For the education of the right-wing bigots whose knee-jerk response was to blame the Boston Marathon bombing on “Islamic terrorists”, Juan Cole lists the top ten ways that Islamic law and tradition forbid terrorism.
Category Archives: USA
Ex-Marine who says he set Ohio mosque fire to avenge soldier deaths gets 20 years in prison
TOLEDO, Ohio — A federal judge sentenced a former Marine from Indiana to 20 years in prison Tuesday for starting a fire inside an Ohio mosque because he wanted revenge for the killings of American soldiers overseas.
Randy Linn, 52, apologized in court and blamed what happened on a day of heavy drinking. He said late last year while pleading guilty that he’d become enraged after seeing images of wounded soldiers in the news and decided to burn the mosque.
U.S. District Judge Jack Zouhary ordered Linn, of St. Joe, Ind., to pay $1.4 million for the damages caused by the fire.
CAIR asks Fox News to drop contributor who tweeted ‘kill’ all Muslims
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today called on Fox News to sever ties with a contributor who tweeted “Let’s kill them [Muslims] all” in response to yesterday’s deadly Boston Marathon bombings.
CONTACT FOX: (As always, be POLITE and respectful.)
CAIR, which issued a call for prayers and blood donations for the victims, says regular Fox News contributor Erik Rush tweeted his “kill them all” comment after being asked, “Are you already blaming Muslims?” He responded, “Yes, they’re evil. Let’s kill them all.” Rush later deleted his tweet, calling it “sarcasm.” In subsequent tweets, he called critics of the “kill” comment “idiots,” “Islamic apologist worms” and “vermin.”
Crowdfunding hate
Nathan Lean reports on the campaign to persuade the crowdfunding site Indiegogo to withdraw its facilities from Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer’s American Freedom Defense Initiative, in line with its own rules banning the promotion of hate.
New York: Man leaving mosque threatened, followed by armed suspect in SUV
Police are looking for the SUV driver who followed a man leaving a Queens mosque Friday night and threatened him with a gun at a traffic light while using anti-Muslim slurs.
Authorities say the victim left a mosque on Kissena Boulevard in Kew Gardens Hills at about 8 p.m. and got into his car. After he had been driving for a few blocks, he noticed a man in a dark SUV was following him.
The suspect trailed him for several more blocks, and pulled up next to him when he stopped at a trafficl ight on Union Turnpike, police said. The suspect then pulled out a gun and began threatening the victim’s life, according to police. He also made anti-Muslim statements before driving off.
Boston bombing: Geller blames a ‘Jihadi’
The Islamophobic blogger does what we all expect her to do after the Boston Marathon bombing, Alex Seitz-Wald reports.
Anti-Islamic hate-crime rate differs greatly among states, US study finds
Islamic hate crimes have increased significantly nationwide since 2009, but the trend is complicated to decipher at the state level.
An analysis by the Scripps Howard Foundation Wire found that states with the largest Muslim populations have broad disparities in anti-Islamic, hate-crime incidents.
Geller gets to speak at Long Island synagogue
Pamela Geller, an outspoken activist known for her anti-Islamic terrorism viewpoints, spoke before a packed crowd this morning at Chabad of Great Neck in Long Island.
Geller’s group, Stop Islamization of America, has been classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League.
Her speech was originally slated to be delivered at the Great Neck Synagogue, but was canceled. The synagogue claims the cancellation was due to security concerns.
“It is a sad day for Long Island,” said the Muslim Center of LI Bay Shore Mosque in a statement. “Ms. Geller is not an expert on Islam. We would not allow an extremist Muslim to speak at a mosque.”
Muslim job seeker’s suit can proceed against Abercrombie & Fitch
A federal judge has refused to dismiss a religious discrimination case brought on behalf of a job applicant who wore a hijab, a Muslim head covering, and was rejected by Abercrombie & Fitch Stores Inc.
Among issues cited in Tuesday’s ruling by a San Jose, Calif., federal judge in Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores Inc., dba Abercrombie Kids were the shifting reasons provided by the manager-in-training who interviewed teenager Halla Banafa and rejected her for a position as a stock room clerk in the company’s Milpitas, Calif., store.
Ohio: Suit says Muslim’s firing was based on religious bias
A North Side man has filed a federal lawsuit that says a Westerville-based logistics company fired him after he sought permission to attend weekly Muslim worship services that conflicted with overtime shifts.
The lawsuit was filed Tuesday on behalf of Yusuf Sufi, 23, by the Columbus chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. It says Exel Inc. used religious discrimination and retaliation, and wrongfully terminated him. Exel is a subsidiary of Deutsche Post DHL.