Sean Ali Stone

Hollywood Hates on a Muslim Sean Stone

Twitter and the general looniverse was abuzz with the angry reactions of Islamophobes to  Sean Stone’s conversion to Islam, we covered the episode in our post, Oliver Stone’s Son Converts to Islam: The “Islamization” of Hollywood Continues?

In the most recent update to the story Stone discusses the reaction he has received both in the film industry and at large:

“I’ve already experienced the reverse of anti-Semitism, having people within the film industry express a reluctance to work with me now that I have said a simple prayer, ‘There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his messenger.’ I am sure I have [bleeped] off some powerful people.”

…..

“I didn’t realize I would be so vilified. It is almost like I am a criminal for having accepted Islam. I didn’t realize Islamophobia was that deep. People have speculated that I have done this because I am from a spoiled family or that I am lost and trying to find myself. That is ridiculous.

“I don’t care if I get criticized. If I can open up a debate about religion and create some understanding, then it is worth it.”

The below report is from the NY Post, not our favorite news source, but if you get a chance you will see that the majority of the comments are exceptionally Islamophobic and anti-Muslim in tone.

H’wood snubs Muslim Stone

(NY Post)

Sean Stone, son of controversial director Oliver Stone, converted to Islam in Iran last week and says he’s already experiencing a Hollywood backlash.

The ceremony was held in Isfahan, where he is researching a documentary. He now goes by the name of Sean Christopher Ali Stone.

He told Page Six: “I’ve already experienced the reverse of anti-Semitism, having people within the film industry express a reluctance to work with me now that I have said a simple prayer, ‘There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his messenger.’ I am sure I have [bleeped] off some powerful people.” Speaking over dinner at Barrio 47, Sean told us, “Having read the Koran and having been around the Islamic culture, especially in Iran, I do believe that Mohammed is a prophet of the same god worshipped by other religions.

“I am of a Jewish bloodline, a baptized Christian who accepts Christ’s teachings, the Jewish Old Testament and the Holy Koran. I believe there is one God, whether called Allah or Jehovah or whatever you wish to name him. He creates all peoples and religions. I consider myself a Jewish Christian Muslim.

“What I am trying to do is open up a dialogue about religion. There is such Islamophobia in the West. Islam is not a religion of violence any more than Judaism or Christianity is.”

He said his dad welcomed the move.

“My dad said, ‘Allah be with you.’ My father understands that I am trying to bridge certain gaps and bring about peace.”

But he has been shocked by the reaction from others. Sean, about to release his horror movie “Graystone,” said, “I didn’t realize I would be so vilified. It is almost like I am a criminal for having accepted Islam. I didn’t realize Islamophobia was that deep. People have speculated that I have done this because I am from a spoiled family or that I am lost and trying to find myself. That is ridiculous.

“I don’t care if I get criticized. If I can open up a debate about religion and create some understanding, then it is worth it.”

France's far right presidential candidate and National Front party president Marine Le Pen attends a news conference during the opening of her presidential convention in Lille February 18, 2012.

By John Irish

(Reuters) – French far-right leader Marine Le Pen switched her presidential campaign back to immigration on Sunday, accusing Nicolas Sarkozy of bowing to Muslim pressure over how animals are killed for meat, to try to head off his attempts to poach her supporters.

Le Pen had sought to attract voters by shifting from a traditional emphasis on immigration and French identity to leaving the euro and imposing protectionist barriers, to exploit discontent over the debt crisis in Europe and globalization.

But at a congress of her National Front party in Lille, Le Pen returned to familiar anti-immigration territory, saying she had proof that all meat in Paris was halal – killed by cutting the animal’s throat and letting its blood drain out.

“This situation is deception and the government has been fully aware of it for months,” Le Pen said. “All the abattoirs of the Paris region have succumbed to the rules of a minority. We have reason to be disgusted.”

Le Pen’s aides said she would file a legal complaint on the matter. During her closing speech she said the government was bowing down to “Islamic radicals.”

The main meat industry association, Interbev, denied the allegation, saying the vast majority of the meat in Paris was not slaughtered under halal practices, but the episode showed Le Pen was trying to win back wavering voters.

Most analysts deem her economic program as not credible and question the strategy of moving from the party’s core message. Criticism of her economic policies has provided an opportunity for Sarkozy to woo far-right voters as he did in 2007 when he ran on a strong security and immigration platform.

“Nicolas Sarkozy is trying to renew 2007 by encroaching on our turf,” Nicolas Bay, Le Pen’s adviser on immigration issues, told Reuters. “That means we have to go on the offensive as we have no intention of letting him do it again.”

OPINION POLLS

Le Pen is third in the opinion polls behind Socialist candidate Francois Hollande and Sarkozy. The first round of the presidential election is on April 22.

At one point in January, Le Pen was snapping at the conservative leader’s heels, but a BVA poll on Friday showed Sarkozy had an 11 point lead over her in the first round, although it said Hollande would beat the incumbent in the May 6 runoff.

Since announcing his campaign on February 15, Sarkozy has looked further right to win votes and proposed a referendum on battling illegal immigration, something the far right has championed for several years.

