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Executive Editor: Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Chronology of Islam in America (2017)
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
June 2017
Trump administration asks Supreme Court to revive Muslim travel ban
June 1: The Trump administration today asked the U.S. Supreme Court to revive his controversial Muslim travel ban executive order which was blocked by lower courts that found it discriminatory. The Justice Department asked the apex court to temporarily lift injunctions that bar officials from carrying out Trump’s March 6, 2017 directive to suspend visa issuance to citizens of six Muslim countries and halt the flow of refugees to the U.S. from across the globe. President Trump's administration was seeking to overturn rulings by lower courts in Hawaii and Maryland that blocked a temporary ban on travel to the United States from six Muslim countries (Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen). The administration says the Constitution gives the president "broad authority to prevent aliens abroad from entering this country when he deems it in the nation's interest." The move comes after the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on May 25 upheld a Maryland judge's ruling blocking the order. The court, in a majority opinion, with the chief judge writing that the travel ban "drips with religious intolerance, animus, and discrimination."
The Justice Department filings argue that the lower courts were wrong to take into account Trump's statements from before he took office. A U.S. District Court judge in Seattle blocked the executive order on February 9, 2017. The Justice Department appealed to the 9th Circuit, which upheld the lower court's injunction. The Court of Appeals said that the president's claim of ultimate authority over foreign policy was inadequate. "Although courts owe considerable deference to the President’s policy determinations with respect to immigration and national security, it is beyond question that the federal judiciary retains the authority to adjudicate constitutional challenges to executive action," they said. After first pledging to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, the president issued a revised executive order on March 6 in an effort to address objections raised by the Seattle judge. Federal judges in Hawaii and Maryland have blocked President Donald Trump's Muslim Ban 2.0. In their ruling both judges cited Trump's statements about Muslims during the presidential campaign. [AMP Report]
UPS sued by Muslims over prayer time during work breaks
June 2: The Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MN) today announced the filing of a lawsuit in state court against UPS Mail Innovations and Doherty Staffing Solutions for firing multiple Muslim employees who wanted to pray during their break times after previously having allowed them to pray. The plaintiffs stated that there had been no problem with them using their break time to pray until a new UPS operations manager was hired. He then terminated employees who wanted to pray. “There is no lawful reason for any company to stop Muslims from praying when previously that company had allowed such prayers in a manner that did not impact the workplace,” said CAIR-MN’s Amir Malik, who is one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys. “We believe that UPS Mail Innovations and Doherty Staffing Solutions withdrew this reasonable accommodation pretextually, in order to get rid of the Muslim employees.”The complaint, filed in the Fourth Judicial District Court of Minnesota, requests the Court to order that the defendants compensate the plaintiffs for the harm done to them in addition to punitive damages to prevent this type of illegal conduct in the future. [Willmar Radio]
CAIR sues feds for barring Utah imam from returning to U.S. after being placed on 'No-Fly List'
June 16: The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today announced that it filed an emergency lawsuit on behalf of a Utah imam (Muslim religious leader) who was prevented from boarding a flight back to his home in the United States from Kenya. CAIR's lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Utah. Among the defendants are the FBI, the Terrorism Screening Center (TSC) and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).Imam Yussuf Awadir Abdi, an American citizen and imam of Madina Masjid in Salt Lake City, Utah, traveled to Kenya to bring his wife and children to the United States. All members of his family are either United States citizens or have permission to enter and reside in this country. Imam Abdi was added to the no-fly list after he left the country and was therefore prevented from boarding his flight home. A motion filed in conjunction with the lawsuit seeks an emergency court order compelling the United States to allow Imam Abdi to board a flight and return to his home in Utah. The Imam was able to return to US on June 20, 2017. [CAIR]
Nationwide anti-Islam rallies show convergence of supremacist & Islamophobes
June 11: Far-right activists today held anti-Muslim demonstrations in least 28 cities across the United States. The demonstrators, spurred by one of the largest grass-roots anti-Muslim group, and in many cases were met by larger crowds of counter protesters. Counter protesters amassed in several cities to oppose the nationwide marches, with clashes and skirmishes taking place at a handful of the march sites. Clashes reportedly broke out between anti-fascists - known colloquially as Antifa - and march participants in a handful of cities, including Seattle, Washington. The protests and counter protests in more than a dozen cities come at a time of increased tensions and frequent physical confrontations between Antifa and far-right activists. During a rally and counter protest in New York City, local media reports estimate that around 200 Antifa protests outnumbered several dozen participants of the National March Against Sharia. At least one planned rally was canceled in Portland, Oregon, where two men were fatally stabbed last month while defending two Muslim women from a man who taunted them with racial slurs.
