www.amperspective.com Online Magazine
Executive Editor: Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Chronology of Islam in America (2016)
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
February 2016 - page two
Sanders' visit in Dearborn appeals to Arab Americans
Feb 14: Sanders’ visit to UAW local 600 on Monday, February 15th paid homage to southeast Michigan’s auto workers and unions that comprised a considerable share of the candidate’s constituency. His visit to Dearborn garnered a following from college students and local residents alike, with the region’s diverse South end the crux of the region’s Arab American and Latino community. Dearborn, a city situated in southeast Michigan with the highest percentage and concentration of Arab Americans (47 percent of the city’s entire population of 97,000 in 2013). Due to its diversity and imminent status as a rust belt state, many consider Michigan to be a key swing state for the 2016 election. James Zogby of the Arab American Institute (AAI) emphasized the importance of the Arab American vote for both the local and national community. “If Democrats lose Michigan, they lose the election.” Speaking to an audience situated in a city trademark to Arab Americans and autoworkers alike, Sanders’ presence garnered an immense following. Amongst Arab Americans in particular, Sanders has enjoyed a strong following from a demographic vying for more representation and less corporate control over politics. However, questions and concerns about Sanders’ domestic policies and attitudes towards Palestine continue to be a deal breaker for many Arab Americans. [Arab America]
Far-right Clarion Project releases anti-Muslim hate video
Feb 16: From far-right presidential candidates to overt hate groups, the spike in anti-Muslim incitement — and real violence — during the 2016 election cycle has generated widespread concern. A new viral video produced by the Clarion Project, a far-right organization labeled an "anti-Muslim group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center, is inspired by one of the New Atheist movement’s most well-known figures, author and neuroscientist Sam Harris. Entitled “By The Numbers — The Untold Story of Muslim Opinions & Demographics,” the Clarion video has garnered over 2.7 million views and is based on Harris’ dubious taxonomy of Muslims, in which he makes the case that the mainstream of the Islamic faith is directly tied to extremism. The video relies heavily on footage from Harris’ appearance on Bill Maher’s Real Time in October 2014, in which he laid out his so-called “spheres of radicalization.” The Clarion Project is described by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate organizations, as an “anti-Muslim group based in Washington, D.C. Clarion, formerly the Clarion Fund distributes a number of films promoting anti-Muslim conspiracy theories.” Among the group's board members is Frank Gaffney, described in the Hill as an “anti-Muslim conspiracist.” According to journalists Terri Johnson and Richard Cohen, “One of his regular conspiracy theories is that American Muslims are using a tactic he calls ‘stealth jihad’ to infiltrate the U.S. government, and he’s said everyone from Hillary Clinton to Grover Norquist is secretly supporting this agenda.” Clarion attracted widespread criticism in 2006 when it released the anti-Islam movie "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West." [AlterNet]
Apple CEO Tim Cook Refuses to Help FBI Hack Into iPhone
Feb 16: Citing the global “threat to data security,” Apple CEO Tim Cook today vowed to fight a federal judge’s order mandating the tech giant to create a backdoor to help the FBI hack into the iPhone. Judge Sheri Pym of the Federal District Court for Central California on today ordered the company to "assist in enabling the search” of the iPhone 5c that was used by Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the San Bernardino shooters killed by police. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s (EFF) analysis of the order, “For the first time, the government is requesting Apple write brand new code that eliminates key features of iPhone security — security features that protect us all.” “Essentially, the government is asking Apple to create a master key so that it can open a single phone,” the organization warned. “And once that master key is created, we're certain that our government will ask for it again and again, for other phones, and turn this power against any software or device that has the audacity to offer strong security.” [Alternet]
Woman claims Omaha bank made her remove religious scarf; still denied entry
Feb 16: A Muslim woman claims an Omaha bank denied her access, because of her religious beliefs. Police were called to Security National Bank this afternoon, but didn't take a report. Friends of the woman feel she was discriminated against for her beliefs. The incident has been shared hundreds of times on Facebook since this evening. The woman who we won't identify says she was coming to open a bank account at Security National Bank and stood in the breezeway to call her husband. That's when she says the door was locked on her because she was told to remove her hijab, a scarf most Muslim women wear as part of their religion. Multiple times she told them she couldn't take it off for religious reasons, but eventually did and even after, she says, they still wouldn't let her in. Sarah Ouedraogo and Bre Sheikh, two of the woman's friends who are also part of the Islamic Center of Omaha, say they believe she was discriminated against and treated unfairly because they didn't understand it was an expression of religion, not a plot to carry out a crime. "So I can obviously relate to the feelings that she had in that I'm peaceful, I'm a normal person, but everyone is perceiving me in another way,” Sheikh explained. [KMTV]
Greatest threat to free speech in the West: Criminalizing activism against Israeli occupation
Feb 18: The U. K. government today announced that it is will be illegal for “local [city] councils, public bodies, and even some university student unions … to refuse to buy goods and services from companies involved in the arms trade, fossil fuels, tobacco products, or Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.” Thus, any entities that support or participate in the global boycott of Israeli settlements will face “severe penalties.” This may sound like an extreme infringement of free speech and political activism — and, of course, it is — but it is far from unusual in the West. The opposite is now true. There is a very coordinated and well-financed campaign led by Israel and its supporters literally to criminalize political activism against Israeli occupation, based on the particular fear that the worldwide campaign of Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment, or BDS — modeled after the 1980s campaign that brought down the Israel-allied apartheid regime in South Africa — is succeeding. The Israeli website +972 reported last year about a pending bill that “would ban entry to foreigners who promote the [BDS] movement that aims to pressure Israel to comply with international law and respect Palestinian rights.” In 2011, a law passed in Israel that “effectively ban[ned] any public call for a boycott — economic, cultural, or academic — against Israel or its West Bank settlements, making such action a punishable offense.” But the current censorship goal is to make such activism a crime not only in Israel, but in Western countries generally. And it is succeeding. [ICH]
Michigan Republican voters support for ban on Muslims entering U.S.
Feb 19: A majority of likely Michigan Republican presidential primary voters said they support a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States, according to a Detroit News/WDIV-TV poll released today. About 51 percent of 600 likely GOP voters said they backed the idea while 40 percent responded that they opposed it, according to the survey by the Glengariff Group. Around 9 percent of those polled didn’t know or refused to answer. New York City billionaire and GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump proposed the ban on Dec. 7, five days after Islamic State supporter Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik shot and killed 14 people at a San Bernardino, California, social services center. They were subsequently shot dead by police. The Michigan poll findings are discouraging but “not surprising,” said Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Michigan chapter. “The GOP has been extremely divisive this election cycle, not just relating to Syrian refugees in particular but also the issue of border security, including anti-Mexican rhetoric. “...Fear sells and gets votes, especially in an election year,” Walid said, adding “no refugee has committed a terrorist attack in America in more than a decade.” Nearly three-quarters of Trump’s supporters in the survey back the temporary ban on Muslim immigrants. Backers of Cruz and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson support the Muslim immigrant prohibition idea, while supporters of U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida are split, according to the survey. Backers of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Ohio Gov. John Kasich oppose the proposal. The temporary Muslim immigrant ban was supported by 48 percent of likely primary voters who said they attend church weekly, while 42 percent were opposed. [The Detroit News]
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