In January, his government trumpeted the deportation of a record number of illegal migrants in 2011, and Sarkozy has set himself the goal of cutting legal migration to France to 150,000 people a year, having cut the quota to 180,000 from 200,000.

Le Pen’s National Front, founded 40 years ago by her ex-paratrooper father Jean-Marie, is still fuelled by anti-immigrant rhetoric. Among her ideas for protecting welfare are toughening citizenship requirements, shutting borders and forbidding foreigners from access to any social aid.

She said she was the only viable voice of the nation in the face of Sarkozy and Hollande, who she described as the candidates of “globalization, immigration and insecurity.”

“People of France, give Nicolas Sarkozy a red card! Get him definitively off the pitch,” Le Pen said as 2,000 National Front supporters cheered, brandishing red cards and French flags.

Bay said it was important that issues such as the halal meat accusation were made public to show how Muslim values were influencing policy and endangering secular traditions.

Le Pen says that crimes committed by foreigners had risen as the number of immigrants had risen and that immigration costs France as much as 70 billion euros a year. She has pledged to reduce the number of immigrants to 10,000 a year.

“I think in 2007 (Sarkozy) managed to blindside us using our themes because he was able to appear as a new candidate … and the National Front didn’t have the dynamic we have now with Marine Le Pen,” Bay said. “But now he has bad track record and we have momentum around Marine so it will be difficult for him.”

(Additional reporting by Gerard Bon and Patrick Vignal; Editing by Alison Williams)

Original post: French far right uses halal accusation to woo voters

Arvinder Singh, who has been attending Des Moines mosques over the past seven years, was revealed to be an FBI informant.

Written by Rekha Basu

A sense of betrayal has hung over the Islamic Center of Des Moines since members learned the man they knew as Rafik Alvi was there neither to worship nor even Muslim. He was Arvinder Singh, and by his subsequent confession, was there to infiltrate them.

Singh disclosed in this column Aug. 8 that he had spied on local Muslims for the FBI, which then betrayed him. “They woke up a little bit in every mosque and they had a little chat about it,” said Hamed Baig, president of the Islamic Center.

The Muslims say the FBI had no reason to infiltrate the mosque because no one there is a terrorist. The one arrest of a member that someone can recall during the period was for working without a permit.

“If there is anybody with terrorist activity, we will report them ourselves,” said member Basim Bakri, a Jordanian-born U.S. citizen. “Instead they go and black label all the Muslims as terrorists.”

Baig said he would cooperate with officials if contacted: “I don’t just look at myself as a Muslim. I’m an American. I live here and I’m equally responsible for the people around me.”

He is also offended by the insensitivity to Muslim customs such as avoiding alcohol. Singh drank and served alcohol at a restaurant he operated. “At least send a Muslim who cannot destroy our mosque with his reputation,” said Bakri.

If Muslims are feeling betrayed, so is Singh, who has been in the Hardin County Jail for 14 months, with no end in sight. An immigration judge last February ordered him deported to India, where he has family, but the Indian government has yet to verify his citizenship and give him travel clearance.

Singh says he was trying to get a felony expunged from his record and become a U.S. citizen, when he agreed to be a paid informant in search of radical Muslims plotting terrorism. He said he didn’t know what resulted from his reports to the FBI from various mosques, but that they led to some arrests. But clearly no Muslim terrorism plot in Des Moines was unearthed.

The FBI doesn’t acknowledge the identity of informants and won’t confirm that Singh was on its payroll. It also says it makes no promises of citizenship. Singh got nothing in writing, but he and his wife insist the FBI agents who recruited him in 2003 promised to help him obtain citizenship and make the felony go away.

The offense to which he had pleaded guilty in 2001 was selling a large quantity of cough medicine containing ephedrine to an undercover agent at a gas station convenience store where he had worked for three weeks. He says he had no idea ephedrine was used to make illegal drugs. But he pleaded guilty on his lawyer’s advice, paid a fine, did community service and got a deferred judgment.

Then, he claims, after helping the FBI for seven years and getting no help with citizenship, he applied for it himself and immigration agents nabbed him on the original offense. A judge ordered him deported.

There could be a trifecta of injustices here if a 2006 American Civil Liberties Union claim in a Georgia case has bearing on Singh’s arrest.

The ACLU investigated a sting known as “Operation Meth Merchant” by local and state police and federal drug agents in Georgia. It claimed they unlawfully targeted South Asians, who were later convicted and deported for selling medicines containing meth-making substances. Though 23 of the 24 stores targeted were owned by South Asians, more than 80 percent of stores in the area were not. The ACLU alleged that agents had no evidence of wrongdoing by the South Asian stores but had numerous tips implicating at least 16 white-owned stores that they failed to act on, even warning one about the investigation.

The charges relied on the assumption that sales clerks understood when undercover agents talked of plans to “cook,” that they meant making meth. But many clerks spoke limited English and didn’t understand, the ACLU said. Singh’s wife, Alice, says that’s what happened to him. “When they cooked, they cooked large amounts of food because there were so many people eating,” she said. “He didn’t know a word about cooking dope. He told the judge.”

