieve, which has represented all five men in their challenges to their illegal detention, hailed “a significant change in British policy.” It noted that, until now, the British government had refused to intervene and had been standing in the way of cleared British residents – such as Mr el-Banna, who is the father of five British children – being allowed to return home to their families.

Reprieve legal director Clive Stafford Smith applauded the Brown government “on a huge step in the right direction. At last we are seeing an ethical foreign policy – action rather than words,” Mr Stafford Smith said. He added that, when the British government enforces human rights, “we have some chance of healing the rift with the Islamic world.”

Morning Star, 8 August 2007

The radical Islamic group that acts as ‘conveyor belt’ for terror – Independent

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Shiv Malik continues the witch-hunt against Hizb ut-Tahrir. Although he comes down against a ban, the main thrust of his article is to provide a justification for it.

Independent on Sunday, 7 August 2005

Predictably, the authority quoted for the “conveyor belt” claim is US right-winger Zeyno Baran. As we have pointed out before with regard Ms Baran, she is associated with such reliable institutions as
National Review Online and The Counterterrorism Blog

See Yusuf Smith’s comments at Indigo Jo Blogs, 7 August 2005