Members of the alt-right - a loosely knit movement that includes white supremacists, neo-Nazis and other far-right groups - had announced their intention to participate in many of the marches. The demonstrations were also held Seattle, New York, Chicago, Saint Paul (Minnesota) and Santa Clara (California). According to Reuters news agency, on the steps of the Pennsylvania state capitol in Harrisburg, barricades and a heavy police presence, including officers mounted on horses, separated about 60 anti-sharia demonstrators from an equal number of counter-protesters. Many of the latter were dressed in black masks and hoods and chanting "No Trump, no KKK, no Fascist USA." The atmosphere was tense but the protest went off with no violence and only one arrest, police said. More than a dozen men belonging to the anti-government Oath Keepers were on hand, invited by ACT to provide security. Most of them carried handguns.
In Seattle, about 75 ‘anti-sharia’ protesters were outnumbered by counter-protesters at a rally that was moved from Portland, Oregon. Tensions are running high in Portland after a man yelling religious and racial slurs at two teenage girls on a commuter train fatally stabbed two men who tried to stop him. Oath Keepers said on its website that it was "answering the call to defend free speech against those who would use terrorist violence or the threat of violence to shut it down." The Southern Poverty Law Center says Oath Keepers is "one of the largest radical antigovernment groups in the United States," organized around a "set of baseless conspiracy theories." The so-called anti-Shariah rallies were organized by Act for America, deemed an anti-Muslim hate group deemed by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The demonstrations prompted security fears at mosques across the country and come at a time when hate crimes against Muslims are on the rise. A coalition of 129 national and local organizations amplified concerns on June 9 in a letter urging mayors to denounce the marches, which also coincide with Ramadan, the holy month in which Muslims fast during the daylight hours.
Neo-Nazis have been actively recruiting people online to help organize and attend Saturday's demonstrations. For example, neo-Nazi group White Lives Matter is using the Daily Stormer (a popular neo-Nazi website) to recruit white nationalists to organize and join the anti-Sharia rally in Austin, Texas, according to SPLC. In Batesville, Arkansas, longtime neo-Nazi Billy Roper volunteered to organize the anti-Sharia rally. Roper, founder of the white nationalist group National Alliance, wrote an email to his members immediately after 9/11 praising al-Qaida for hitting the Twin Towers in New York City. The nationwide anti-Muslim demonstrations were called by Act for America founded by Brigitte Gabriel, American of Lebanese origin, in 2007. [AMP Report]
9th Circuit Court Upholds freeze on Trump's Muslim Ban 2.0
June 12: In the latest legal setback for the Trump administration, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals today upheld an earlier decision by a federal judge in Hawaii to block President Donald Trump's executive order known as Muslim Ban 2.0. Today's unanimous ruling noted, "The President's authority is subject to certain statutory and constitutional restraints," but that Trump's revised executive order "exceeded the scope of the authority delegated to him by Congress." The ruling also states: "A reasonable, objective observer - enlightened by the specific historical context, contemporaneous public statements and specific sequence of events leading to its issuance - would conclude that the executive order was issued with a purpose to disfavor a particular religion." The three judges ruled unanimously that the president's overhauled travel ban "exceeded the scope of the authority delegated to him by Congress" under federal immigration law, because the executive order did not contain "a sufficient justification to suspend the entry of more than 180 million people on the basis of nationality."