Legally, U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has 180 days after a judge’s final deportation ruling, including appeals, to remove someone slated for detention. That limit is now past for Singh, but ICE spokesman Shawn Neudauer said: “As long as the likelihood of our being able to carry out his removal still exists, he will remain in custody.”

Neudauer said ICE has reviewed Singh’s case and determined “it is likely he is from India,” and therefore will get travel documents. Indian government officials haven’t returned my calls and emails asking why they haven’t issued travel documents, or whether they plan to.

“ICE is not able to send me back so they are putting excuses after excuses,” Singh recently wrote me from the jail. “(As a) result of that I am sitting here in ICE custody for no reason.”

The government needs to end this limbo and set a date by which it will release him if clearance isn’t granted.

It was disclosed this week that the New York Police Department has been broadly monitoring the activities of Muslim college students, including sending an undercover agent on a canoeing trip with them and trawling their websites, though there were no accusations of wrongdoing. Student groups have expressed outrage.

Singh doesn’t get much sympathy from Des Moines Muslims. But if everything alleged is true, then they and he were all the victims of racial profiling — and both were betrayed by the U.S. government.

Original post: Basu: Betrayals leave Iowa man jailed and in legal limbo

Uncle Sam Is No Imam

By SAMUEL J. RASCOFF

TWO years ago, John O. Brennan, President Obama’s top adviser on counterterrorism, spoke to members of a Muslim student group in a packed auditorium at the law school where I teach, offering his audience the White House’s position about what jihad does and does not mean.

Later that year, on a panel with me in that same auditorium, a commentator, Haroon Moghul, drew attention to efforts by American officials to build global networks of “acceptable” Muslim leaders.

There are other examples like these around the country. The Ohio Department of Public Safety has produced and distributed literature that declares, “When extremists attack and kill in the name of jihad, mainstream Muslims consider such acts as a total deviation from the true religion of Islam.”

Homeland Security officials were signed up for a 2010 conference in which one topic was “Seeking a Counter-Reformation in Islam.” In 2004, an inspector general criticized the Bureau of Prisons because it failed to “examine the doctrinal beliefs of applicants for religious service positions to determine whether those beliefs are inconsistent with B.O.P. security policies.”

In each of these cases, counterterrorism has put officials on a collision course with Islamic thought and practice — and, perhaps more dangerously, with the Constitution. The First Amendment prohibits government action “respecting an establishment of religion.”

From a national security point of view, challenging ideas that underpin radical Islam makes sense. Counterterrorism is ultimately about ideas; why shouldn’t officials try to marginalize the theological teachings cited by violent terrorists?

The problem is that when American officials intervene in Islamic teachings — interpreting them to believers in a national-security context and saying which are or are not acceptable — they create tensions, both legal and strategic.

The strategic problem is easier to see: Is the government a credible authority on Islamic interpretation? Based on the results of comparable efforts in Britain, the answer is a resounding no. Simply put, young Muslim men in the thrall of radical teachings will not embrace a more pacific theology because the F.B.I. tells them to, any more than Catholic bishops would have yielded to Mr. Obama’s plan to mandate coverage of contraceptives at Catholic hospitals if he had invoked canon law to defend his position.

Then there’s the legal problem. Constitutionally speaking, a government official who sets out to determine what a contested concept within Islam means, or which imams have the right to speak for a particular community, would be in danger of transgressing one of the cardinal tenets of the Establishment Clause: the secular state shall not become an arbiter of religious content.

The framers of the First Amendment, who were intimately aware of the complex relationships among the British monarchy, the Church of England and dissenting churches within that realm, understood that a government might seek to control or co-opt a church.

If that concern seems hypothetical, it is because for a generation cases on the Establishment Clause that have reached the Supreme Court have focused not on state encroachments on religion but on religious encroachments on the state. (Think of prayer in classrooms, or religious monuments on public land.)

But whether the state might try to dominate religion itself — known in early political theory as Erastianism — was an important concern for Jefferson and Madison. And the Supreme Court reaffirmed this core dimension of the Establishment Clause last month when it unanimously recognized the validity of the so-called ministerial exception to federal anti-discrimination laws. The court held that denying a church the ability to fire a Lutheran minister — even on grounds that would have been deemed illegal in a lay workplace — amounted to allowing the state to control the church. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote, “By forbidding the ‘establishment of religion’ and guaranteeing the ‘free exercise thereof,’ the Religion Clauses ensured that the new Federal Government — unlike the English Crown — would have no role in filling ecclesiastical offices.”

While no one is suggesting that our government today is “filling ecclesiastical offices,” some of its strategies to undercut radical Islamic ideology are a step in that direction. Beyond playing the role of theologian through official pronouncements on contested concepts like jihad, the government inappropriately serves as a missionary when it looks to convert would-be radicals and backs up its efforts with taxpayer-financed outreach.

Those programs go well beyond the government’s clear legal authority to address concrete threats to public safety; they put secular officials in the dubious enterprise of trying to shape the beliefs of American Muslims.

