Category Archives: USA

Muslims reach settlement with Dell on workplace prayer

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group today announced that Muslim contract employees at a Dell Inc. plant in Nashville, Tenn., have reached a settlement on issues related to a recent dispute over prayer in the workplace.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said the 31 Muslim employees, who left work last month in a disagreement over Islamic prayers, will be reinstated, receive back pay and be granted continued religious accommodation. Managers will also receive additional training on existing religious accommodation policies and practices. Other terms of the settlement will not be made public.

Announcement of the settlement came following a meeting today between representatives of CAIR, Dell, the Muslim workers, the Nashville Metro Human Relations Commission, and Spherion Corp., the company that provided the workers to Dell. (In a meeting on Saturday, most of the Muslim workers retained CAIR as their legal counsel.)

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Neocon mag promotes anti-Muslim hate literature

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today called on a prominent national neoconservative magazine to clarify its policy on anti-Muslim hate following revelations that the publication distributed an Internet advertisement for an virulently Islamophobic book. CAIR’s request came in response to a complaint from a member of the National Review’s e-mail list who received a message promoting an apparently self-published book that, according to the magazine, is a “guide into the dark mind of [the Prophet] Mohammed.”

The National Review’s review of the book states: “[The author] explains why Mohammed couldn’t possibly be a true prophet, and reveals the true sources of his ‘revelations.’” It quotes the author as claiming: “Mohammed posed as the apostle of God…while his life is marked by innumerable marriages; and great licentiousness, deeds of rapine, warfare, conquests, unmerciful butcheries, all the time invoking God’s holy name to sanction his evil deeds.”

According to the National Review, the book shows how “Mohammed again and again justified his rapine and licentiousness with new ‘divine revelations.’” “This anti-Muslim screed is the literary equivalent of ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ and should not be promoted by a publication that has any sense of decency,” said CAIR Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper. “The National Review must clarify its position on Islamophobic hate speech and offer a public apology for promoting a book that so viciously attacks the faith of one-fifth of the world’s population.”

Hooper said anti-Muslim rhetoric often leads to discrimination and even violence.

CAIR news report, 17 March 2005

Update:  “Mohammed posed as the apostle of God … while his life is marked by innumerable marriages, and great licentiousness, deeds of rapine, warfare, conquests, unmerciful butcheries, all the time invoking God’s holy name to sanction his evil deeds.” Sounds fair enough to me, says Robert Spencer.

Jihad Watch, 23 March 2005

Justice watchdog finds Muslim mistreatment

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The warden and guards at a federal prison discriminated and retaliated against Muslim inmates, the Justice Department’s inspector general said Friday in a report that also detailed allegations of mistreatment of Muslims at other US lockups.

In one instance at the unidentified federal prison, the warden “unjustly and inappropriately” ordered an inmate transferred to special housing similar to solitary confinement for more than four months, Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said. The move came five days after the inmate talked to Fine’s investigators.

Federal prosecutors declined to pursue criminal charges against the warden, and the incident was referred to the federal Bureau of Prisons, he said.

The treatment of Muslim prisoners was part of a semiannual report Fine produces about possible civil rights or civil liberties violations by the Justice Department.

The inspector general began one new investigation in the last half of 2004. It involves allegations that guards at another federal prison abused a Muslim inmate and allowed other inmates to assault him.

Fine also noted that the federal prison officials have yet to discipline anyone for the abuse more than a year after he documented the mistreatment of Arabs and Muslims detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

In addition, prison officials told the inspector general they discovered more videotapes of the detainees at the Brooklyn facility, as well as of meetings between detainees and their lawyers. Previously disclosed tapes helped confirm that guards slammed detainees against walls, twisted their arms and conducted unnecessary strip searches. The prisons bureau and Fine are investigating why the other tapes were not given to them sooner.

Muslim News, 12 March 2005

Muslims say Dell forbade them to pray at work

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Abdi Halane, a Somali refugee living in Nashville, is looking for a new job this month. In February, Halane was one of 30 Muslim assembly-line workers who walked away from their jobs building computers at a Dell Inc. facility after they were told to make a choice between prayers mandated by Islam and their job, according to Halane and another worker from the facility.

Washington Post, 12 March 2005

30 Muslim workers fired for praying on job at Dell

Posted on by Bob Pitt

30 Muslim workers fired for praying on job at Dell

Somalis left workstations at sunset; Human Relations Commission tries to mediate case

By Rob Johnson

The Tennessean, 10 March 2005

Work or pray.

Faced with that difficult decision, Abdi H. Nuur removed his employee badge and walked away last month from his forklift driver’s job at Dell Computer’s Nashville plant. He and 29 other Somali Muslims say they were forced to choose between their faith and their employment.

Now the Metro Human Relations Commission is trying to intervene in a confrontation that pits American-style production quotas against Islam’s requirement that its adherents pray daily when the sun sets.

“They told us that we cannot pray at sunset,” Nuur said. “They told us that we would have to wait for our break.”

He said he explained that while some of Islam’s five daily prayer times are somewhat flexible, the sunset prayer is not. Nor does the sun set at the same time every day.

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Posted in USA

Daniel Pipes backs Le Pen

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Daniel Pipes, considered by many Muslims to be America’s leading Islamophobe, recently expressed support for French far-right racist Jean-Marie Le Pen. On his web site, Pipes said Le Pen’s extremist views “represent an important outlook in the national debate over immigration and Islam“.

An appeals court in France recently upheld Le Pen’s conviction for inciting anti-Muslim hatred in a newspaper interview. Le Pen has been convicted of racism or anti-Semitism at least six times in the past.

See: Far-right leader’s conviction upheld

CAIR news report, 4 March 2004