www.amperspective.com Online Magazine
Executive Editor: Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Chronology of Islam in America (2018)
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
March 2018 - Page Two
Anti-Muslim hate group files legal brief in support of "extreme vetting"
March 12: The American Freedom Law Center, a Michigan-based anti-Muslim hate group, has announced it would be filing an amicus curiae (also called “friend of the court) legal brief in support of President Donald J. Trump’s “extreme vetting” policy to screen incoming refugees for possible terrorist ties. The document was co-authored by two notorious anti-Muslim activists, David Yerushalmi and Robert J. Muise. In addition to his known anti-Muslim extremism, Yerushalmi has also espoused explicitly racist and sexist views. Muise’s own disreputable activities, aside from anti-Muslim hate, include fighting against hate crime laws that protect LGBT persons and giving a 40-minute interview with the openly antisemitic publication, American Free Press. The AFLC’s brief was filed on behalf of several former national security officials and philanthropists with histories of espousing or financially supporting anti-Muslim hate. Former officials Andrew C. McCarthy, Frank Gaffney, William “Jerry” Boykin, William “Ace” Lyons, and Henry F. Cooper were all co-authors of the infamous hate- and conspiracy-filled report, “Sharia: The Threat to America.” The report, often referred to as “Team B II” by its supporters, was produced by the anti-Muslim hate group Center for Security Policy, which is a petitioner in AFLC’s amicus brief and is run by anti-Muslim extremist Gaffney. Also named in the brief is Robert J. Shillman, a business executive with an extensive track record of financing anti-Muslim hate groups and extremists, including David Horowitz and his Freedom Center, Robert Spencer and his “Jihad Watch” blog (also a project of Horowitz’s Freedom Center), along with Pamela Geller. The Freedom Center has listed fellows sponsored by Shillman on its website. The brief itself tries to mask its bigotry by claiming to focus on terrorists who claim to act in the name of Islam. However, its religiously-laden terms such as “Islamic radicalism” and “sharia supremacism” does little to mask the brief’s anti-Muslim agenda. It also makes the fundamental mistake of equating sharia with ideological extremism, when in fact it is merely a set of guiding principles to living a moral life set out in the Qur’an and is akin to how halacha is practiced among many religiously-observant Jews. Whatever distinction the brief purported to make between “sharia supremacists” and everyday Muslims is blurred with passages such as this one: “The Court must recognize that Islam, while it has plenty of diversity, has a mainstream strain—sharia supremacism—that is less a religion than it is a totalitarian political ideology hiding under a religious veneer.” [Southern Poverty Law Center]
Minnesota mosque bombers wanted to 'scare' Muslims out
March 14: Federal authorities have charged three men from rural central Illinois with the bombing of a Minnesota mosque last year. The Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington, Minnesota, was bombed just before morning prayers on August 5, causing a fire and extensive damage although no one was injured or killed. All three arrested are from Clarence, a rural community of less than 100 residents some 56 kilometers north of Champaign-Urbana. The FBI had offered a $30,000 reward for information leading to a conviction in the bombing. A tip in December led authorities to investigate the three men, after a person sent the local sheriff photos of guns and bomb-making material inside parents' home of Michael B Hari, 47, one of the arrested men, where Hari often stayed. In January, a second informant told authorities that the three men had carried out the mosque bombing and the failed clinic bombing, according to the complaint. The Islamic Center primarily serves Somalis in the Minneapolis area and houses a mosque and religious school for children. [Al Jazeera]
Arizona State University Allowing Pro-BDS Event Despite Unconstitutional Anti-BDS Law
March 18: The CAIR Legal Defense Fund (CAIR) today reached a court-approved agreement with Arizona State University (ASU), the Arizona Board of Regents and Arizona Attorney General to allow an event with Dr. Hatem Bazian and American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) to move forward without interruption on April 3. Initially, ASU offered Dr. Bazian and AMP a speaking engagement contract that -- in accordance with Arizona’s anti-Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) law -- required them to certify that they were “not currently engaged in” and agree “not to engage in, a boycott of Israel” for the duration of the contract. Dr. Bazian and AMP refused to sign the contract. CAIR, on behalf of Dr. Bazian and AMP, filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Arizona that challenges the BDS law as a violation of the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech. Raees Mohamed of Kelly Warner, PLLC and CAIR-AZ board chair is co-counsel on the lawsuit. Since the lawsuit was filed, ASU has agreed to issue a revised speaker engagement contract that no longer requires Dr. Bazian and AMP to comply with the Arizona BDS law. “There is no place where freedom of speech is more valued and protected than America’s colleges and universities. We are pleased that ASU has agreed that it will not enforce Arizona’s unconstitutional anti-BDS law and that it will allow this important event to occur without interruption,” said CAIR National Litigation Director Lena Masri. “However, we will not rest until Arizona’s anti-BDS law is declared unconstitutional.” [CAIR]
