www.amperspective.com Online Magazine
Executive Editor: Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Chronology of Islam in America (2015)
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
January 2015 - page two
Threats Bridgeview, Michigan, mosque on Facebook
Jan 22: Authorities in Bridgeview, Michigan have said today that they are investigating a series of online threats made this week against a southwest suburban mosque. The threats targeted the Mosque Foundation in Bridgeview and alluded to shooting and killing Muslims, Ahmed Rehab, executive director of CAIR’s Chicago chapter, said. He said the postings were made last weekend and were brought to the attention of mosque members. The threats, which began as a status update on the Facebook page of a teenage boy, threatened to put local Muslims “in check” for the actions of extremist followers of Islam on the other side of the globe. “F – - – - – - Muslims burn down christian churches in France! We got to start breaking some rules putting these n – - – - – in check,” the unidentified teen wrote, according to a redacted copy of the post obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times. The Bridgeview Mosque in the Chicagoland area, was first built in 1981 on land purchased by American Arabs in 1954. The mosque has been expanded several times and more than 5,000 Muslims pray at the center. The Mosque provides social services to families and individuals in need and also maintains a food pantry for needy families. [AMP Report]
Federal prison sentence begins for anti-drone activist
On January 23: Kathy Kelly, co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, a campaign to end U.S. military and economic warfare, began a three-month jail sentence in federal prison for a protest against drones (also known as "unmanned aerial vehicles") at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. I had a chance to interview her before she had to turn herself in. In a media piece, Kathy Kelly wrote today: The Bureau of Prisons contacted me today, assigning me a prison number and a new address: for the next 90 days, beginning tomorrow, I'll live at FMC Lexington, in the satellite prison camp for women, adjacent to Lexington's federal medical center for men. Very early tomorrow morning, Buddy Bell, Cassandra Dixon, and Paco and Silver, two house guests whom we first met in protests on South Korea's Jeju Island, will travel with me to Kentucky and deliver me to the satellite women's prison outside the Federal Medical Center for men. In December, 2014, Judge Matt Whitworth sentenced me to three months in federal prison after Georgia Walker and I had attempted to deliver a loaf of bread and a letter to the commander of Whiteman Air Force base, asking him to stop his troops from piloting lethal drone flights over Afghanistan from within the base. Judge Whitworth allowed me over a month to surrender myself to prison; but whether you are a soldier or a civilian, a target or an unlucky bystander, you can't surrender to a drone. [AMP Report]
American Sniper film spurs threats against Muslims
Jan 25: 'American Sniper', the film on the life of an American Navy SEAL with the most confirmed “kills” during the course of four rounds his duty in Iraq, has led to an increase in threats against Muslims in the US since its release. More than 100 offensive messages have been collected by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) as part of their evidence for the increase in hateful messages and threats. One Twitter post read: “Nice to see a movie where the Arabs are portrayed for who they really are – vermin scum intent on destroying us.” Following an escalation in moviegoers' threats and rhetoric against the Muslim and Arab communities, the ADC wrote to 'American Sniper' director Clint Eastwood and actor Bradley Cooper requesting public statements. The ADC received a statement from Warner Bros' studios, as delivered to Reuters, that the company "denounces any violent, anti-Muslim rhetoric, including that which has been attributed to [American Sniper] viewers ... Hate and bigotry have no place in the important dialogue that this picture has generated about the veteran experience.” The ADC was grateful for Warner Bros courage in standing up against bigotry. "We thank our members and the public for raising awareness around this issue." The ADC said it is the opinion of ADC that this increase in rhetoric is directly linked to the negative media coverage and hateful propaganda launched against the Arab and Muslim communities following the attacks on the Charlie Hedbo offices in France. There has been a significant amount of violent messages targeting Arab and Muslim Americans following the release of the film “American Sniper.” Many of threats were made over social media, especially via Facebook and Twitter. The threats advocate for the murder of Arabs, one going as far as to say, “Great f**king movie and now I really want to kill some f**king ragheads.” In another threat, since deleted, Twitter user Dex Harmon wrote, “American sniper makes me wanna go shoot some f**kin Arabs,” which was followed by emojis of three handguns:
The film has earned six Oscar nominations and sparked a debate in the US over the occupation of Iraq and the depiction of veterans in popular culture. It is based on Chris Kyle's novel "American Sniper," which was published in 2012 by William Morrow. It became a New York Times best seller. Kyle was killed in February 2013 at a Texas Gun Range. According to Independent of UK, While many critics have praised Coopers performance of the sniper and his portrayal of a soldier attempting to fight his own demons, some feel the film sanitizes the central character, Kyle, who referred to Muslims as “savages” in his memoir, also called American Sniper. For Reuters, some critics have said the film glorifies war and sanitizes Kyle, who called Muslims "savages" in his memoir. The BBC said, some have hailed its portrayal of Kyle as a war hero, but others have criticized it for glorifying violence and for Kyle's attitude towards his victims.Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) has offered high praise for 'American Sniper.' In a statement, McCain said: "This film depicts with subtlety and compassion those brave few who serve our nation in uniform, their experiences in the horror of war, the burdens they often bear upon returning home, and the untold sacrifices of their families." He added: "It is deeply regrettable that obsessive critics of U.S. foreign policy have sought to disparage this film and denigrate the memory of a noble American warrior." [AMP Report]
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s Muslim Problem