If I am right that the government is increasingly in danger of establishing an “official Islam,” a project that is at best ill-fated if not illegal, are there any good alternatives? Fortunately, yes.

Countering radical religious ideology is on much more solid constitutional — and strategic — footing if the heavy lifting is done not by the government but by grass-roots organizations that are grounded in civil society or in religious communities. The government must not be heavily and directly involved.

The relationship between the national security imperative and a great religious civilization is inevitably fraught. Reconciling the two won’t be achieved by allowing officials to become more active in espousing theological alternatives to radical Islam — or in training law-enforcement and intelligence professionals with hateful caricatures of Islam. The government’s efforts ought to be guided instead by the wisdom of the First Amendment and the values that it enshrines.

A graffiti depicting a way toward peace on the wall in Bethlehem on the edge of the West Bank shows hope and a wish for reconciliation. Image: Delayed Gratification Flickr

Undividing the Muslim Jewish experience by ignoring difference

Dr. Ms. Mehnaz Afridi - WNN Opinion

(WNN/CGN): NY, NEW YORK: As I listen to sound bites of news, a swarm of words sting me: Iran, Israel, nuclear, Palestine-Israel at a standstill, Muslims kill Jews, and Jews kill Muslims. As a Muslim woman who teaches classes about the Holocaust at a Catholic college, I am constantly frustrated by the media coverage of the Middle East which overwhelmingly serves to highlight and entrench national and religious tensions, prejudice and conflict.

A recently-aired documentary by filmmaker Karen Ghitis, on Al Jazeera, was an extremely heartening exception to the rule. The film, Jerusalem SOS, showed Jews and Muslims saving each other’s lives.

The documentary, which aired last month, portrayed Arabs wearing orange vests printed with the red Star of David teamed up with haredi (or ultra-Orthodox) Jews with side curls, black skullcaps and tzitziot (knotted ritual fringes on their garments). And both groups have only praise for each other.Working as volunteer paramedics for the Orthodox Jewish organisation United Hatzalah (UH), these Jews and Muslims are taking note of the most important aspects of their faiths: preserving human lives and justice.

I was reminded of the Qur’anic injunction that states that “on that account We ordained for the Children of Isra`il that if any one slew a person … it would be as if he slew the whole humanity: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the whole humanity” (5:32).

Likewise, the Talmud (a repository of the ancient Jewish oral law and wisdom) states, “whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.” (Babylonian Talmud, 22a).

In the documentary the UH-trained Palestinian paramedics note that there are often delays in ambulances reaching the sick and wounded in East Jerusalem because Israeli ambulances are not permitted to enter Palestinian neighbourhoods without being accompanied by a police or military escort. Moreover, some of the homes have no addresses. Because the UH paramedics know the area well and drive ambucycles (ambulances on motorcycles), they are the first to arrive at the scene.

The film shows the rescue team transcending physical and political borders in order to save lives. Members of both faiths help each other provide for their communities on their respective holy days: Muslims come to the rescue of Jews on the Jewish Sabbath, and Jews help Muslims in emergencies on Fridays, as well as during Ramadan.

Eli Be’er, the founder of UH, was quoted in the Jerusalem Post as saying: “Jews and Muslims do not oppose working together, despite the invisible boundaries and suspicions that separate their communities. In the beginning, I met a few who were surprised about working together, but after they saw that they are great people and really professional, they all like it.”

These Muslim and Jewish paramedics have embraced the spiritual richness of their faiths and ignored the superficial boundaries of difference. Media outlets should try and take a cue from their story, and focus more attention on hope and cooperation.

Another heartening interfaith story from some months ago comes to mind. On 5 June, ABC News reported that “One Israeli man dying of a failing heart learned today that he would live, thanks to a Palestinian family who donated the heart of one of its members slain in the escalating violence wracking Israel.”

The Israeli who received the heart commented on how their hearts were the same, and ultimately they were the same inside.

Even though the rancour of negative media surrounds us, it is important to acknowledge that grassroots initiatives by organisations like UH, or the personal initiative of the Palestinian family who donated a loved one’s heart, are the key to building understanding between Jews and Muslims.

It is therefore crucial that Jews and Muslims tune into the many positive stories of life and death, faith and justice that occur on a daily basis on the ground.

I am always in search of such heartfelt stories that illuminate the commonalities of our faiths and demonstrate social justice. In the three monotheistic religions we are commanded not to bear false witness. After all, we are all children of God and it is through our actions and perseverance that we affirm our shared values and commitments to one another – irrespective of religious differences.

_____________________________

Dr. Ms. Mehnaz Afridi is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and Director of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Interfaith Education Center at Manhattan College in New York City. 

_______________

WNN encourages conversation. All opinions expressed here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Women News Network – WNN. This op-ed has been brought to you through an ongoing WNN – Women News Network partnership with CGNews. Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), www.commongroundnews.org. Copyright permission is granted for publication.

