CAIR-Philadelphia wishes you and your families a Sweet Passover, a Blessed Easter, and a Ramadan Mubarak. May the children of Ibrahim, Sarah, and Hajar know only good health and peace in the coming year.
We are working to make sure Ramadan accommodations for Muslim students and employees are well-entrenched in each setting -- teachers and managers know to respect Muslim fast, avoid lunch meetings, arrange rooms for students to spend their time during lunch hours, and avoid evening meetings, to count a few.
The State Department issued a statement providing some information on next steps for those impacted by the Muslim and African bans. While the statement does not provide much detail, here’s what we know...
Shortly before we started observing Black History Month, we celebrated the Biden administration's repeal of the Muslim and African bans. As we noted, CAIR, alongside its partners and leaders from impacted communities worked diligently against the Trump administration's efforts to take America's immigration system back to an ugly past. We are recognizing everyone today and including a video message from Congresswoman Susan Wild who lent us her voice in support and worked to repeal the bans.
In a statement CAIR-Philadelphia Executive Director Jacob Bender said: “We commend President Biden for immediately moving to repeal the Muslim and African Bans, which is an important first step toward undoing the anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant policies of the previous administration. It is an important fulfilment of a campaign pledge to the Muslim community and its allies. We expect the Biden administration to go further by supporting passage of the No Ban Act and addressing systemic injustices within the federal government that led to religious and racial profiling of Muslims and immigrants under multiple administrations.
CAIR-Philadelphia advises community members throughout Pennsylvania and particularly those in Harrisburg, the state capitol, to stay vigilant from now until the end of the presidential inauguration due to threat of far-right, white supremacist violence and armed protests at all 50 state capitols leading up to and on Inauguration Day.
The Philadelphia Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation's largest Muslim civil rights organization, today condemned the ongoing attack on the U.S. Capitol as an act of "violent insurrection" and called on the government to do more to protect those in harm's way.
CAIR-Philadelphia welcomes the arbitration decision against former Philadelphia Police Department (PPD) officer Daniel Farrelly. Farrelly was one of 16 officers fired by or received other penalties from the PPD since the 2019 revelations by Plain View Project. Farrelly challenged the City of Philadelphia's decision to fire him in response to his anti-Muslim and bigoted posts.
Our new updated CAIR-Philadelphia blog will be launching on Monday, December 7th. Every Monday we will spotlight American Muslim perspectives on the issues that impact our communities. We invite you to celebrate with us next Monday when our first blog post is posted on our website and shared on Facebook.