Jan 25: Bobby Jindal, who was born a Hindu, has a Muslim problem. The Louisiana governor and potential 2016 Republican presidential candidate has been repeating a lie that even Fox News was forced to apologize for. In an address before the neoconservative Henry Jackson Society in London last week, Jindal warned of so-called Muslim “no-go zones” in the West—areas in which “non-assimilationist Muslims establish enclaves and carry out as much of Sharia law as they can.” He has since doubled down on the claim, even after being pressed for evidence by a British journalist and failing to provide it. Instead, Jindal asserted that no-go zones “absolutely is an issue for the UK [and] absolutely is an issue for America and other European [or] Western nations.” It’s a sad thing to say for a Hindu convert to Christianity who changed his name from “Piyush” to “Bobby” and paints himself as a model immigrant, but Muslim-baiting is a key part of Jindal’s pitch to a demographic that he is aggressively courting: evangelical conservatives. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks and in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, evangelical Christians became America’s most ardent supporters of wars in Muslim lands. Eighty-seven percent of white evangelical Christians surveyed in early 2003 supported the Iraq war—compared with 78 percent of white Americans overall and just 29 percent of black Americans. Evangelical support for the Iraq war was higher than that of mainline Protestant denominations. White evangelicals, more than any other religious demographic, have consistently been the most likely to support torture (the targets of which will invariably be Muslim). Evangelicals tend to see America’s challenge with jihadism not as part of a war with a radical strain within the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims, but as part of a broader war between the Christian (or Judeo-Christian) West and Islam. [The Politico - By Arif Rafiq]
Koch network vows to spend nearly $900 million to buy presidency and Congress
Jan 27: The robber barons are back and are buying American politicians at the highest level in more than a century, as several hundred of the wealthiest Americans led by the Koch brothers say they will spend $900 million in 2016’s presidential and national elections. “For that kind of money, you could buy yourself a president—oh right, that’s the idea,” Mark McKinnon, a longtime Republican political consultant toldPolitico.com, when asked to comment on the 2016 agenda presented at the Koch’s donor retreat this past weekend near Palm Springs, CA. While the sums being committed to the 2016 campaign cycle are stunning—more than double what the Koch network spent in 2014 to help the GOP take control of the House and Senate in Washington, as well as re-elect right-wing governors such as Wisconson’s Scott Walker—what is really happening is Americans are watching their country’s constitutional republic disintegratebefore their eyes. The Kochs have created a private national political party, which overlaps with the GOP at times and other times takes positions far to the right that are deeply libertarian: they want nothing from government that interferes with the unfettered right to profit, no matter the consequences: from exacerbating climate change to more economic inequality. The mainstream media is not clearly conveying how the Koch network is privatizing and destroying what remains of American democracy. The fundamental notion that all people are equal in the voting booth is vanishing, because when this much private money is thrown around it affects who is nominated, clearly telegraphs what is expected by the candidates should they win, and drives the governing agenda—all of which happens with little regard for wider public opinion. [AlterNet]
Waterbury, CT Muslims ask schools to mark two holidays
Jan 29: Local Muslims in Waterbury, CT, have collected a petition of nearly 300 signatures requesting city schools recognize two of the most important holidays on the Muslim calendar. Muslim students have to miss a few tests when the important Muslim Eid holidays have fallen on school days. They stay home to attend prayers and celebrate with family and friends. Mongi Dhaouadi, executive director of CAIR-Connecticut, said his hometown of New London accepted the request without fanfare. "It didn't even take the board two minutes to approve it unanimously," Dhaouadi said. "Waterbury needs it more than we do in New London. We don't have as many students, teachers and staff who are Muslim. I think a community as diverse as Waterbury should celebrate this." [AMP Report]
The political factor in Americans' perception of Muslims & Islam
Jan 29: A survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2014 shows that people who identify as Republicans or say they lean toward the Republican Party have more negative views of Muslims than do their Democratic counterparts. Asked to rate a series of religious groups on a “feeling thermometer” from zero (the coldest) to 100 (the warmest), Republicans gave Muslims an average of 33 – comparable to their average rating for atheists (34) and significantly lower than any other religious group. Democrats’ average rating for Muslims was a more neutral 47. Still, Democrats’ ratings for Muslims were lower than for most other religious groups. Among eight groups tested, only atheists (46 average rating) and Mormons (44) rated as low. As for American Muslims, they aren’t feeling much warmth from the GOP. A separate,2011 survey found that 15% of Muslims said that they see the Republican Party as friendly toward their community while 48% said they are unfriendly. By contrast, 46% of Muslims said the Democratic Party is friendly toward them and only 7% said they are unfriendly. [PEW]
Canada to criminalize online terror threats
Jan 30: Canada will introduce new anti-terror laws that will make it a crime to promote terrorism against Canadians online or elsewhere, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said today. The laws will also allow authorities to detain individuals suspected of involvement in a terror plot for up to seven days without charge and empower Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the country’s spy agency, to directly thwart attacks.Work on the laws began in October, after a gunman killed a soldier at Canada's national war memorial and then stormed Parliament. The attack in Ottawa came two days after a man, said to be inspired by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), ran over two soldiers in a parking lot in Quebec, killing one and injuring the other before being shot to death. Under current laws, people suspected of being involved in a terrorist plot can be detained for up to three days. The new laws will make it a crime to call for a terror attack against Canadians in general. The laws also extend the detainment of suspects to up to seven days, provided police secure a judge's permission. The new laws will also allow CSIS to directly approach terror suspects in order to disrupt their plans. CSIS is currently permitted only to collect intelligence and pass the information on to police. Authorities will also be able to remove terror-related material from Canadian websites.[Associated Press]
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