“It’s my understanding that Ms. Thompson-King was able to compete in at least 24 games regionally and nationally prior to this game, and never once was she asked to remove her hijab,” said Timothy Welbeck, a civil rights attorney with the Philadelphia branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). “In this particular instance, she was. I don’t know why this enforcement was so sudden and so stark, but we know it happened, it was public, humiliating and discriminatory.”
On Friday, February 23, the Philadelphia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Philadelphia) will join elected officials, community leaders, and civil rights activists at a news conference to support the religious rights of a Muslim student athlete who was recently barred from playing basketball because of her Islamic head scarf, or hijab.
Dr. Ahmet Selim Tekelioglu, Education and Outreach Director at CAIR-Philadelphia and CAIR-PA Advisory Board Members were invited to join the “Equity and Inclusion Committee” at Pennsylvania Department of Education. Tekelioglu and Noor participated in a committee meeting in Harrisburg on February 8th at which Tekelioglu presented CAIR-Philadelphia’s “Anti-Bullying Workshop.” The Committee’s members include representatives from multiple NGOs and agencies that work to ensure a safe and welcoming educational environment in the State’s schools.
Timothy Welbeck, a civil rights attorney for the Philadelphia chapter of CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relations, spoke about the impact of current policies on American Muslim communities. “I can almost without even watching my television know when the president says something inflammatory because I’ll get a significant wave of calls within a couple days,” he said. The Muslim travel ban, he said, is “codified bigotry.”
Jacob Bender of the Council on American and Islamic Relations, who is Jewish but works for a Muslim organization, was scathing in his criticism of the Israeli occupation of West Bank. He argued that the settlements project had left no land to make the two state solution a reality. He also was critical of Dr. Hoffman for arguing for a no preconditions approach to negotiations while simultaneously insisting that Jerusalem was not on the table.
Yesterday evening, President Trump addressed the 115th Congress on the State of the Union. Some, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and others, have described the address as a departure from President Trump’s polarizing, tumultuous, and chaotic first year in office. Notwithstanding, as Greg Sargent writing for The Washington Post noted, “The real core of the speech was his effort to rhetorically recast the key elements of that approach as unifying and conciliatory, without moving past them at all.” Thus, while President Trump’s State of the Union address did not feature the sort of flagrant Islamophobic remarks he has made in the past, his rhetoric, past and present, has emboldened many who share his distorted worldview.
Last Sunday, Jan. 14, at the Islamic Society of Delaware, CAIR-Philadelphia brought together mental health professionals, psychologists and expert therapists with Muslim community members in a symposium titled, “Peace at Home: A One Day Seminar on How to Build Happy Families.”
