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Executive Editor: Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Chronology of Islam in America (2015)
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
May 2015
"Draw Muhammad' contest that ends with police killing two Muslim gunmen
May 3: "Draw Muhammad' contest that ended today with a shootout outside the contest in Garland Texas. A security guard was shot when the two men, Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, opened fire with assault rifles outside the contest. An on-duty police officer shot and killed both gunmen. Alia Salem, the executive director of the Dallas-Fort Worth chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) condemned the actions of the gunmen saying the attack was "not done in my name or in the name of millions of law abiding Muslims." She said the Muslim community in northern Texas had made a collective decision not to protest the "Draw Muhammad" event. Salem said she fully supports the First Amendment, but "we must ask ourselves, at what point does free speech become hate speech?" The Texas caricature event was hosted by anti-Muslim activist Pamela Geller who is the President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative. Her group is classified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-Muslim hate group: "Pamela Geller is the anti-Muslim movement’s most visible and flamboyant figurehead. She’s relentlessly shrill and coarse in her broad-brush denunciations of Islam and makes preposterous claims, such as that President Obama is the “love child” of Malcolm X. She makes no pretense of being learned in Islamic studies, leaving the argumentative heavy lifting to her Stop Islamization of America partner Robert Spencer. Geller has mingled comfortably with European racists and fascists, spoken favorably of South African racists, defended Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadzic and denied the existence of Serbian concentration camps. She has taken a strong pro-Israel stance to the point of being sharply critical of Jewish liberals." Right-wing Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who has proposed banning the Quran, spoke yesterday at the event. [AMP Report]
Muslim-bashing can be very lucrative
My 8: Pamela Geller gets paid pretty well to demonize Muslims. Her salary is paid from her organization the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), a group listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as an active “anti-Muslim organization.” In 2013, the AFDI reported $958,800 in gross receipts and paid Geller a base salary of $192,500, plus $18,750 in other income.But Geller, is just one of many profiting from hate.....* Frank Gaffney, Fox News regular, is one of the leaders of the anti-Muslim movement and is the primary engineer of the claim that Muslims want to impose Islamic law across America. Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy (CSP) in 2012 reported $3.2 million in revenue. And Gaffney, as president, paid himself $300,000 a year for his work in demonizing Muslims.....* David Horowitz, a man described by the SPLC as “the godfather of the modern anti-Muslim movement.” Being “the godfather” of anti-Muslim hate appears to pay well. Horowitz’s Freedom Center in 2013 saw over $7.2 million in gross receipts and Horowitz was paid $525,000 in salary. And Horowitz even bankrolls Robert Spencer, another well-known Muslim-basher, with a $167,000-a-year salary.....* Brigitte Gabriel, another Fox News staple who demonizes Muslims at every turn, runs Act for America!, which the SPLC has noted is part of the “anti-Muslim inner circle.” Per Act for America’s 2012 tax returns, she was paid a $132,000 base salary and $84,090 as a bonus.....* Who funds these organizations? The most notable are the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation and the Scaife Foundation, which each have donated over $5 million to David Horowitz’s Freedom Center. The Scaife Foundation also donated over $3 million to Frank Gaffney’s CSP. [The Daily Beast]
World's richest 80 people own same amount as world's bottom 50%
May 9: Oxfam's recent report, "WEALTH: HAVING IT ALL AND WANTING MOREﾔ contains shocking figures that the press haven't sufficiently publicized; so, the findings and the reliability of their sources will be discussed here. The results will then be related to the central political debate now going on in the U.S. Presidential contests for 2016, which is about equality and inequality. First, the findings: 1. The richest 80 individuals own as much as do all of the poorest half of humanity. 2. During 2009-2014, the wealth of the 80 richest people doubled, yet the wealth of the bottom 50% declined slightly. These data are calculated from Forbesﾠmagazine, regarding the world's richest individuals, and from the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Databook 2014,regarding the global wealth-distribution. [Countercurrents.org]
Muslim groups speak against anti-terror program
May 11: Some of Minnesota's largest mosques and Muslim community organizations have come out strongly against a federal pilot program intended to prevent radicalization in the Somali-American community. Nearly 50 Muslim organizations in a statement said they are opposing the program because it combines "policing and counter-terrorism efforts with social services and outreach targeting only one religious and ethnic community."The pilot program is spearheaded by the Justice Department and Andrew Luger, U.S. attorney for Minnesota. It calls for bolstering after-school and tutoring programs in hope of fostering a sense of belonging for young Somali-Americans. A group called the Somali-American Task Force is charged with implementing the pilot project. The Muslim groups are wary that the government might use the outreach efforts to gather intelligence. "Counter-terrorism work of the last several years has wrongfully stigmatized our communities, through the use of surveillance, informants, and other targeting of Muslim communities not connected to any suspected wrongdoing," the group said in a statement.Jaylani Hussein, a Somali-American who leads the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the community organizations are aware of the need to do more to stop young men from joining terrorist organizations. But he added they are not convinced that the pilot program is the most effective way to help the community. "The majority of the Muslim community organizations believe that we need to work with the law enforcement in a way that doesn't stigmatize and label us as the only threat," he said. [MPR News]