____________________

Brigitte Gabriel’s ACT! for America Meets with British “Freedom” Party

Looks like Brigitte Gabriel‘s loony ACT! for America is seeking to cement ties with Islamophobes from across the pond, the trans-Atlantic Islamophobic Axis continues:

British Freedom Party links up with Brigitte Gabriel

On Thursday night, the Chairman of the newly formed British Freedom Party, Paul Weston, spoke to a group of New Yorkers at a meeting sponsored by Brigitte Gabriel’s Act For America organization. Weston also said he came to warn America that what is happening in Britain today could happen in America in the not too distant future.

This meeting is going to be preceded by a joint event between BFP chairman Paul Weston and the Jewish Defense League (JDL).

British Freedom Party leader to speak at Jewish Defense League meeting in Toronto

Security will be tight on Monday as a controversial leader of a far-right British Freedom Party (BFP) talks to supporters in Toronto about his tough stand against immigration and spread of radical Islam. Toronto Police officers will be on hand as Paul Weston is expected to draw a large crowd at the Toronto Zionist Centre, on Marlee Ave.

The BFP was formed in Oct. 2010 and features a 20-point platform with a priority to “stop immigration to Britain from countries that promote the Muslim brotherhood.” Other points of the platform include abolition of the human rights of foreign criminals and terrorists; deport dual nationality Islamists and illegal immigrants and stop or turn back all aspects of the Islamisation of Britain.

“We have witnessed the spread of fundamentalist Islam across Europe and are witnessing the same trend in North America,” Weston stated in party literature.

Meir Weinstein, of the Jewish Defense League, an organizer of the event, said security will be high when Weston takes to the stage to bash immigration and Muslims. “We are very excited to have him (Weston) here,” Weinstein said on Thursday. “His party wants more stringent rules for people coming from countries that promote the Muslim brotherhood.”

He said police have been notified of the event and private security will be on hand to prevent possible disruptions by protestors. “There has been some chatter on the Internet about protests,” Weinstein said. “We are not taking any chances.”

He said Weston is following in the footsteps of powerful anti-Muslim politician Geert Wilders, of the Freedom Party of the Netherlands, who holds similar views. “There has to be a change to our immigration policy,” Weinstein said on Thursday. “One of our goals is to stop the spread of Muslim fundamentalism.”

Officials of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) said Weston has no criminal convictions to bar him from entering the country.

Toronto Sun, 17 February 2012

Last year the JDL organised a meeting in solidarity with the English Defence League which was addressed by Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (“Tommy Robinson”) by video link.

by JILLIAN RAYFIELD

The group that hired an anti-Muslim training group to teach part of a seminar to police officers in Tennessee is defending itself against subsequent criticism by arguing that the media should really be focusing on Muslim groups like CAIR and ISNA that are trying to “infiltrate every phase of our society at every level” in order to “alter the mindset and agendas of our society for the overthrow of our Constitution and the implementation of Sharia Islamic Law.”

Last week, the Tennessee Freedom Coalition released a defense of the seminar, in response to complaints from groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, and various other Islamic groups.

The blog post, written by TFC board member Jonna Bianco, explains that it is in response to those complaints and members of the media “that simply can’t seem to get their facts straight or the truth reported accurately.”

Earlier this week, a number of police officers in Murfreesboro, Tennessee attended a training seminar that was taught by John Guandolo of the Virginia-based Strategic Engagement Group (SEG). Guandolo has claimed, among other things, that Muslims should not get First Amendment rights, and in the seminar described how Islamic centers could be potential military compounds.

“This training is based on facts, court documents, and incontrovertible evidence,” Bianco writes in the statement. “This program does not contain any information which could be remotely construed as hate speech nor is any information provided or presented not accurate and true.”

But, Bianco continues, some of the information provided is “not popular.”

“These Islamic organizations simply rely upon their repeated threats and pressures of the local and national media and their political influence,” Bianco continues, “brought about by their financial contributions and fund raisers for various politicians over the past several years to try and discredit anyone who speaks out against Islam, their intentions, goals and objectives by calling them Islamophobists, bigots, racists, etc.”

The real threat, Bianco says, is not what SEG presented, but is in fact the influence CAIR and ISNA have in our society:

If you go to both of these groups’ own websites, you will clearly see their goals and objectives outlined for public view of their intent to infiltrate every phase of our society at every level, including but not limited to our education system beginning with our elementary schools under the guise of “cultural education” clear through to our Universities via their Muslim Students Associations, to government and political offices, law enforcement agencies on all fronts including local, state and federal; all for the purpose and with the clear intent to alter the mindset and agendas of our society for the overthrow of our Constitution and the implementation of Sharia Islamic Law.

“Islam believes that Shariah Law supersedes the U.S. Constitution and all must submit to Islam or pay the price,” Bianco writes, “which in most cases the ultimate price is death if you choose to not submit to Islam.”

The Tennessee Freedom Coalition is no stranger to hosting Islamophobe-friendly events. It once played host to anti-Islam Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders, who spoke at a free barbecue lunch. “I compare Islam not with Christianity and Judaism. I compare Islam with fascism and communism,” Wilders said at the event.

