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Executive Editor: Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Chronology of Islam in America (2017)
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
February 2017
Texas community extends support to local mosque
Feb 2: In the midst of challenging times, particularly for minority groups, in the United States (US), the Islamic Centre of Waco in Texas highlighted the warmth they received from their local community. On January 27, President Donald Trump signed an executive order temporarily barring nationals from seven Muslim-majority countries including Syria, as well as putting a four-month hold on allowing refugees from entering the US. The move, which Trump claims will help protect Americans from terror attacks, unleashed protests across the country. However, despite the increasing tension, one mosque wanted to highlight the love and positivity they have received from people around them. "It has been a tough few days for Muslims in the United States. But by the end of the week, we have seen mass demonstrations and even a personal outpour of love and support from our local Waco community," a post on their Facebook page reads. "We are our friends and America is your country too! You are loved and valued!" read one message sent to the mosque. Another note read: "We will always fight alongside you in love and solidarity." [DNA India]
Freedom of Religion Act introduced in response to President Trump’s Muslim ban
Feb 2: In response to President Trump’s unlawful, immoral Executive Order banning all refugees as well as individuals and families from certain Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East from entering the United States, House Members, including Reps. Don Beyer (D-VA), Chair of the Democratic Caucus Joe Crowley (D-NY), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Betty McCollum (D-MN), Keith Ellison (D-MN), Andre Carson (D-IN), and Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) introduced the Freedom of Religion Act today to prohibit barring immigrants, refugees, and international visitors from entry on the basis of religion. They were joined by Gold Star Father Khizr Khan and supporting religious and civil liberties organizations. “I spent hours at Dulles Airport helping grieving families reconnect with their loved ones detained or deported by President Trump’s Muslim ban,” said Rep. Don Beyer. “Religious freedom is a defining value of the United States, guaranteed by the Founding Fathers in the First Amendment to the Constitution. Today’s legislation won’t ease the pain from President Trump’s ban, but it will ensure that this sort of immoral action never happens again and show the world that America still honors its founding principles.” “Protecting religious freedom is the very foundation of what our nation was built on,” said House Democratic Caucus Chairman Joe Crowley. “I strongly believe we have a responsibility, now more than ever, to stand up for individuals of all religions against hatred and bigotry. America need to be a welcoming, safe haven for all and I'm proud to be a co-sponsor of legislation that keeps true to our values." [Alexandrea News]
Trump to focus counter-extremism program solely on Islam
Feb 2: The Trump administration wants to revamp and rename a U.S. government program designed to counter all violent ideologies so that it focuses solely on Islamist extremism, five people briefed on the matter told Reuters. The program, "Countering Violent Extremism," or CVE, would be changed to "Countering Islamic Extremism" or "Countering Radical Islamic Extremism," the sources said, and would no longer target groups such as white supremacists who have also carried out bombings and shootings in the United States. Such a change would reflect Trump's election campaign rhetoric and criticism of former President Barrack Obama for being weak in the fight against Islamic State and for refusing to use the phrase "radical Islam" in describing it. Islamic State has claimed responsibility for attacks on civilians in several countries. The CVE program aims to deter groups or potential lone attackers through community partnerships and educational programs or counter-messaging campaigns in cooperation with companies such as Google (GOOGL.O) and Facebook (FB.O). Some proponents of the program fear that rebranding it could make it more difficult for the government to work with Muslims already hesitant to trust the new administration, particularly after Trump issued an executive order last Friday temporarily blocking travel to the United States from seven predominantly Muslim countries. A source who has worked closely with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on the program said Trump transition team members first met with a CVE task force in December and floated the idea of changing the name and focus. [Reuters]
Prayer vigil, rally for immigrants at JFK: Federal judge halts Trump order 'on nationwide basis'
