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Executive Editor: Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Chronology of Islam in America (2017)
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
May 2017 - Page Two
4 Muslim women punched in face in Islamophobic attacks in Australia
May 11: In bias-motivated crimes, four Muslim women in Australia were allegedly punched in the face by a 39-year-old journalism student from Paraguay. One of four Muslim women targeted in four successive and unprovoked Islamophobic attacks yesterday said she was randomly punched in the face as she walked through the city wearing her headphones. Maria Claudia Gimenez Wilson, a 39-year-old journalism student from Paraguay, is charged with assaulting the four women, aged 18-23, as they walked along busy roads near University of Technology Sydney (UTS) in Ultimo, Sydney Morning Herald reported. All four women were wearing hijab, and were allegedly punched in the face. Officers are treating the assaults as “bias-motivated crimes” after Wilson allegedly told police she was motivated by a hatred of Muslims, the report said. One of the alleged victims, Hanan Merheb, posted on Facebook that she was walking past UTS listening to music and “in a pretty good mood” when she was punched out of nowhere. Wilson, who moved to Australia to study, was ordered to undergo a psychiatric assessment in Prince of Wales Hospital today after her Legal Aid solicitor, Vanya Hampel, told Central Local Court that her client was seeking to be dealt with under mental health legislation. “We are very concerned with the escalation of both the frequency of incidents of Islamophobia and the level of violence,” she said. [Hindustan Times]
Brevard, Florida, residents clash over textbook's chapter on Islam
May 10: Ninth-graders in Brevard County (Florida) will keep using a world history textbook, despite fierce debate over its chapter on Islam. The Pearson textbook came under fire in 2013 and again last month, drawing the attention of the local chapters of ACT for America and the Council on American-Islamic Relations. However, the school board ultimately decided last night to keep the textbook as is. Leading up to their decision, opponents argued that the chapter ignored the "true history" of Islam and painted Mohammed and the treatment of women in an overly favorable light. "All the facts must be presented, both the good and the bad," said Lee Boyland, who sat on the textbook review committee back in 2013. "Omitting facts is slanting history." But teachers and school board members reasoned that including every detail of a religion with its roots in the 7th century would be impossible. Instead, high school teachers will continue using a chapter supplement developed in 2013. “I’ve got to imagine that every history book has some omissions in them or the books would be so thick you couldn’t carry them around,” said board member Andy Ziegler, who sat on the board the last time the book came under scrutiny. When members of CAIR and ACT clashed in March, members of the Muslim community maintained that critics of the textbook are only looking to spread Islamophobic ideas, often relying on faulty sources. Throughout meetings, textbook opponents cited articles from Wikipedia, a website that anyone can edit. "They are not concerned with how well Brevard County’s students perform, nor about their futures,” Rasha Mubarak, Orlando Regional Coordinator of CAIR-Florida, said of ACT. “They are using our students for their one intention and that is to push their anti-Islamic agenda.” She noted that ACT has been designated a hate group, placing it among organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan. The president of ACT's Brevard chapter has since disputed the classification. The school board was caught in the middle of an identical argument in 2013. [Florida Today]
Anthony Sawina convicted of shooting Somali-Americans
May 12: A jury has convicted a white man of attempted murder for shooting and wounding two Somali-American men who were on their way to Ramadan prayers in Minneapolis last year. Anthony Sawina, 26, of Lauderdale, Minnesota, was found guilty yesterday on all nine counts he faced, including attempted first-degree murder. The shooting happened last June in the Dinkytown area near the University of Minnesota. Sawina, who was with a group of friends, shot and wounded the two men, who were on their way to prayers after playing basketball. [Al Jazeera]
First-quarter civil rights update shows bias incidents related to ‘Muslim Ban
May 18: Just prior to President Trump’s first official travel to a Muslim-majority country, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today released a report documenting anti-Muslim incidents in the first quarter of 2017. In more than 50 percent of incidents, federal government agencies were identified as the instigator. The civil rights group’s first-quarter update also noted that 33 percent of anti-Muslim bias incidents were related to the Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States Executive Order, also known as the Trump administration’s "Muslim Ban." “As President Trump prepares to visit a Muslim-majority country, it is important that he first condemn the wave of Islamophobic bias in America that has in part been triggered by his own campaign rhetoric and policies that target the Muslim community,” said Zainab Arain, coordinator in CAIR’s Department to Monitor and Combat Islamophobia. “The President has yet to step up and condemn a single incident in which an American Muslim was targeted.” The most frequent type of incidents documented by CAIR so far in 2017 involved U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The second most common type of incidents involved episodes in which the complainant was questioned by FBI employees or otherwise appeared to be inappropriately targeted by the agency. Harassment - non-violent or non-threatening bias incidents such as verbal abuse - was the third most common type of incident. Incidents involving issues with multiple federal government agencies and hate crimes rounded out the top five categories. The most prevalent trigger of anti-Muslim bias incidents in 2017 has been the victim's ethnicity or national origin, accounting for 33 percent of the total. Eleven percent of incidents have occurred as a result of an individual being perceived as Muslim. A Muslim woman’s headscarf has been a trigger in 8 percent of incidents. [CAIR]
Tillerson declines to host Ramadan event at State Department
May 26: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has declined a request to host an event to mark Islam’s holy month of Ramadan, two U.S. officials said, apparently breaking with a bipartisan tradition in place with few exceptions for nearly 20 years. Since 1999, Republican and Democratic secretaries of state have nearly always hosted either an iftar dinner to break the day’s fast during Ramadan or a reception marking the Eid al-Fitr holiday at the end of the month, at the State Department. Tillerson turned down a request from the State Department’s Office of Religion and Global Affairs to host an Eid al-Fitr reception as part of Ramadan celebrations, said two U.S. officials who declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak publicly. [Reuters]
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