www.amperspective.com Online Magazine
Executive Editor: Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Chronology of Islam in America (2016)
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
July 2016
Muslim teens brutally beaten outside Brooklyn mosque
July 3: Two Muslim teenagers were viscously beaten outside a Brooklyn mosque this morning. Mosque director Mohamed Bahe said the assailant screamed, “You fucking terrorists,” at the teens, aged 16 and 17-years-old, during the 1:18am attack which took place outside the Muslim Community Center of Brooklyn in Sunset Park. After repeatedly denying knowledge of the incident, a New York Police Department spokesperson told BuzzFeed News that the incident was “non-biased.” “We had two volunteers, and they saw a suspicious car parked outside of our entrance,“ Bahe told the outlet, describing surveillance video. ”They looked at the car, trying to figure out who’s inside. They saw a woman and they asked asked if she needed help. Then all of a sudden a guy comes across running from the street and punches him and knocks him down. He was stomping him and kicking him.” The attack happened during nightly Ramadan prayers, and members inside the mosque heard the commotion and ran to help the young boys, causing the assailant to flee. Bahe said that he's repeatedly asked for more protection from NYPD officer with little to no success. The attack comes amid a string of anti-Muslim violence across the states. A Muslim doctor was shot and stabbed on Saturday outside his mosque in Houston, and another attack was reported outside the Forte Piece Islamic Center the same day, that left one victim beaten and bloodied. [Independent]
Shooting near Houston mosque sparks calls for more security
July 4: The Council on American-Islamic Relations is calling for heightened security at Houston-area mosques following the shooting of a Muslim heading to prayer. Houston police are still looking for three suspects in the shooting of a man walking to the Madrasah Islamiah mosque early Sunday [July 3, 2016]. The suspects allegedly approached the man in an apparent attempted burglary, and one shot him. The victim was able to make it to the entrance of the mosque, where he gave someone his phone and said to call 911. Police spokesman Victor Senties said Monday that there is currently no evidence the man was targeted due to his Muslim faith. The council says Muslim community leaders should take extra measures for the approaching end of the holy month of Ramadan and the upcoming Eid-ul-Fitr festival. [The Associated Press]
Blanket surveillance of Muslims in Japan
July 3: Japan's Supreme Court has rejected a second appeal by the country's Muslim community against nationwide surveillance of Muslim groups, mosques and even halal restaurants. This may not be surprising to America’s seven-million-strong Muslim community which has been under real and virtual surveillance since 9/11. After 15 years of broadly targeting the community and extensively monitoring its activities, the FBI declared an end on June 18, 2016 to its surveillance of Muslim Americans, saying “its exhaustive study of their beautiful culture was finally complete.” The Onion News Network quoted the FBI sources as saying, the harvesting of internet data, widespread racial profiling, and the nationwide mapping of Muslim communities have allowed agents to closely observe the followers of Islam. Not surprisingly, on April 15, 2014, the New York Police Department announced that it has abandoned a secretive program that dispatched plainclothes detectives into Muslim neighborhoods to eavesdrop on conversations and built detailed files on where people ate, prayed and shopped. The police mapped communities inside and outside the New York city, logging where customers in traditional Islamic clothes ate meals and documenting their lunch¬ counter conversations. The Police Department’s tactics, which were the subject of two federal lawsuits, drew criticism from civil rights groups who said they harmed national security by sowing mistrust for law enforcement in Muslim communities. Hence the mass surveillance of the Muslims in Japan was not very astonishing, shocking and surprising. Interestingly, seventeen Japanese Muslim plaintiffs had complained that the government's security measures constituted "an unconstitutional invasion of their privacy and freedom of religion." The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal as unconstitutional. The justices concurred with a lower court that the surveillance was "necessary and inevitable" to guard against international terrorism. The Supreme Court also concurred with the lower court that the plaintiffs deserved a total of ¥90 million ($880,000) in compensation because the leak violated their privacy. However, the justices did not weigh in on the police profiling or surveillance practices. The case was brought after a 2010 police leak revealed officials were monitoring Japanese Muslims at places of worship, halal restaurants and Islam-related organizations across the country. Japanese-born Muhammad Fujita (not his real name), who converted to Islam more than 20 years ago, told Al-Jazeera the Muslim community had been unfairly targeted for surveillance. "They made us terrorist suspects," he said. "We never did anything wrong." Fujita says he and his wife have been spied on since the early 2000s. The police documents revealed that tens of thousands of individual Muslims had been extensively profiled, with files detailing their personal information as well as their place of worship. [AMP Report]
Carnage in Istanbul, Dhaka and Baghdad: Who are the Masterminds behind ISIS-Daesh Terrorism?