According to the ABC News, at the heart of the 9th Circuit opinion Monday is the panel's determination that the president failed to show in his executive order that there were specific national security justifications for excluding nationals of the six designated Muslim countries (Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen). The circuit court also held that Trump failed in the executive order to "reveal any threat or harm to warrant suspension of [refugee admissions] for 120 days and does not support the conclusion that the entry of refugees in the interim time period would be harmful." As in previous rulings, the appeals panel cited remarks by Trump that seemed to contradict his administration’s attorneys, who had argued that the order, despite the president’s rhetoric, was narrow in scope and not discriminatory in nature. [AMP Report]
White House remains defiant
In the face of yet another courtroom defeat, the White House remained defiant. Press secretary Sean Spicer dismissed the ruling, and said the White House remained confident it would be vindicated by the Supreme Court. “Frankly, I think any lawyer worth their salt 100 percent agrees that the president is fully within his rights and his responsibilities to do what is necessary to protect the country,” Spicer told reporters at the White House. “I think we can all attest that these are very dangerous times and we need every available tool at our disposal to prevent terrorists from entering the United States.” Attorney General Jeff Sessions vowed to press the Supreme Court to take up the issue. He also denied that the travel ban has any relation to religion. “President Trump’s Executive Order is well within his lawful authority to keep the Nation safe. We disagree with the Ninth Circuit’s decision to block that authority," Sessions said in a statement Monday evening. "The President was clear in his landmark speech in Saudi Arabia: this is not about religion; it is about national security ... Unfortunately, this injunction prevents the President from fully carrying out his Article II duties and has a chilling effect on security operations overall.” [AMP Report]
After shooting of GOP lawmakers, senate extremism hearing focuses only on Muslims
June 15: Early this morning in Alexandria, Virginia, a 66-year-old white man opened fire on a group of Republican lawmakers practicing for an upcoming charity baseball game. Six were injured, including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), who remains in critical condition. But hours later and a few miles away inside the U.S. Senate, a hearing on violent extremism paid little to no attention to extremism of this non-Muslim variety. Instead three selected witnesses spoke in sweeping generalizations about the world’s second-largest religion, and submitted wild conspiracy theories about American Muslims into the public record. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee hearing on “Ideology and Terror: Understanding the Tools, Tactics, and Techniques of Violent Extremism” was organized by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). Among the witnesses invited to testify were Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Asra Nomani, who have used their positions to argue in support of policies that target Muslims. Ali, a Somali-born former Dutch Member of Parliament, is listed as an anti-Muslim extremist by the Southern Poverty Law Center. She’s called Islam a “destructive, nihilistic cult of death” which needs to be “defeated” militarily. She has said that Islam is “at war with America” and that “there is no moderate Islam.”Nomani, a Muslim-American and former reporter at the Wall Street Journal, has supported the profiling of Muslims at airports and said she was “relieved” the NYPD engaged in mass, suspicion-less surveillance of Muslims in New York. She made headlines after the election in 2016 when she declared her support for President Donald Trump, whose campaign was awash in anti-Muslim vitriol. She later went on to support Trump’s Muslim ban. [Huffington Post]
Woman Imam opens mosque in Berlin
June 16: Seyran Ates, the attorney, author and women's rights activist, has opened a Berlin mosque that preaches religious freedom and equality. It's a brave statement of tolerance in an age of increasing fundamentalism, according to Deutsche Welle (DW). Opening its doors Friday on the third floor of St. John's Church near Berlin's Tiergarten, the Ruschd-Goethe mosque is named in honor of the Arabic Islam scholar, physician and philosopher Ibn Ruschd (1126-1198), and the German poet and philosopher, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832). Women and men shall pray together and preach together at the mosque, while the Koran is to be interpreted "historically and critically." The mosque is open to all, with one exception. "No one will come to our mosque with a niqab or burqa," said founder Seyran Ates in an interview with "Spiegel-Online." The full veil ultimately