And the Executive Director of the TFC, Lou Ann Zelenik, made an unsuccessful bid for Congress in 2010, and used her opposition to the controversial plans to build a mosque in Murfreesboro as a central tenet of her campaign.

Guandolo himself is a former FBI agent who had to resign after it was revealed that he had sexual relationships with agents and a key government informant — and then created a list of his conquests. He bounced back as a speaker about the threat of Islamic terrorism, and he and SEG have run a number of these kinds of seminars in the past few years.

Original post: Group Behind Anti-Muslim Police Training Says Focus On Sharia Law!

Mayor Bloomberg

Bloomberg Fail: NY Mayor Defends Racial Profiling of and Spying on American Muslims

It has now been unearthed that the NYPD has been using racial profiling to illegally target the American Muslim community, spying on Muslim students without reason or warrant.  Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire mayor of New York, was questioned yesterday about this unethical practice; he defended it using the typical, disgusting, and morally repugnant justifications that have become so commonplace in our national discourse thanks to the War on of Terror. (Here is an article documenting Mayor Bloomberg’s response.)

Bloomberg ominously warned journalists: ”You are not going to survive. You will not be able to be a journalist and write what you want to say if the people who want to take away your freedoms are allowed to succeed.”

This cowardly fear-mongering has long been used by authorities to strip citizens of their rights: They are going to get you, unless you surrender your basic civil rights!

Actually, I should clarify that statement; it should read: They are going to get you, unless you surrender the basic civil rights of those dark-skinned, foreign-looking Moozlums!

Sadly, most Americans succumb to this alarmist rhetoric, readily surrendering what is not theirs to give away to begin with: the Constitutional rights of our nation’s most vulnerable minority.

Bloomberg continued:

We have to keep this country safe. This is a dangerous place. Make no mistake about it. It’s very cute to go and to blame everybody and say we should stay away from…[policies like] intelligence gathering. The job of our law enforcement is to make sure that they prevent things and you only do that by being proactive.

A dangerous place?  In fact, those big bad Islamic terrorists have killed zero civilians in the United States since 9/11, which was over a decade ago.  A similar situation exists in Europe, with Europol’s annual terrorism reports showing zero civilian deaths from Islamic terrorism in the last half decade (which is as far back as the annual terrorism reports go).  Quite simply, as an American I have a higher chance of being struck by and killed by lightning–or of being killed by peanuts–than of being killed by Islamic terrorists.  No amount of fear-mongering, alarmist propaganda, and Islamophobic rhetoric can overcome this simple fact, which is why it bears repetition:

In the past decade, zero civilians have been killed in this country by Islamic terrorists.  

Therefore, it is a boldfaced lie to claim that the threat of terrorism is so grave and ominous that we must resort to such illegal and unethical tactics to Keep Us Safe.

Bloomberg regurgitates the standard nationalistic myth, saying:

Remind yourself when you turn off the light tonight, you have your job because there are young men and women who have been giving their lives overseas for the last 200 plus years so that we would have freedom of the press. And we go after the terrorists. We are going to continue to do that and the same thing is true for the people that work on the streets of our cities.

This “argument” is often used to quell debate and stifle criticism: “[our] young men and women have been giving their lives overseas for the last 200 plus years so that we would have freedom of the press.”  This argument, steeped in uber-patriotism and drenched in nationalistic propaganda, is intended to fly over rational debate (what does the “giving [of] lives overseas for the last 200 plus years” have anything to do with “freedom of the press”?), and tap into our basest emotions: anyone who dares reject this argument by pointing out that it is not just a non-sequitur but patently false runs the risk of being accused of lack of patriotism and of being “un-American”.

This is so, as I wrote earlier, because the military is our country’s most sacred institution:

The military is our national religion, its soldiers are our holy warriors, the Navy Seals are our highest religious order, those soldiers who died in war are our martyrs, 9/11 was our Karbala, Patriot Day is our annual holy day, the flag is our holy book and symbol, Osama bin Laden is Lucifer, Terrorism is the greatest Evil, supporting the troops is our greatest religious obligation, and failure to do so is the greatest blasphemy and the highest of sins.

It is true that our military has been waging wars (of aggression) “overseas for the last 200 plus years”, as I documented in another article of mine: “We’re at War!” — And We Have Been Since 1776: 214 Years of American War-Making.  But, this is hardly something to be proud of…and these wars had nothing to do with “freedom of the press”–most of them had everything to do with spreading American hegemony and usurping the resources of other peoples (and in doing so, stripping them oftheir most basic civil liberties).

In fact, the greatest insults to the freedom of the press have historically been during times of war.  The First Amendment Center notes in The First Amendment: A Wartime Casualty?:

Sanford Levinson, a law professor at the University of Texas, writes: “It is difficult to read our constitutional history … without believing that the Constitution is often reduced at best to a whisper during times of war.”

The First Amendment is no exception. Attorney Michael Linfield, author of Freedom Under Fire: U.S. Civil Liberties in Times of War, writes: “Rather than being an exception, war-era violations of civil liberties in the United States are the accepted norm for our government.”