Atheists, agnostics population is soaring in America
May 12: The Pew Research Center on Religion & Public Life is reporting, in their poll of 35,000 Americans, that during the seven years from 2007 to 2014, the numbers of religiously “Unaffiliated” (read atheists & agnostics) were soaring, the numbers of Christians were plunging, and the numbers of adherents to non-Christian faiths were rising substantially but not nearly as much as were the numbers of “Unaffiliated.” This report is headlined, "America's Changing Religious Landscape: Christians Decline Sharply as Share of Population; Unaffiliated and Other Faiths Continue to Grow.” It shows that: the percentage of Americans who are unaffiliated rose from 16.1% in 2007 up to 22.8% today, or a 6.7% rise from that 16.1% base. Dividing 6.7%/16.1%, there are 42% more Americans who are religiously unaffiliated today than was the case seven years ago. During this same period, there are 10% fewer Christians; and it breaks down as 2% less Evangelical Protestants, 13% less Catholics, and 19% less Mainline Protestants. Meanwhile, there are 26% more Americans who are of Non-Christian Faiths. So: all of that 42% increase in unaffiliated Americans were previously Christians; none of the increase came from non-Christian faiths. [Counter Current]
Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev sentenced to death
May 15: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been sentenced to death for his role in the 2013 bomb attack on the Boston Marathon – an attack that killed three people, left more than 260 wounded. In April, the same jury at a federal court in Boston found Tsarnaev guilty on 30 charges relating to the attack. Seventeen of those counts carried a possible death sentence, and despite hearing mitigating evidence from family members – and others such as Sister Helen Prejean, a Catholic nun who opposes the death penalty – the jury voted unanimously to send 21-year-old Tsarnaev to his death. The sentence, which mandates the government to kill the 21-year-old Tsarnaev by lethal injection at the federal correctional facility in Terre Haute, Indiana, is subject to appeal. If Tsarnaev is unsuccessful in appealing against his sentence, he will be only the fourth person executed by the federal government in the past 50 years. However, it is considered still fairly unlikely that he would reach the death chamber. This is partly due to the case’s potential for practically endless appeals, which could last for decades, and partly due to the nationwide shortage of lethal injection drugs caused by an international pharmaceutical boycott. Some federal death row inmates have already been waiting 22 years in limbo. [The Guardian]
Anti-Islam armed rally outside Phoenix mosque
May 29: Amid recent rise in Islamophobia, an anti-Islam rally was held on Friday outside the Phoenix mosque. This was the second anti-Islam rally outside this mosque within two weeks. The first one held on May 17 garnered far less public and social media attention. Last Friday's anti-Islam rally gained attention around the country on social media. The rally was organized by a Phoenix man, Jon Ritzheimer, a proud atheist who says he is a former Marine who fought in the Iraq War and claims that Islam is a violent religion. He led about 250 people who carried pistols, assault rifles, American flags and drawings of the Prophet Muhammad to the Islamic Community Center of Phoenix. A counter rally that took place at the same time by another group was called a "love rally" to show the world that Arizonans respect the right of people to practice their religion in peace. Phoenix police estimated about 500 protesters showed up, roughly 250 on each side. Those who said they supported Ritzheimer arrived at a nearby park Friday afternoon before taking bikes and cars to the mosque around 6 p.m. Some waved American flags and showed drawings of prophet Mohammed to media. There, they were met by a crowd of people, many of whom did not belong to the mosque, holding signs reading phrases such as "Love not Hate." One group from Redemption Church in Tempe arrived dressed in blue and lined up in front of the mosque. They said they wore the color to be a peaceful presence. Earlier Friday, Ritzheimer posted a message on his Facebook page which in part said: President Obama said "The future must not belong to those who insult Islam." I am asking him to change his statement to "the future must belong to those who have the FREEDOM to insult Islam if they want." The organizer encouraged attendees to bring weapons to ensure that no one interfered with their First Amendment rights. Several people, many wearing fatigues, showed up at the rally with assault rifles. The anti-Islam rally included skinheads and a man wearing a T-shirt bearing Nazi SS symbol. According to the Daily Beast, a few hours in, one protester in a pastel pink tie-dye tore pages from a Quran and stuffed them in her mouth while the college student next to her threw the rest of the book on the ground, screaming into a megaphone: “You do not need this book, this book of lies, this book of hatred! Look Muslims, look at your book, it’s been ripped, it’s been defiled—you are pigs, you are phony Muslims.” Self-proclaimed "patriot" Jon Ritzheimer billed the anti-Islam rally as "Freedom of Speech Rally," in response to an attack outside a controversial Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest on May 3 in Garland, Texas. A security guard was shot when the two men, Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, opened fire with assault rifles outside the contest to draw cartoons of Muhammad. An on-duty police officer shot and killed both gunmen. The Islamic Community Center of Phoenix is the mosque that Simpson and Soofi reportedly attended for a time. [AMP Report]
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