July 5: The month of Ramadan witnessed unspeakable carnage in three Muslim cities in three different countries. On 28 June 2016, 41 people, both locals and foreigners were killed in shootings and suicide bombings at the Istanbul Ataturk Airport. On 2nd July, 20 people taken hostage by militants in an upmarket restaurant in Dhaka, Bangladesh were shot and murdered. On the 3rd of July in Baghdad, 165 were massacred in massive bomb blasts. The killers in all three episodes were Muslims, specifically Sunni Muslims. The majority of the 226 victims were also Muslims. In all three instances, ISIS or Daesh was alleged to be the perpetrator. In the case of Istanbul, the Turkish government made this allegation in the immediate aftermath of the bombings. In the case of Dhaka, Daesh claimed responsibility though the Bangladeshi government has maintained that the savagery was committed by a home grown militant outfit known as the Jamatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh. In the case of Baghdad, Daesh was quick to claim “credit.” It made it a point to emphasise that its target were Shias…….One must have the honesty and the integrity to address the underlying causes. It requires those who prescribe remedies for terrorism from the lofty heights of global politics to hold a mirror to their own souls. They must be willing to admit that their unrestrained drive for hegemonic power and for control over wealth may be the root problem. Or, as the 19th century Russian thinker, Alexander Herzen, put it in another context, “The doctor is the disease.” [Dr. Chandra Muzaffar is the President of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST) - Global Research]
Minnesota Governor on Philando Castile’s death: He’d still be alive had he been white
July 7: Wednesday evening July 6), Philando Castile was shot to death by a St. Anthony Police Department cop in the Twin Cities suburb of Falcon Heights, becoming the second black man to die at the hands of Minnesota officers since last November. As was the case following the death of Jamar Clark in Minneapolis last November 15, Castile’s death sparked large protests, this time during the early morning hours in front of the Governor’s Mansion in St. Paul. During a news conference today, Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton (D) said he believes that if Castile had been white, the 32-year-old longtime St. Paul public schools employee that many are describing as a role model for kids would still be alive. “Would this had happened if those passengers were white? I don’t think it would’ve,” Dayton said. “So I’m forced to confront, and I think all of us in Minnesota are forced to confront, [that] this kind of racism exists.” According to numbers compiled by the Guardian, Castile became the 561st person killed by police in America this year. While more than twice as many whites have been killed as blacks overall, blacks are killed at more than double the rate relative to their population. The only ethnicity more likely to die at the hands of the police is Native Americans. Castile was pulled over for an alleged taillight violation. According to NBC, it was far from the first time he'd been detained for an offense of that sort, though his criminal record included nothing more serious than misdemeanor offenses. Last year, the ACLU released a study that found blacks in Minneapolis are 8.7 times more likely than whites to be arrested for a low-level offense. The phenomenon isn't unique to that city – from car searches to arrests for pot-related offenses, study after study shows that black people are discriminated against by law enforcement throughout the country. The officers involved in Clark's shooting didn't face criminal charges. Earlier Thursday, Dayton announced he'd spoken with White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough to request that the U.S. Department of Justice begin an immediate independent federal investigation into Castile's death. [Think Progress]
U.S. spending on prisons grew at three times rate of school spending: report
July 7: U.S. state and local spending on prisons and jails grew at three times the rate of spending on schools over the last 33 years as the number of Americans behind bars ballooned under a spate of harsh sentencing laws, a government report released today said. U.S. Secretary of Education John King said the report's stark numbers should make state and local governments reevaluate their spending priorities and channel more money toward education. Between 1979 and 2012, state and local government expenditures grew by 107 percent to $534 billion from $258 billion for elementary and secondary education, while corrections spending rose by 324 percent to $71 billion from $17 billion, the U.S. Department of Education report found. In that same period, the population of state and local corrections facilities surged more than four-fold to nearly 2.1 million from around 467,000, more than seven times the growth rate of the U.S. population overall. The prison population shot up following the widespread adoption of mandatory minimum sentence laws in the 1990s. Seven states - Idaho, Michigan, Montana, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota and West Virginia - each exceeded the average rate, increasing their corrections spending five times as fast as they did their pre-kindergarten to grade 12 education spending. In just two states - New Hampshire and Massachusetts - growth in corrections expenditures did not surpass P-12 expenditures, even after accounting for changes in population. The report did not analyze different state policies that could explain these exceptions, King said on a conference call. State and local spending on postsecondary education has remained mostly flat since 1990, the report said. Average state and local per capita spending on corrections increased by 44 percent as higher education funding per full-time equivalent student decreased by 28 percent, it said. Two-thirds of state prison inmates did not complete high school, the report said. The United States spends about $80 billion a year on incarceration, White House Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett said on the conference call. "One in three Americans of working age have a criminal record," she said. "That creates an often insurmountable barrier to successful reentry." [Reuters]