The article goes on to mention numerous instances in American history when civil liberties (including freedom of the press) were stripped by the government during wartime.  The War on of Terror is certainly no exception.

I hesitate closing this article with the standard meme of “it is un-American to curtail civil liberties”, but after second thought, I will save my readers from this trite, mythical, and nationalistic mantra.  As our military history will attest to, it is actually very, very American to do so, at least when it comes to minorities: racism has beset our nation during most of her many wars, whether it was against American Indians, Hispanics, or Asians.  Today’s wars against Arabs/Muslims overseas–and the concomitant stripping away of their human rights both at home and abroad–simply mean staying true to a long-held American tradition.

Mayor Bloomberg affirms the fundamental myth of the War on of Terror, the idea that we need to wage foreign wars (and in the process curtail civil liberties) in order to stop terrorism.  This is a strongly held belief, even though nothing exacerbates the problem of terrorism more than these wars.  In fact, our military interventions in the Muslim world are the root cause of terrorism.  Targeting the American Muslim community is the wrong solution: the only way to stop terrorism is to end our many wars in the Muslim world.  That Americans today failed to realize this simple fact will be looked upon by future generations with amazement.

Update I:

A reader, Christian-friend, commented:

I don’t see him justifying racial profiling, be more accurate!

From the ACLU’s website:

Racial Profiling: Definition (2005 resource): “Racial Profiling” refers to the discriminatory practice by law enforcement officials of targeting individuals for suspicion of crime based on the individual’s race, ethnicity, religion or national origin.

Whenever in doubt, substitute “Jewish” for “Muslim” and see if it sounds right, i.e. it would be racial profiling if police targeted Jewish citizens.

Danios was the Brass Crescent Award Honorary Mention for Best Writer in 2010 and the Brass Crescent Award Winner for Best Writer in 2011.

In an interview on MSNBC, Alice Stewart, spokesperson for GOP hopeful Rick Santorum, said that President Barack Obama encouraged “radical Islamic policies” and that his agenda was driven by “phony theology.” After the interview, she said that she “mis-spoke” and called the network to apologize,reports Politico.com.

“There is a type of theological secularism when it comes to the global warmists in this country. That’s what he was referring to. He was referring to the president’s policies in terms of the radical Islamic policies the president has,” Stewart said on “Andrea Mitchell Reports” in defense of Santorum’s remarks made at a rally in Ohio on Saturday.

Stewart did the old Beltway Two-Step and backed away from the statement, saying that it was just a big mistake and that she really meant to say “radical environmental policies” — and Mitchell came to her defense:

She had repeatedly said during that same interview ‘radical environmental policies’ and she said she slipped when she apparently said [it],” Mitchell said. “I did not hear it, or I would have caught her on it and tried to get a correction at the moment. I really, frankly, did not hear her use the word Islamic, but the tape tells the tale.”

The clean-up mission that Stewart had embarked on was made necessary by Santorum’s remarks in Ohio during which he questioned the genuineness of Obama’s “theology”:

[The president's agenda] is not about you. It’s not about your quality of life. It’s not about your jobs. It’s about some phony ideal, some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology, but no less a theology.”

When people quickly questioned Santorum’s statements, stating that it was in line with his previous insinuations that Obama was “attacking” the Christian church, he stood firm:

No one’s suggesting that,” he said. “I’m suggesting, obviously we all know in the Christian church there are a lot of different stripes of Christianity. I’m just saying he’s imposing his values on the church and I think that’s wrong. … If the president says he’s a Christian, he’s a Christian.”

I don’t know in what world “environmental” is synonymous with “Islamic,” but this ploy to encourage religious solidarity among Christians by stoking fear and prejudice against Islam is not new territory for the GOP — it is expected and it is pathetic.

The current GOP field is a comedy of such blatant errors of racism and bigotry that one has to wonder if they secretly want Obama to win by a landslide. They can not possibly think that anyone takes them seriously anymore.

At least not anyone with enough intelligence to vote.

Original post: Santorum Aide: Obama Has “Radical Islamic Polices”

Daisy Khan

Training Afghani Imams to End Violence Against Women

On Nov. 17, 1999, the world witnessed a horrific image: An Afghani woman named Zarmina was dragged through a soccer stadium and killed by the Taliban. As a Muslim woman, the outrage that I felt was indescribable. Islam teaches hope, mercy and love and in no way condones the violence depicted on my television that day. The outrage that I felt propelled me to do something. Therefore, in 2005 I founded the Women’s Islamic Initiative in Spirituality & Equality (WISE) to address gender inequality in Islam.

In 2010, WISE, partnered with an Afghani WISE woman, to pilot an innovative program, the Imam Training Program to End Violence against Women (ITP), which clarifies distorted and patriarchal misinterpretations of the Quran. Through ITP, we trained 50 of the most respected imams in Jalalabad and Kabul on the five absolute rights provided to women in Islam: Education, Inheritance, Marriage, Property Ownership and Social Participation. We decided to train imams since Afghan communities deeply trust and respect them — even the Taliban.