CAIR Condemns Naming of Islamophobe John Bolton as National Security Adviser
March 22: The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, tonight condemned President Trump's move to replace White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster with John Bolton, a notorious Islamophobe who as a history of ties to anti-Muslim extremists and organizations. "We urge Americans across the political spectrum to speak out against the appointment of John Bolton as White House National Security Adviser because of his ties to anti-Muslim bigots and his promotion of extremist views that will inevitably harm our nation and that could lead to unnecessary and counterproductive international conflicts," said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad. "Bolton is the last person who should be entrusted with this critically-important position, which requires sound judgment and a fact-based approach to national security matters." Awad said CAIR is concerned about the safety of American Muslims and other minority communities with Bolton advising an already Islamophobic and white supremacist administration. Bolton has long been associated with anti-Muslim extremists Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller. He even wrote the forward for Spencer and Geller's book "The Obama Administration's War on America." Geller endorsed Bolton as a presidential candidate. Bolton advocated for the Iraq War and promoted the false justification for the conflict. He has promoted anti-Muslim conspiracy theories and called for bombing Iran and North Korea. In 2016, Bolton spoke at a conference of the American Freedom Alliance hate group. His speech at the conference, which had the overall theme, "Can Islam and the West Coexist?" contained a "joke" the punchline of which was that President Obama was a Muslim. Bolton is also the chairman of the New York City-based anti-Muslim organization the Gatestone Institute. The organization produces a steady stream of false and fear-mongering Islamophobic articles. It published the myth that certain cities with Muslim majority neighborhoods were off limits to those who did not practice the faith. An article in "The Intercept" also noted that the Gatestone Institute claimed that the Obama administration refugee policy "exposes Americans to the jihad." In its posts, the institute consistently depicts refugees as rapists and hosts of "highly infectious diseases" that threaten the health of the German people. [CAIR]
When a terrorist is not a terrorist?
March 23: “Why won't Trump call Austin bomber what he is? A Terrorist,” this is the title of the story by Alice Salles of Carbonated TV. The Austin bombing suspect is being called a domestic terrorist by people on social media, but why won't the media and the White House call him that?, she writes. While police are still unsure of Mark Anthony Conditt's motive for having allegedly planted the bombs, many people have pointed out that if Conditt were Muslim, the media and elected officials would already have called him a terrorist, Salles said adding: But since Conditt called himself a conservative, was white, and had been raised Christian, President Donald Trump doesn't seem quick to jump on the word "terrorist" to describe the bombing suspect. Tellingly, Conditt was part of a survivalist home school group that taught children how to use guns and discussed chemical reactions. Conditt was part of a group of students called the Righteous Invasion of Truth (RIOT), an organization that engages homeschooled kids on activities that range from studying the Bible to learning how to use guns. Many of its members were also interested in learning about dangerous chemicals, according to BuzzFeed. As Conditt sensed that authorities were closing in on him on March 20, he took out his cell phone and recorded a 25-minute video confessing to building the explosive devices -- but didn't explain why he targeted his victims, interim Austin police Chief Brian Manley told a press conference. The video made by Conditt, whose string of package bombs killed two people and wounded five in Texas, was found on his cell phone when police recovered his body. Regardless of his motivations being unknown at this time, Conditt’s actions are terroristic in nature, if we're to be consistent with other incidents that have been labeled as such, Carbonated TV said adding: whatever his reasoning, the bombings he perpetrated intimidated a community in Texas, and it seems like that was part of his intent. “It’s hypocritical of some media outlets and lawmakers in Washington to fail to identify Conditt as a terrorist. Were he a person of color or a person who followed Islam, politicians would be throwing out the descriptor of “terrorist” without hesitation. That he isn’t described as much shows egregious discrepancies on the part of those more willing to do so in other situations, when white individuals aren't the ones committing the crimes,” Carbonated TV emphasized. [AMP Report]