Feb 3: Hundreds of people gathered outside Terminal 4 at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Friday (today) for a Muslim prayer service and protest against the recent executive order from the White House temporarily banning travel to the United States from seven predominantly Muslim countries. The rally was organized by the New York Interfaith Coalition. Hours after the event, U.S. District Judge James Robart, issued a temporary restraining order "'on a nationwide basis,' prohibiting federal employees from enforcing Trump's order. Speaking at the JFK event, Imam Al-Hajj Tali ’Abdur-Rashid of the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood led about 200 faithful in the Jummah, or Friday, prayer. Speakers included Suzanne Loebl, a 91-year-old Holocaust survivor from Germany whose family fled to Belgium ahead of the Nazis. They also tried to get to France. “At that time France was the promised land,” she said. “They wouldn’t let us in. They said we didn’t have the right papers ...” Among those coming out in support were members of the MinKwon Center for Community Action, a Flushing-based advocacy group for Korean and Asian residents. Sussan Lee, an immigration attorney with the organization, said it was important to show solidarity in the wake of President Trump’s order. “There was a time in this country when Asians were singled out because they were considered to be a threat,” she said, referring to the forced internment of more than 100,000 U.S. residents of Japanese heritage during World War Two. Inside Terminal 4, a handful of people held signs in multiple languages directing arriving passengers in need to people nearby offering free legal service to those with immigration questions. [Queens Chronicle]
Civil rights groups launch nationwide campaign to rein in surveillance under Trump
Feb 7: Last week, the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) made national headlines by becoming the first department to break from a Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), a longstanding partnership with the FBI that involves the collection of intelligence in the city. Now, a movement in the civil rights community wants police departments to take similar steps nationwide. On Thursday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Asian Americans Advancing Justice, PICO and more than 10 other organizations launched the Stop Trump Intelligence Program, nicknamed TrumpIntelPro, to stop police from illegally surveilling and bullying vulnerable civilians — including Muslim-Americans, immigrants, and protesters. The coalition hopes to rein in other JTTFs before they collect intelligence on behalf of Trump and the FBI. The TrumpIntelPro effort “will highlight model ordinances to protect civil rights, encourage local police departments to adhere to laws in their local jurisdictions rather than the FBI, direct calls into the offices of state and federal elected officials and provide concrete actions local communities can take to protect themselves from a rogue administration.” The campaign is a direct response to what members believe will be a COINTELPRO-style program under the new administration. The latter was used to clandestinely obliterate black activist organizations, anti-war activists, and socialist groups in the 1970s — a mission that was achieved, in part, due to partnerships with local law enforcement agencies. Based on Trump’s executive orders in the past two weeks, TrumpIntelPro organizers anticipate that surveillance and illegal targeting of Muslims, immigrants and other racial and religious groups — with the help of local police — will escalate in the near future. [Think Progress]
This is how the Trump administration could freeze out Muslims in America
Feb 8: Human Rights Watch today outlined how the Trump administration would be able to go after a broad array of Muslim civic organizations if it adds the Muslim Brotherhood to its list of designated foreign terrorist organizations, which administration officials have said privately they are weighing. Designating the Muslim Brotherhood has long been a cause of right-wing Republicans and U.S. allies Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) reintroduced a bill pushing for the group’s foreign terrorist designation last month, which supporters believe will find traction under President Trump. The initiative’s proponents cite a widely discredited 1991 document as evidence that the brotherhood is plotting a secret Islamist takeover of America. Middle East experts say the brotherhood is an Egypt-based Islamist organization that renounced violence decades ago, remade itself as a pro-democracy political organization, and was the most successful political party in Egypt until its leaders were overthrown in a 2013 military coup and branded as terrorists. Members of its sister organizations and offshoots hold elected office in a scattering of other Mideast countries, including Turkey, where officials from the ruling party — a close brotherhood affiliate — are meeting with President Trump’s CIA director (and a onetime co-sponsor of a bill to designate the brotherhood a terrorist organization) Mike Pompeo today. Muslim advocacy groups and Middle East experts have warned that adding the brotherhood to a terrorist list would set a dangerous precedent — by appearing to target a group for its ideology, rather than its actions — and could easily be used to go after American Muslim organizations and individuals. Supporters of the terrorist organization designation also make the claim that the Council on American-Islamic Relations and several other major Muslim civic and advocacy groups are brotherhood front organizations. Those groups, as well as experts on the Islamist movement, say there is no evidence to support that claim. But both supporters and opponents of the terrorist designation believe it would be wielded in an effort to shut those groups down. [By Abigail Hauslohner - Washington Post]
