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Executive Editor: Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Chronology of Islam in America (2018)
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
February 2018 - Page Two
Idaho House passes anti-Sharia law bill, 44-24
Feb 20: The Idaho House has voted 44-24 in favor of HB 419, Rep. Eric Redman’s anti-Sharia law bill, which seeks to forbid the recognition of any foreign law by Idaho courts. Here's the full vote breakdown: As he has before, Redman read large portions of his opening debate word-for-word from the American Public Policy Alliance’s “American Laws for American Courts” website. The bill follows model legislation developed by the group, which is headed by Louisiana attorney Stephen Gele; it promotes the concept to states, and has gotten it passed in several. A 2010 Oklahoma constitutional amendment forbidding that state’s courts from considering Sharia in decisions was overturned in federal court in 2013. Redman’s version, like the most recent model legislation, doesn’t specifically mention Sharia, to avoid that constitutional problem, but it’s the most frequent example he and others use to explain why they feel it’s needed. Redman told the House that while no Idaho judge has made a decision based on foreign laws, it could happen. “We dare not wait to install the smoke detector after the fire,” he said, adding that there have been “multiple instances” in other states in which judges based their rulings on foreign laws. When House Minority Leader Mat Erpelding, D-Boise, asked Redman for an example, he cited a New Jersey case in which he said a judge refused to grant an abused wife a protection order because, following testimony from the husband’s imam, he ruled that the husband was merely acting according to his religious beliefs that he had a religious right to have sex with his wife whenever he wanted. Erpelding asked, “Was this upheld in appellate court or Supreme Court, or was it overturned?” Redman responded, “I honestly can’t tell you that for sure.” Later in the debate, Erpelding said he’d found the case in question. “The case that is constantly presented in this case was remanded back to the court by the New Jersey Superior Court,” Erpelding said. “They said, ‘We are satisfied the judge was mistaken in deciding not to issue a restraining order.’ … So this woman was protected. My point is that judges make mistakes. I am super doubtful that this thing would protect us from judges making mistakes. In this case and all the cases listed, they were remanded back to the lower court and they were overturned.” Redman said 13 states including Washington have adopted such laws since 2010, “and there have been no negative effects to foreign commerce, adoptions or religious freedoms.” [The Spokesman-Review]
ADC in Solidarity with Japanese-Americans on Day of Remembrance
Feb 20: On the Day of Remembrance, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) honors the memory of Japanese-Americans forced into internment camps in the U.S. during World War II. This painful chapter in our history reminds all Americans of the great danger to our constitutional rights when fear mongering and prejudice infect our national politics. On February 19, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which called on the U.S. military to exclude “any or all persons” from designated “military areas.” On March 30, after a six-day notice to pack only what they could carry, the U.S. military commenced the first forcible relocation of Japanese-Americans on Bainbridge Island near Seattle. Two hundred twenty-seven American citizens were denied due process as they were transported to internment camps in California and Idaho. An iconic photograph of a mother carrying her sleeping child is a testament to the great injury suffered by Japanese-Americans. Before the war’s end, over 120,000 Japanese-Americans would be incarcerated. In the 1982, Congress would apologize and pay reparations to the victims of internment. The following year, the Commission on Wartime Relocation would acknowledge the “grave injustice” to U.S. citizens “executed in an atmosphere of fear and anger” that “was not justified by military necessity” but was the result of “race prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership.” It is important to remember, however, that very few leaders of public opinion, such as newspaper editorials, condemned internment. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the legality of forcible removal in Korematsu v. United States (1944) even though it was in violation of the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment declaring “no person shall be … deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Moreover, Korematsu still stands today "like a loaded weapon ready for the hand of any authority that can bring a plausible claim of an urgent need," in the prescient words of Justice Jackson, one of the three justices who opposed internment. ADC has worked with Japanese-American organizations to defend the civil rights of persons detained without due process under the pretext of national security. And we support the passage of Senate Res. 387, which would declare January 30, 2018 as "Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution." In preserving the memory of past injustice, we safeguard our nation from ever again enacting the un-American policy of internment. Today, Arab and Muslim-Americans often face similar accusations of disloyalty and subversion as Japanese-American once did. ADC stands in solidarity with our Japanese-American fellow citizens on this Day of Remembrance as we renew our commitment to uphold civil rights during peacetime and war. [ADC]