Last month, I sent our WISE Program Manager, Fazeela Siddiqui, to Afghanistan to conduct an on-the-ground assessment of our pilot program. I was inspired by the stories that she recounted upon her return; they painted a far different picture than the tragic stories that I have continually heard. Below is a moving account of Fazeela’s field visit.

I met with many courageous Afghani men and women who value progress and are strident advocates for women’s rights. Afghanis told me that their communities are willing to partner with Americans to bring about progress, insofar as their cultural and religious mores are respected. Yet the international community (which includes American NGOs) does not work within a human rights based framework that utilizes Islamic principles. Therefore, very few NGOs have been able to traverse the proverbial Afghan cultural and religious wall to bring about social change. Conversely, by changing hearts and minds through training imams on women’s rights within an Islamic framework, we American-Muslims have been uniquely able to catalyze progressive and sustainable change in Afghanistan.

I was moved by an imam focus group that I conducted with seventeen of the most eminent imams from Kabul province. These imams graciously traveled long distances to sit with me to discuss the effectiveness and challenges of the ITP-EVW. Upon arrival, an imam who was hesitant about my presence — An American-Muslim-woman-lawyer who did not apologize for being American — looked me in the eyes with a stern face and said, “We are worried when the rights of women come from the West, from a non-Islamic perspective. We will fight against this. But, if the[se] rights come from the Quran, we welcome ideas and we will listen to what you have to say.” Concerned that I was offended, a project associate immediately leaned over and whispered in my ear, “We Afghanis are a proud people. We are one of the only nations in the world that has never been conquered. Therefore, we do not want other nations’ values imposed on us.” Another imam chimed in and said, “You only hear the most tragic stories. [These stories also] outrage and sadden us. They are inexcusable crimes that have nothing to do with Islam or our belief system. But for some reason they are viewed as the norm around the world.”

An imam who was appreciative of my presence smiled and stated, “We are a Muslim nation, we respect the Quran, yet we have a major lack of understanding of the Quran.” He further stated, “We left our original teachings, which is why we have problems … Women were deprived of their rights due to cultural and tribal rules that dominated. Through this program, we are slowly opening to a new understanding of the rights of women in Islam.” Another imam recounted a story of an elder man who had just heard the imam’s khutba (sermon) on marital rights. This man was so disturbed that he held the imam by his collar and cried, “No one can help me. Time is gone. I have committed all sorts of violence against my daughters. I took the Walwar (bride price) for each of their marriages, I stopped them from getting education and I forced them into marriages. They are suffering every day because of my wrongdoings. Why weren’t you talking about this before?” The imam replied, “It is not too late; we have a younger generation to bring up.” After hearing this, the eldest imam in the room, who appeared to be in his mid-80s, reminiscently replied, “The Quran is 1,500 years old and at the time of revelation, it was the most progressive book that addressed women’s rights. We were more advanced about women before others even thought about the issue.”

Even though the imams were familiar with women’s rights in Islam, many of them told me that through the program, their knowledge had grown and they felt equipped to discuss women’s rights with their congregations — despite receiving death threats. The imam who was hesitant with me in the beginning of the meeting had kept silent for the majority of our two hour meeting. Right when we were ready to end, he decided to speak again and said, “In the beginning, congregants would stand up in the middle of Friday khutbas on women’s rights and scream, ‘You are propagating Western words.’ But we stood our ground and responded, ‘These are not western words, this comes directly from the Quran and Hadith.’ This program gave us courage. It helps to know that all of us imams are doing this at the same time.” The hesitant imam ended the meeting by reassuring me, “If you are truly willing to work within the framework of Islam, with no ulterior agenda, we are truly excited to work with you.” He then smiled at me and said a prayer — “May all Muslim women around the world find their united voice in equality as provided by our faith.”

We are increasingly trusted since we are able to meet Afghanis where they are at, honoring and working within their traditions. For example, instead of staying at a compound or hotel, Fazeela was invited to stay at an Afghani home throughout her trip. The American public often asks what the American-Muslim community is doing to end violent extremism and change the situation of women in Afghanistan. Here is our answer. Fazeela’s trip confirms that Islam is not the enemy, extremism is. American-Muslims can traverse the formidable walls that have been built by religious fallacies. We can do this by addressing misinterpretations of our faith while simultaneously exploring its beauty and strengths. While viewing pictures and listening to Fazeela recount her Afghanistan trip, my team and I looked at each other across the board room table and we were speechless. We wondered why our country has failed to implement similar programs and utilize its best asset — American-Muslims. Which brings me back to Fazeela’s field notes:

After the imam focus group ended, I sat in the program office to drink tea and hovered over a space heater for warmth (Nothing could have prepared me for the frigid weather in Afghanistan, not even growing up in Buffalo, N.Y.). While looking over my notes a program officer looked up from his computer and said, “The U.S. government should not have spent billions [on the war], they should have spent millions and involved the imams [with regards to women's rights] and everything would have been different today.” He then wistfully looked into the distance, shook his head and went back to work.

Follow the Women’s Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality on Twitter:@wisemuslimwomen.