Category Archives: USA

California: Anti-Muslim bigot gets slap on wrist from GOP

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The San Bernardino County Republican Party committee member who made anti-Muslim and anti-Sikh remarks will receive a letter of reprimand from the county GOP but will not be asked to step down from her post.

In the days leading to a March 2 election for California Republican Party leaders, Vera Eyzendooren railed against Harmeet Dhillon, a Sikh woman from San Francisco who was a candidate for state vice chair. Dhillon won.

“I was told by one of Harmeet’s friends that because of her religion, her loyalty is to the Muslim religion,” Eyzendooren wrote in a Facebook post. “So she will defend a Muslim beheading 2 men without any hesitation … She is not a Republican.”

Sikhism is a separate religion from Islam, but Sikhs often are mistaken for Muslims.

The executive committee of the county GOP decided at its meeting Thursday night, March 21, to “give her a letter of reprimand and move on,” said the county party chairman, Assemblyman Curt Hagman, R-Chino Hills.

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Daily Mail links Islam to mass murder

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Daily Mail Dark Knight killer headline

Earlier this week the Daily Mail published a story headlined “Dark Knight killer James Holmes ‘is now a Muslim who prays five times a day'”. The report began:

“James Holmes, the gunman behind the Dark Knight massacre in Colorado last July, has reportedly turned Muslim and prays five times a day. The killer showed off a lengthy, thick beard during a court appearance earlier this month, and a prison source has claimed it is a symbol of his new-found faith. The source said Holmes has turned to Islam as a way of justifying his horrific murder spree in an Aurora, Colorado cinema on July 20 which left 12 people dead and 58 people wounded.”

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Student senate at UC Berkeley passes resolution condemning lecturer’s Islamophobic hate speech

Posted on by Bob Pitt

On Wednesday evening, the Associated Students at the University of California (ASUC) at Berkeley voted unanimously to support a resolution “condeming Islamophobic hate speech at the University of California.”

The resolution focused on the recent incident of the outrageously racist and Islamophobic hate speech of Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, a lecturer at UC Santa Cruz, who was videotaped in June 2012 saying that campus activists involved in Students for Justice in Palestine and Muslim student organizations have ties to “terrorist organizations.”

Rossman-Benjamin, as The Electronic Intifada has extensively reported, is the co-founder of an outside political group, the Amcha Initiative, which seeks out students and professors who criticize Israel or engage in Palestine solidarity activism, accuse them of “anti-Semitism,” and urge university administrations — or state officials — to take punitive action against them.

Electronic Intifada, 21 March 2013

Toledo mosque arsonist can’t withdraw guilty plea, judge rules

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A former Marine who admitted setting fire to an Ohio mosque because he wanted revenge for the killings of American troops overseas won’t be allowed to withdraw his guilty plea, a judge ruled Thursday.

Randy Linn had asked to take back his admission to hate crime charges in January, a month after he explained in detail how he drove from his Indiana home to the suburban Toledo mosque and burned a prayer rug, causing extensive damage in the building.

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Geller and Spencer attempt to turn San Francisco’s LGBT community against Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

AFDI anti-Islam gay adsOver the past year in San Francisco, the war over the popular conception of Islam has been continuously fought on the unlikeliest of battlefields–the sides of the city’s buses.

Purchased by the pro-Israeli American Freedom Defense Initiative, the most recent set of ads show inflammatory, anti-gay quotations from Muslims like controversial cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and U.K. radio personality Sister Ruby Ramadan.

“The ads will increase awareness about the subjugation and oppression of gays under Shariah law,” Geller told the San Francisco Examiner. “The gay community should be standing with me, not against me.”

Huffington Post, 20 March 2013

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Geller tells CPAC audience that conservative Muslims are waging a ‘stealth jihad”

Posted on by Bob Pitt

CPAC 2013 (2)On Saturday, Breitbart hosted an unofficial panel at CPAC aptly titled “The Uninvited: A series of controversial speakers and panels.” In their own words, the Breitbart panel was to “continue its tradition of leading conversations on issues the Republican establishment and the mainstream media refuse to address.” According to them, the issues that were to be discussed included “illegal immigration, global jihad and radical Islam and the persecution of Christians around the globe.”

However, the only thing the speakers, which included the likes of Pamela Geller, Frank Gaffney, and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, seemed to have focused on was ignorant, demeaning, and Islamophobic speech laced with ridiculous claims such as Frank Gaffney’s allegation that ex-Bush staffer and CPAC board member Suhail Khan, a Muslim, is the “prince of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

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NYPD surveillance of Muslims has created a climate of fear

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Mapping MuslimsA new report released last week by a coalition of Muslim civil liberties groups paints a grim picture of the targeting of Muslims in the NYPD’s post-9/11 anti-terrorism surveillance operations.

The report, Mapping Muslims: NYPD Spying and its Impact on American Muslims, tells how the NYPD’s extensive surveillance – always in the name of national security – has created a climate of fear and distrust among Muslims, has had a chilling effect on their ability to worship freely at mosques, and has deterred organization around Muslim civil rights issues.

Report co-author Diala Shamas, an attorney with Creating Law Enforcement Accountability and Responsibility (CLEAR), said the research, which included 57 interviews with Muslims living in the New York City area, is a response to long held concerns that the NYPD is infringing on the constitutional freedoms of Muslims. “We wanted to show the community’s response to the NYPD’s claim that this surveillance is harmless,” said Shamas. (CLEAR is a project run out of the City University of New York’s School of Law.)

Among the report’s key findings: individuals reported heavy surveillance of the city’s mosques as places of suspected radicalization, which has made individuals wary when attending services; and the fear of being targeted by law enforcement has led to self-censorship and decreased involvement in community groups like Muslim Student Associations. A particular concern cited in the report is the department’s deployment of an unknown number of undercover informants throughout the city,. “You look at your closest friends and ask: are they informants?” said one respondent.

The Nation, 18 March 2013

Upcoming Ailes biography reveals Fox’s Islamophobia goes straight to the top

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Roger AilesIn an upcoming biography of Fox News president Roger Ailes, author Zev Chafets reports that Ailes hasn’t donated to any Muslim charities, and connects that decision to comments tying all Muslim charities to terrorism. Ailes’ brand of Islamophobia is mirrored in Fox News’ coverage, which has repeatedly tried to connect all Muslims and Muslim institutions with terrorism.

In his new book Roger Ailes: Off Camera, an early copy of which was obtained by Media Matters, Chafets describes Ailes’ charitable giving as being spread among a variety of religious charities. Despite giving to charities of various faiths, Chafets reported that Ailes has not given to any Muslim charities, quoting Ailes as saying he would only support those organizations “if they disarm” (emphasis added).

The implication that all Muslim charities are connected to terrorism is in line with the Islamophobic rhetoric that regularly appears on Fox News. Fox hosts and guests have a long history of invoking terrorism to attack Muslims and Islam.

Media Matters, 18 March 2013

San Francisco leaders denounce anti-Islam bus ads

Posted on by Bob Pitt

AFDI anti-Islam adsSan Francisco leaders have denounced a series of what they call anti-Islamic advertisements that began appearing on 10 city buses on Monday, calling them racist and offensive.

At least one of the ads contains a quote attributed to the militant Islamic group Hamas that reads: “Killing Jews is worship that brings us closer to Allah.”

Mayor Ed Lee, District Attorney George Gascon and other elected officials joined Arab and Muslim community leaders to publicly condemn the ads on Monday. “These offensive ads serve no purpose than to denigrate our city’s Arab and Muslim communities,” Gascon said.

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