Amnesty International finds human rights deteriorating around the world
Feb 22: Amnesty International released its annual report today, highlighting a worsening of human rights worldwide. The report covering 159 countries claims that increasingly world leaders are "undermining the rights of millions," either by turning a blind eye to violations of human rights or by perpetrating them. Amnesty cites Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte whose anti-drug campaign has left thousands of people dead; Russian President Vladimir Putin whose government has tried anti-corruption protestors on "politically motivated charges;" and President Xi Jinping of China where Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo died in custody, Internet controls were strengthened, and "repression" conducted under 'counter-terrorism' campaigns remained "particularly severe" against the Uighur minority and Tibetans. Amnesty decried a lack of leadership on human rights, pointing to the "feeble response" to war crimes and crimes against humanity from Syria to South Sudan. It warned that the U.S. had taken "a step backward," saying that the Trump administration's early attempts in 2017 to ban all citizens of several Muslim majority countries was "transparently hateful," and "set a dangerous precedent" for other governments to follow. Amnesty Senior Director for Global Operations Minar Pimple, however, noted that populism and the "politics of demonization" is a trend that began before Trump took office. Brexit and Turkey's crackdown on dissent preceded the 2016 U.S. election. Across Europe, countries saw a gathering storm against refugees, migrants, and religious minorities and the use of counterterrorism measures "disproportionately restricting" rights in the name of security. 2017 saw France clamp down on protests. Poland threatened the independence of the judiciary. Hungry "reached a new low" automatically detaining asylum seekers, in breach of EU law. Germany, grappling with an influx of refugees from the Middle East and Afghanistan, reported more than 1,000 criminal offenses against refugees and asylum seekers. But the epicenter of human tragedy this past year has been Myanmar in South East Asia. A society was "encouraged to hate, scapegoat and fear minorities," culminating in the military "ethnic cleansing" of Rohingya Muslims, according to the report. Rohingya fled the state of Rakhine, and streamed into Bangladesh in what was the "fastest growing crisis of 2017." Estimates of the number of people displaced range from 655,000 to more than 800,000. Across the globe, Amnesty said the past year showed what happens when the "politics of demonization become mainstream." In India, Amnesty notes that religious minorities, especially Muslims faced "increasing demonization by hardline Hindu groups, pro-government media, and some state officials." Mob violence by cow vigilantes intensified. Amnesty said India, considered a "beacon" of democracy in the region, saw the space for its civil society continue to shrink, as authorities used repressive laws to stifle dissent, and press freedoms came under increasing attack. Journalist Gauri Lankesh, a vocal critic of Hindu nationalism, was shot dead outside her home. Freedom of expression on college campuses "remained under threat." The report states that India made efforts to expel an estimated 40,000 Rohingya refugees and send them back to Myanmar. Bangladesh, however, was called a hopeful sign in a year when the global human rights record deteriorated. The tiny, impoverished South Asian nation welcomed the great mass of Rohingya refugees into the country. However, the report also says many of the refugees lived in squalid conditions, malnutrition was rife, and inadequate protection exposed woman and girls to heightened risk of sexual violence and human trafficking. The crisis continues: new satellite images show that Myanmar authorities are bulldozing "scores of depopulated Rohingya villages," according to Human Rights Watch, and it calls on the country's donors to demand it stop. HRW says the areas must be preserved, in order that investigators can "properly evaluate the evidence" to help identify those responsible for the "atrocities." Amnesty's Regional Director for South Asia Biraj Patbaik says India "has lost the moral high ground," and that China has stepped in to fill the vacuum left by India's retreat on human rights. For example, he says it was China that ultimately helped Myanmar and Bangladesh negotiate an agreement under which the Rohingya would be repatriated. [NPR]
Majority of mass shootings carried out by white men
Feb 23: Those who assumed Nikolas Cruz was a young white man before his identity was confirmed had legitimate reasons to reach this conclusion. Last week, Nikolas Cruz, 19, unleashed the full might of an AR-15 military assault rifle on defenseless classmates inside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., leaving 17 teenagers dead before authorities apprehended him. The shooting, the most lethal since 26-year-old Devin Patrick Kelley killed 26 worshipers inside First Baptist Church of of Sutherland Springs, Texas, last Nov. 5, marked the eighth time in the last 11 mass shootings that the perpetrator was a white male, and the last five mass shootings in the United States have been committed by white men. According to a Mother Jones database of U.S. mass shootings since 1982, 54 percent of the 97 mass shootings have been carried out by white men. Black men accounted for roughly 16 percent of the total incidents during the same period of time, raising the question of why white men are