In a sermon titled “How to be religious today,” Muslim speaker Ahmet Selim Tekelioglu asked the 100-plus members at the Islamic Community Center of Lancaster how they could leave last Friday’s call to prayer as confident Muslims who are “proud in our skins and proud in our identity and aware of our obligations to Allah.”
The Philadelphia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations today called on the Marple-Newtown School District in Newtown Square, Pa., to allow a Sikh high school soccer player to compete while wearing his religiously-mandated head covering.
The Philadelphia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, says the new travel ban is unconstitutional, just like the last one. “This is just another attempt to unlawfully restrict the immigration of people who practice Islam, and people who hail from different parts of the globe that the president has demonstrated some form of xenophobia towards,” said CAIR’s Timothy Welbeck.
The Philadelphia Chapter of CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) welcomes the Justice Department’s announcement of an agreement with Bensalem Township, Pennsylvania, which resolves a lawsuit alleging discrimination after the township denied zoning approval to allow the local Muslim community (“Bensalem Masjid”) to build a mosque.
CAIR-Philadelphia is pleased to welcome Ahmet Selim Tekelioglu as our new Outreach and Education Director. Ahmet Selim is an academic and a scholar of American religious landscapes. He brings to us several years of on-the-ground work with Muslim American communities.
Jacob Bender, CAIR-Philadelphia Executive Director, and Salima Suswell, CAIR-Philadelphia Executive Committee Member, travelled to Harrisburg on September 6th to attend the 2nd Annual Eid-al-Adha Dinner at The Governor’s Mansion. The dinner was hosted by Governor Tom Wolf and his wife Francis and was attended by about 60 Muslim leaders from around Pennsylvania.
On Sunday, August 20th at Italian Lake, Harrisburg, the Community Responders Network, a grassroots coalition committed to confronting and preventing incidents of bias in Central Pennsylvania, and the Harrisburg Mayor's Interfaith Advisory Council, organized a unity rally we called "Speak up for Unity, No Hate Here!” The purpose of the event was to affirm equality, non-violence, cross-cultural acceptance, and interfaith cooperation.
Jacob Bender, CAIR-Philadelphia Executive Director, said: “Regardless of the identities of the alleged bombers of the Minnesota Islamic Center, who we hope will be quickly apprehended, this attack comes in the midst of a nationwide campaign of vilification and demonization of Muslims and the Islamic faith by Islamophobic activists, irresponsible media personalities, and even high-ranking government officials. Only a concerted and united effort by the Muslim community and its interfaith and social justice activists will defeat the voices of hate now transgressing our national values of pluralism, democracy, and justice.”
It has been over two months since a courageous group of March on Harrisburg activists embarked from Philadelphia to a 105-mile political pilgrimage to the Pennsylvania Statehouse to demand real reform with three pro-democracy and anti-corruption bills: automatic voter registration, non-partisan redistricting to end gerrymandering, and a ban of legalized bribery.