White house weighs terrorist designation for Muslim Brotherhood
Feb 7: President Trump’s advisers are debating an order intended to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization, targeting the oldest and perhaps most influential Islamist group in the Middle East. A political and social organization with millions of followers, the Brotherhood officially renounced violence decades ago and won elections in Egypt after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak in 2011. Affiliated groups have joined the political systems in places like Tunisia and Turkey, and President Barack Obama long resisted pressure to declare it a terrorist organization.......... Critics said they feared that Mr. Trump’s team wanted to create a legal justification to crack down on Muslim charities, mosques and other groups in the United States. A terrorist designation would freeze assets, block visas and ban financial interactions. “This would signal they are more interested in provoking conflict with an imaginary fifth column of Muslims in the U.S. than in preserving our relationships with counterterrorism partners like Turkey, Jordan, Tunisia and Morocco, or with fighting actual terrorism,” said Tom Malinowski, an assistant secretary of state under Mr. Obama. The Brotherhood has long been a source of alarm on the right, especially at Breitbart News, whose chairman, Stephen K. Bannon, is now Mr. Trump’s chief White House strategist. A 2007 summary for a film Mr. Bannon proposed making on radical Islam in America, obtained by The Washington Post, called the Brotherhood “the foundation of modern terrorism.” Sebastian Gorka and Katharine Gorka, two Breitbart contributors who have long warned of Muslim extremists in the United States, also joined the new administration. Mr. Gorka is a deputy national security assistant, while Ms. Gorka is working at the Department of Homeland Security. Frank Gaffney Jr., founder of the Center for Security Policy, who once asserted that Mr. Obama might secretly be a Muslim, urged Mr. Trump on Breitbart’s radio show last week to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. He has argued that the Brotherhood’s philosophy mirrors that of groups that are already on the list. “The goals of the Muslim Brotherhood,” Mr. Gaffney said in a recent interview with The New York Times, are “exactly the same as the Islamic State, exactly the same as the Taliban, exactly the same as, you know, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, Al Nusra Front, on and on, Al Shabab. It’s about Islamic supremacism. It’s about achieving the end state that is their due.” Some congressional Republicans reintroduced legislation last month calling on the State Department to designate the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization or explain why it would not. “It’s time to call the enemy by its name,” Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who sponsored the measure with Representative Mario DiazBalart of Florida, wrote on Twitter. Among those objecting is the Council on American Islamic Relations, which describes itself as the largest Muslim civil rights organization in the United States. Mr. Gaffney and others have accused it of being a front for the Brotherhood, which the council denies. It said such an order by Mr. Trump would be a brazen attempt to repress Muslims. “We believe it is just a smoke screen for a witch hunt targeting the civil rights of American Muslims,” said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the council. He said that, given what he called false attempts to link Muslim Americans to the Brotherhood, a terrorist designation would “inevitably be used in a political campaign to attack those same groups and individuals, to marginalize the American Muslim community and to demonize Islam.” [New York Time]
Calling the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group would hurt all American Muslims
Feb 8: President Trump may be ready to intensify his antagonism of Muslims. Reports suggest that the White House is considering an executive order directing the State Department to assess whether the Muslim Brotherhood should be designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Some Republicans, including Trump’s erstwhile rival Sen. Ted Cruz(Tex.), have been pushing for this for a long time, and it will have ramifications far beyond the Middle East, where the group primarily operates. The result is likely to be intimidation, harassment and smears of Muslim and Arab groups here in the United States. ….If the group is designated as a terrorist organization, a growing $57 million Islamophobia machine, backed by large funders, well-organized institutions and junk scientists, will be ready to lead an effort to link the Muslim Brotherhood to groups