New Yorkers rally against ‘climate of hostility’ that led to killing of Sunando Sen

Queens rally against hate crimes

NEW YORK — A coalition of advocacy groups and political leaders held a rally on Tuesday linking the subway pushing death of a South Asian man to a broader anti-Muslim environment in New York City – inflamed, they said, by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the New York City Police Department.

“When our own government, our own police, our own institutions, our own media continue to engage in racial profiling or painting communities as suspect, we cannot expect the results to be any different than what they are right now,” said Fahd Ahmed, legal and policy director for the South Asian advocacy group Desis Rising Up and Moving.

The Queens rally centered around the death of Sunando Sen, a Hindu immigrant from India who was crushed to his death by a subway train after 31-year-old Erika Menendez allegedly pushed him on Dec. 27. Menendez, who has a history of mental problems, told investigators she shoved Sen because she thought he was Muslim and “I hate Hindus and Muslims ever since 2001 when they put down the twin towers,” police said.

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Fox News promotes Islamophobic film

Jihad in America The Grand DeceptionNews Hounds reports that Fox News’ latest contribution to the incitement of Islamophobia is its promotion of an Islamophobic documentary film called Jihad in America: The Grand Deception.

The film is produced by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, which is headed by Steve Emerson (listed in Fear Inc. as one of the “leading lights of the Islamophobia network“). It claims to expose:

“the covert structure and growing influence of the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamist groups, masquerading under the false moniker of being apolitical religious groups or civil rights groups in the United States, specifically how they are infiltrating or intimidating major societal institutions from Congress to Hollywood, from the mainstream news media to federal law enforcement, from the publishing industry to museums”.

The parallels between this sort of anti-Muslim scaremongering and classic antisemitic conspiracy theories scarcely need underlining. Yet that didn’t prevent Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly (who had earlier provided a boost to the demented David Horowitz) from giving credence to the claims in Jihad in America, along with a sympathetic interview with Steve Emerson himself (the self-proclaimed expert on terrorism who, you may recall, assured everyone that the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing was probably carried out by “Middle Eastern terrorists”).

CAIR auctions off Allen West’s ‘Nuts!’ letter on ebay

Former Congressman Allen West’s “Nuts!” letter went up for auction on ebay today with a starting bid of $1000.

The letter received a wave of national press coverage in July 2011 when it was written as a response to the Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization CAIR’s penning of a letter titled Cut your ties with anti-Islam Extremist!

The framed paper, hailed as “one of the shortest Congressional Letters ever written in US History,” is the original letter on official U.S. Congressional stationary signed by Allen West.

The listing states, “This item has something for everyone. It doesn’t matter if you are a die-hard member of the Tea Party, Democratic Party, or protect the Civil Rights of Americans; this item is perfect for your collection.”

BizPac Review, 7 January 2013

See also CAIR press release, 7 January 2013

Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and freedom of speech

Watching Randy Linn in court last month was unsettling. He pleaded guilty to defacing religious property, using fire to commit a felony, and carrying a firearm as he walked through the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo last Sept. 30. He accepted a binding plea agreement of 20 years in prison, without appeal or parole, for the arson.

His diatribe at the hearing was worse. He cited news media, especially Fox News, for inspiring his desire to avenge U.S. military deaths. He conceded he knew nothing about Muslims or Islam, other than that Muslims did not believe in Jesus Christ as savior.

America’s Constitution promises justice, liberty, and protection of citizens. Yet a wave of Islamophobia, reflected in incidents such as the Islamic Center arson, suggests that we are more intent on protecting freedom of speech than Americans’ lives and property.

In 2004, when he signed the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act, President George W. Bush said that “extending freedom also means disrupting the evil of anti-Semitism.” The law requires a specific federal agency to document acts of physical violence against Jews, their property, their cemeteries, and their places of worship. It also mandates monitoring of anti-Jewish propaganda and promotion of unbiased school curricula.

There is no similar law to respond to this country’s ferocious and well-funded Islamophobia industry, which relentlessly whips up anti-Muslim sentiment that can inspire disturbed people to destroy property, maim, and even kill.

Mahjabeen Islam in the Toledo Blade, 6 January 2013

Stand by for right-wing Islamophobes and self-styled secularists to denounce this excellent article as a demand for a blasphemy law and for the destruction of free expression in the US through the imposition of Sharia on the non-Muslim majority.

EDL leader Stephen Lennon jailed for 10 months for using false passport to attend Geller’s conference

Geller and Lennon SION conference
Pamela Geller welcomes illegal immigrant Stephen Lennon to New York

The leader of the English Defence League has been jailed for using someone else’s passport to get into the United States. Stephen Lennon, 30, pleaded guilty to possession of a false identity document with improper intention, contrary to the Identity Documents Act 2010, at Southwark Crown Court.

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‘My Jihad’ ad campaign rolls out on San Francisco buses

My Jihad poster (3)

For the second time in recent months, billboards on side of San Francisco’s fleet of buses have become the front lines in a fight over the place of Islam in American popular culture.

A new series of ads from the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ spinoff group My Jihad promote an awareness campaign directed at redefining the widespread conception of the meaning of the controversial word. The advertisements are slated to run on 35 city buses throughout the month of January.

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Man shot outside Florida Walmart after attacker demanded ‘Are you Muslim?’

Pasco County deputies are investigating an attack outside a Walmart as a hate crime. It happened around 3 a.m. Wednesday at the Walmart at 1575 Land O’Lakes Blvd in Lutz.

Deputies say a man and a woman in their 20s were heading out to their car in the parking lot. Another man, also in his 20s, approached them and asked them a series of questions.

“The first question to the male was ‘are you of Middle Eastern descent?'” explained Doug Tobin, spokesman for the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office. Tobin said the male victim responded, “No, I’m not.”

Then the man asked another question: “Are you Muslim?” The victim again responded, “No, I’m not a Muslim.”

Deputies say the suspect then yelled a racial slur, alluding to the fact the victim was “with a white woman.” Then the man pulled out a BB or air soft gun.

“The suspect shot about 20 rounds of this air soft/Pellet gun, toward our victims. Fortunately, they weren’t seriously hurt. But it’s a serious crime,” Tobin said.

The man was hit twice in the face. He was treated on the scene and released, and the woman he was with was not hurt.

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