Montgomery County, Maryland, declares solidarity with Muslim community
On July 7: Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett and Council President Nancy Floreen signed today a proclamation reaffirming the county’s support for its Muslim citizens. According to WTOP News, The decision to sign the proclamation came out of concern over anti-Islamic rhetoric in the wake of attacks in Paris and Brussels. Leggett told attendees at the ceremony’s news conference at the Islamic Society of Germantown that he wanted to make it clear “that acts of hatred against Muslims will not be tolerated in Montgomery County.”Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett and County Council President Nancy Floreen were received today by Imam Ammar Najar of the Islamic Society of Germantown. Leggett and Floreen signed the proclamation reaffirming the County’s solidarity with the Muslim Community, to further demonstrate the County Government’s firm belief that people of all religious faiths are valued and respected and will be safe; and that acts of hatred against Muslims will not be tolerated. The county executive’s office has estimated that there are about 12,000 Muslims in the county — roughly 1.2 percent of the county’s total population. [AMP Report]
Islamophobia Strikes Again: Florida mosque is removed as a polling site
July 14: Since at least the year 2010, the Islamic Center of Boca Raton, Florida, served as a polling station for Palm Beach County voters for presidential primary, municipal and general elections. Last week, however, the mosque was removed as a polling site by Susan Bucher, Supervisor of Elections for Palm Beach County, after she received complaints, and threats, about the use of the mosque in the upcoming Florida primary in August and general election in November. Bucher had received a call “that indicated individuals planned to impede voting and maybe even call in a bomb threat to have the location evacuated on Election Day,” Bucher said in an email to The Palm Beach Post Editorial Board. She decided to relocate the polling place to the Spanish River Library about two miles away. Bucher’s decision to drop the mosque as a polling place has drawn criticism from two U.S. Democratic representatives, Ted Deutch and Lois Frankel. “The right to religious freedom and the right to vote are both fundamental to our democracy,” said Frankel in a statement. “All polling places should be safe, without discrimination against any religion.” “If we are going to use places of worship as polling places, we should not discriminate. When Donald Trump talks about a religious ban on Muslims, there is a dangerous impact on communities throughout this country,” Deutch said. The editorial board of the Palm Beach Post, while sympathetic to the Bucher’s “uncomfortable position” and the “difficult decision” she had to make, called the abandoning of the mosque as a polling place “de facto discrimination.” “We shouldn’t have to cower before threats from faceless bigots,” read the editorial. By moving the polling place to another location, she had “given in to . . . fearmongering.” The Palm Beach Post’s editorial pointed out that Palm Beach County voters have long cast their ballots in churches and synagogues, and that dropping the mosque as a polling place is contrary to the Constitution’s First Amendment by essentially relegating Islam to a second-class religion. [AMP Report]
After Dallas shootings, police arrest people for criticizing cops on Facebook and Twitter
July 14: Four men in Detroit were arrested over the past week for posts on social media that the police chief called threatening. One tweet that led to an arrest said that Micah Johnson, the man who shot police officers in Dallas last week, was a hero. None of the men have been named, nor have they been charged. “I know this is a new issue, but I want these people charged with crimes,” said Detroit Police Chief James Craig. “I’ve directed my officers to prepare warrants for these four individuals, and we’ll see which venue is the best to pursue charges,” he added. Five police officers were killed in the Dallas shootings, constituting the highest number of police casualties in an attack since September 11. And as a result, law enforcement officials everywhere are suddenly much more sensitive to threats against their lives. But one result has been that several police departments across the country have arrested individuals for posts on social media accounts, often from citizen tips — raising concerns among free speech advocates. Last weekend in Connecticut, police arrested Kurt Vanzuuk after a tip for posts on Facebook that identified Johnson as a hero and called for police to be killed. He was charged with inciting injury to persons or property. An Illinois woman, Jenesis Reynolds, was arrested for writing in a Facebook post that she would shoot an officer who would pull her over. In New Jersey, Rolando Medina was arrested and charged with cyber harassment. He allegedly posted on an unidentified social media platform that he would destroy local police headquarters. In Louisiana, Kemonte Gilmore was arrested for an online video in which he allegedly threatened a police officer. He was charged with public intimidation. The policing of online threats is hardly a new issue. The Supreme Court set a precedent last year when it ruled that prosecutors pursuing a charge of communicating threats need to prove both that reasonable people would view the statement as a threat and that the intent was to threaten. Elonis v. United States dealt with a man who had posted violent rap lyrics about his estranged wife; the court reversed his conviction. [The Intercept]
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