here. This industry demonizes Islam through fake news, ersatz reports and hateful rhetoric; fear mongers and peddles falsehoods about Sharia law; and encourages lawmakers across the country to criminalize Muslim and Arab communities through bans, registries, watch lists and the like. They have helped introduce more than 100 anti-Sharia bills in state legislatures and encouraged and trained law enforcement to see Islam as a religion of violence. These anti-Muslim groups will now double down on their favorite smear tactic: They will declare that the Brotherhood is taking over the country and accuse prominent Muslims, their organizations and allies of being conspirators. Just as the Red Scare of the 1950s saw the chimerical specter of worldwide communism everywhere, accusations alone will have the power to destroy reputations and chill lawful activity, including freedom of worship, association, expression and charitable giving. The witch hunt could be widespread and expansive. Cruz and allies such as Frank Gaffney, who advised him during last year’s campaign and reportedly advised Trump’s transition, has repeatedly argued that three of the largest Muslim organizations in the country — the Islamic Society of North America, the Council on American Islamic Relations and the North American Islamic Trust — are affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood. No evidence supports this view, apart from a single memorandum prepared in 1991 by a man affiliated with the Brotherhood, which discussed Muslim American organizations “march[ing] according to one plan.” This memorandum, of which there is only one known copy, has been widely discredited and called a fantasy. Moreover, in the years that have followed, these groups and countless others have been vetted and are now a celebrated part of American life. [By Arjun Singh Sethi - Washington Post]
HWR: Terrorist Designation of MB Would Harm US Groups
Feb 8: A US government designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization, which the Trump administration is reportedly considering, would threaten the rights to association of Muslim groups in the United States, Human Rights Watch said today. Such a designation would also undermine the ability of the Muslim Brotherhood’s members and supporters to participate in democratic politics abroad. “Designating the Muslim Brotherhood a ‘foreign terrorist organization’ would wrongly equate it with violent extremist groups like Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State and make their otherwise lawful activities illegal,” said Laura Pitter, senior US national security counsel at Human Rights Watch. “The designation would also unfairly taint anyone alleged to be linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and undermine the exercise of its political rights abroad.” The Muslim Brotherhood is an international Islamic social and political movement with numerous independent political parties, charities, and offices in the Middle East, Europe, and elsewhere. In several countries in the Middle East and North Africa, including Jordan and Tunisia, Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated parties are recognized by law and hold seats in parliament. The Muslim Brotherhood maintains offices in Qatar, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and other countries, but has no official presence in the US. [Human Rights Watch]
Phoenix immigrant deported to Mexico amid protests
Feb 9: The deportation of an immigrant mother in Phoenix who was granted leniency during the Obama administration provides an early example of how President Donald Trump plans to carry through on his vow to crack down on illegal immigration. The case of Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos became a rallying cry today for immigrant groups who believe Trump’s approach to immigration unfairly tears apart families. Her arrest prompted a vocal demonstration in downtown Phoenix as protesters blocked enforcement vans from leaving a US immigration office. Seven people were arrested. White House spokesman Sean Spicer referred questions on the matter to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which said in a statement on Twitter that the agency ‘‘will remove illegal aliens convicted of felony offenses as ordered by an immigration judge.’’Garcia de Rayos was deported around 10 a.m. from a Nogales border crossing and ICE worked with Mexican consular officials to repatriate her, agency spokeswoman Yasmeen Pitts O’Keefe said in a statement. [Boston Globe]
Hundreds of undocumented immigrants arrested in at least 6 U.S. states