has little to do with religion but is a political statement, she believes. Seyran Ates, (ethnic Turk,) is currently undergoing training as an imam. "For a long time, I only dreamed that liberal Muslims would come together to live an Islam that explicitly affirms democracy and the equal rights of a community of believers," she wrote in "Die Zeit." "I've been waiting for the right mosque to be opened by people who are more loyal to the Quran than I was, and somehow it was like waiting for Godot so I finally decided to realize my own vision." By founding a liberal mosque, Ates has emerged as a "champion of modern Islam," said Fabian Wittreck, professor at the University of Münster's Cluster of Excellence Religion and Politics. This is especially so due to her willingness to dissociate from conservative Islamic institutions, Wittreck told DW. [Deutsche Welle]
American Muslims alarmed at killing of worshipers in Virginia and United Kingdom
June 19: The seven-million strong American Muslim Community was alarmed at the killings of worshippers in Virginia and the British capital, London. The Washington Post reported Monday (June 19) police found remains of a missing Virginia teenager who was assaulted and disappeared overnight after leaving a mosque in the Sterling area, and a 22-year-old man has been charged with murder in connection with the case. The mosque, the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) in Sterling, and relatives identified the girl as 17-year-old Nabra Hassanen of Reston. Fairfax County police identified the man charged with murder in her death as Darwin Martinez Torres of Sterling, the Washington Post reported. And across the Atlantic, in the British capital, London, one man died and 10 others were injured when a man drove a van into worshippers leaving a London mosque after prayers early on Monday (June 19). Witnesses said the van driver was a “large white man”, who was apprehended by members of the public soon after the incident near Finsbury Park. He was quoted as shouting: “I want to kill all Muslims.”A man, who was already being given first aid at the scene before the van rammed the pedestrians, has died. At least two of the injured are in a very serious condition.
Virginia Attorney General Mark R. Herring (D) echoed Northam, urging Virginians to show compassion and kindness. “The ADAMS Center has always welcomed me and so many in Northern Virginia like family,” Herring said. “This unspeakable attack feels like an assault on our entire community. Words fail at a time like this, so we’ll all have to do the best we can to surround them with the love and support they’ve always shown each of us.” While condemning the death of 17-year-old Nabra Hassanen, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) pointed out that an unprecedented spike in hate incidents targeting Muslims – and particularly Muslim women - and other minority groups since the November 8, 2016 election.
British Prime Minister was woken to be told about the early morning attack
The Guardian said Prime Minister, Theresa May, was woken to be told of the early morning attack in Finsbury Park mosque. In a statement May said that the “hatred and evil” of the kind seen in the attack would never succeed. May said the attack had “once again targeted the ordinary and the innocent going about their daily lives – this time, British Muslims as they left a mosque, having broken their fast and prayed together at this sacred time of year.” She added: “Today we come together, as we have done before, to condemn this act and to state once again that hatred and evil of this kind will never succeed.” The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, denounced the incident as “a horrific terrorist attack on innocent people. We don’t yet know the full details, but this was clearly a deliberate attack on innocent Londoners, many of whom were finishing prayers during the holy month of Ramadan. “While this appears to be an attack on a particular community, like the terrible attacks in Manchester, Westminster and London Bridge, it is also an assault on all our shared values of tolerance, freedom and respect.” The incident happened in the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s Islington North constituency. He released a statement on Twitter expressing his shock. He later visited the mosque, saying that the apparent targeting of the Muslim community at the height of Ramadan had shocked the community. “A lot of the time people are saying Islamophobia isn’t real, but this time it’s actually killed someone and injured others … There are kids who grew up (watching this) on TV and never expected it to happen in their own backyard.” The Finsbury Park Mosque, is one of the largest in the UK. Muslim Council of Britain said Monday’s attack was the most violent manifestation of Islamophobia in Britain in recent months and called for extra security at places of worship. [AMP Report]
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