John Guandolo defends racially profiling an airline employee
March 28: Earlier this week, we noted how disgraced former FBI agent and current radical right-wing activist and anti-Islam crusader John Guandolo had set off a controversy when he tweeted out a photo labeling a Southwest Airlines employee a “jihadi” simply because he had dark skin and a beard. The tweet was ultimately removed, but Guandolo is standing by his assertion nonetheless, saying on his radio program that he had come under a “coordinated attack” by “the lunatic left” for simply pointing out the “clear indicators” that this airline worker was a “Sharia-adherent” jihadi. “When I am at an airport and see a clearly Sharia-adherent Muslim working with a TSA uniform on or [for] foreign airlines or sitting at a security desk in full hijab or a complete burka, I will take a picture and usually tweet it out,” he said. “I was boarding the flight from Dallas to Phoenix, took a photo of the Southwest Airlines employee standing there who is clearly part of the baggage team coming in and out and is a big, barrel-chested guy—probably about 6’1 or something—with an absolutely perfect Sharia-adherent beard, shaved head, and I snapped a picture and sent it out, saying, ‘I wish this was surprising, a jihadi working for the airlines.'” [Right Wing Watch]
Massachusetts man who threatened to burn down mosque gets 5 years
March 28: A U.S. District Court judge sentenced a Wilmington (Massachusetts) man to five years in federal prison and five years supervised today for threats he made on Facebook in 2015 against a Roxbury mosque. Patrick Keogan, 46, had pleaded guilty in February 2017 to making threats over Facebook to injure or intimidate another or destroy a building by means of fire, illegal possession of a firearm and possession of child pornography. In addition to the threats of burning down the Mosque, was also charged with possession of child pornography and possession of 50 firearms as a convicted felon. He will also be required to register as a sex offender and surrender the guns. Keogan posted references to the "mosque-burning Olympics" and shared images of a mosque in flames with a caption stating "Burn your local mosque" on the Facebook page of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center shortly after the November 2015 terrorist attack in Paris. He was indicted and arrested in July 2016. [Patch Massachusetts]
CAIR Files Amicus Brief in Supreme Court's Muslim Ban 3.0 Case
March 30: The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today announced the filing of an amicus (friend of the court) brief on behalf of six individuals challenging the lawfulness of President Trump's "Muslim Ban 3.0." CAIR's brief was filed with the U.S. Supreme Court in the Muslim ban case now set for oral argument on April 25. The brief -- filed in the wake of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit's decision in February declaring Trump's Muslim ban unconstitutional - states in part: "The injuries suffered by the [plaintiffs] are beyond the pale. If they are beyond the power of the courts to remedy, we fear for what is yet to come." [CAIR]
Muslims in Baltimore protest fatal shooting of Stephon Clark by police in Sacramento
March 31: National Muslim leaders gathered in Baltimore at the #Justice4Stephon Rally for Racial Justice to condemn violence targeting minority communities and to demand justice for 22-year-old Stephon Clark, who was shot 20 times by police in Sacramento, Calif., on March 18. The event, cosponsored by the Islamic Council of North America - Council for Social Justice (ICNA-CJS), MPOWER Change, Muslim American Society (MAS), Muslim Social Services Agency (MSSA), and CAIR, is designed to raise awareness, galvanize communities and issue specific calls to action to address the crisis of police-involved shootings in minority communities. Clark, 22, was shot in his grandmother’s backyard in Sacramento by a pair of police officers responding to a report of someone breaking car windows. Autopsy results released by the family said that he was shot six times in the back. His death has prompted daily marches demanding justice in California’s capital city and others elsewhere around the country. Police say they believe Clark was the suspect and he ran when a police helicopter responded, then did not obey officers’ orders. That should have been no reason to shoot him, said Imam Omar Suleiman, founder and president of the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research and a professor of Islamic Studies at Southern Methodist University. [CAIR/Baltimore Sun]
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