Feb 11: Hundreds of undocumented immigrants from a dozen Latin American countries have been arrested in at least six U.S. states this week, following President Donald Trump's executive order to broaden the scope of immigration enforcement targets. They were netted in Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, New York, North Carolina and South Carolina, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials confirmed today. Among them 161 arrests were made in Los Angeles and some 200 in Atlanta, said local media reports. The authorities didn't reveal the total number of the arrests. Gillian Christensen, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said the crackdown was part of "routine" immigration enforcement actions. A majority of those detained were serious criminals, including some who were convicted of murder and domestic violence, she said. However, a Washington Post report said some of the detained are without criminal records, calling it the first large-scale crackdown under the Trump administration. On Jan. 25, Trump issued an executive order ending the previous "catch and release" policy. Under the new order, the immigration enforcement are allowed to target undocumented immigrants with minor offenses or no convictions. Immigration officials acknowledged that as a result of Trump's executive order, authorities had cast a wider net than they would have last year, said the report. The Obama administration has also pursued a more aggressive deportation policy than any previous presidents, sending over 400,000 people back to their birth countries in 2012. However, in his second term, Obama prioritized convicted criminals for deportation. On the 2016 campaign trail, Trump pledged to deport two to three million undocumented immigrants with criminal records. There are estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living across the United States. [Xinhua]
Call for Federal investigation of death threats in Kernersville, North Carolina
Feb 16: The nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy group is requesting a federal investigation after death threats were made against the Muslim community during a meeting in Kernersville (North Carolina) on February 16. The meeting, attended by about 20 people at a seafood restaurant, included a focus on a “supposed Muslim plot to conquer the United States,” according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). This allegation apparently incited violent ideas by some participants. “My only recommendation is to start killing the hell out them,” one Winston-Salem participant said, according to CAIR. “I’m ready to start taking people out. Shed some blood, too.” The moderator at the meeting said people should be more concerned about Muslims who appear to be integrated into American society than other outwardly extremist groups, like ISIS, according to Triad City Beat, which reported on the meeting, saying it took place at Captain Tom’s Seafood. Members of the Washington, D.C.-based organization CAIR called for the FBI to investigate the meeting, especially on the heels of a terror attack on a mosque in Canada last month that killed six worshipers and wounded 17. A speaker at the meeting asserted that Muslim people had infiltrated high positions of influence, often behind the scenes, in government, academia, medicine, the media and the judiciary, according to the Triad City Beat’s account of the meeting. In reference to the comment of Muslim masterminds infiltrating the country, Khalid Griggs, imam of the Community Mosque of Winston-Salem, posted on Facebook: “It must be emotionally painful to be that paranoid about a non-existent, made up threat. I shudder at the thought of my grandchildren potentially growing up in a hate-filled, xenophobic environment in 21st century America.” Anti-Muslim groups have nearly tripled in the U.S. since 2015, according to a Southern Poverty Law Center study. [Winston-Salem Journal]
Immigration agents arrested men outside a church: Officials say it was just a coincidence
Feb 17: At least two undocumented immigrants were detained after leaving a church-run hypothermia shelter in Virginia earlier this month, raising concerns among advocates that similar arrests might cause people to avoid getting much-needed help. But Immigrations and Customs Enforcement told TIME that the detainments were a coincidence and that the agency is not targeting churches or other sensitive areas. On Feb. 8, immigrations agents arrested two men who had just left a hypothermia shelter at Rising Hope Mission Church in the Alexandria section of Fairfax County. (Advocates say four more men might have been picked up too.) But an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement official told TIME that agents were not staking out the church, that they were in the area looking for a specific person and that the men were arrested after "consensual interviews" on a sidewalk in front of a nearby Aldi supermarket. One of the men officers arrested was a citizen of Honduras who had previously been removed from the U.S. Immigrations officials says he had a felony drug conviction and a string of misdemeanor convictions dating back to 2000. The other man is from El Salvador, and though an official says he is a legal permanent resident of the United States, he also has multiple misdemeanor convictions including a 2016 charge of driving while intoxicated. Advocates worry these arrests, as well as others at schools and apartments, will perpetuate fear within anxious immigrant communities. Some are concerned the sensitive-locations policy will be undermined. "Who knows whether this administration plans on respecting churches, plans on respecting synagogues, and mosques and places of worship," said immigration attorney David Leopold. "It doesn’t appear that they do." [Time]
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