over-represented in these incidents and why law enforcement and media are reluctant to profile them for these heinous crimes. Experts said painting this issue as one of color is problematic because there are far more whitemen in the United States than any other race, hence the over-representation. However, equally problematic is identifying mass shooters as mentally ill, which both media and law enforcement do, while stigmatizing minority offenders as criminals. “What you see across criminal justice is the desire to take a certain crime and mix them with certain types of racial identities,” said Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve, an assistant professor at Temple University in the Department of Criminal Justice. “The stigmatizing tropes about Arab-Americans looking like terrorists. We racially profile young men of color wearing baggy pants as being up to no good. These terrible tropes become shorthand for how we arrest and how we police and how we patrol particular types of crimes.” Rather than being criminalized, white male mass shooters are overwhelmingly classified as having mental issues that ultimately resulted in these multi-victim slaughters, such as last October in Las Vegas, when 64-year-old Stephen Craig Paddock killed 58 and wounded 546 attending a country music concert. ….Not to be ignored is the role played by the National Rifle Association. Some say the powerful lobby, with approximately 5 million members, has, through policy, made gun ownership a “white right” while criminalizing minorities with guns. The shooting of motorist Philando Castile by a Minnesota cop, some say, is a prime example. Castile, an African-American, was a legal gun owner who was shot and killed in a St. Paul, Minn., suburb during a police stop in 2016. All charges against the officer who shot him were dropped. At the time of his death, Castile was exercising his lawful right to possess a firearm. He informed the officer that he had a gun on him at the time of the traffic stop but was still killed. The notorious incident had all the makings of a Second Amendment case that the gun lobby probably should have championed. But the NRA never defended Castile. Rather, it later said it could not oppose the shooting because an autopsy revealed Castile had traces of THC, a compound of marijuana, in his system. “It creates the perception that owning of a gun is a white right,” Gonzalez Van Cleve said. “But a gun in the possession of an African-American or Latino can only mean that a law is being broken or is about to be broken. These sort of tropes extend to shooters as well.” [ Philadelphia Tribune]
Trump loses DACA challenge at Supreme Court
Feb 26: In trying to subvert the process of judicial review, the administration tried once again to undermine the legal system. The Court said no. The Supreme Court effectively today, rebuffed the Trump administration’s petition for expedited review of its plan to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy. DACA is currently shielding 700,000 “Dreamers” – undocumented people brought to the United States as children – from deportation. (There are estimated to be around 3.6 million Dreamers, but only 800,000 registered with DACA.) The Trump administration has announced plans to end DACA on March 4, but two courts have placed temporary injunctions barring them from doing so. Following the normal process of judicial review, the Trump administration has appealed each of those decisions to the relevant courts of appeals. But it also asked the Supreme Court to leap-frog over that process and hear the case now. The Court said no. "It is assumed the court of appeals will act expeditiously to decide this case,” the Court said in its brief order denying the Trump administration’s request. As a result of the Supreme Court’s decision, DACA will remain in place while the two cases wind their way up to the Court, where they will inevitably land. The Dreamers have won a temporary reprieve. March 4 is no longer Judgment Day. Even if Congress fails to act, DACA will remain for a few more months. [The Daily Beast]
British driver deliberately hits Muslim woman twice in Islamophobic attack
Feb 27: A Muslim woman was the subject of a deliberate hit and run attack in London, reports said today. A driver identified as Paul Moore drove into a Somali woman named Zaynab Hussein, shortly before he tried to drive at a 12-year-old Somali girl, BBC reported. The incident reportedly took place on Sept. 20, a few days after the bomb attack in London, according to Nottingham Crown Court records. Hussein was wearing a headscarf when the incident happened and was hit twice by the same driver. The 12-year-old Somali girl was also hit by the same driver as she was heading to school, but he only clipped her side, the report said. Prosecutor Jonathan Straw noted that Moore attacked her "purely because of the color of her skin" and her "perceived Islamic faith." The report said that Moore told his friends that he wanted to run someone over and laughed after hitting the Muslim woman. Hussein told the court that she saw blood coming from her head when she hit the floor, and nobody was around to provide help. The Muslim woman suffered severe fractures to her pelvis, spine and breaks to her limbs, and remains bedridden after over five months of treatment. There has been a serious surge in anti-Muslim attacks in the U.K. following deadly terror attacks in Manchester and London Bridge last year. Islamophobic hate crimes skyrocketed by more than 500 percent following the May 22 concert suicide bombing Manchester, according to police. [Turkish Daily Sabah]
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