Civil Rights Corner: Know Your Rights; New Cases of Bias Against Muslims
February is going to be a busy month with two Know Your Rights and Responsibilities Workshops. These workshops are very popular and are frequently requested by Islamic Centers and other organizations. In addition to the invaluable knowledge of what to do during airline travel situations, employment and student harassment, law enforcement encounters and other things, I have added a video produced by Muslim Advocates called Got Rights? The video will undoubtedly enrich the workshop even further as it enacts two common scenarios experienced by American Muslims – airport customs and visits by FBI agents.
Attend a Know Your Rights and Responsibilities workshop near you:
• February 13, 2010, Saturday, at Islamic Society of Delaware (28 Salem Church Road
Newark, DE) at 7:00 pm.
• February 27, 2010, Saturday, at Masjid Ar-Rahman (723 Merchant Street, Coatesville, PA) at 11:00 am.
The Civil Rights Department has received two more new cases this week, one involving a local Muslim woman discriminated by supervisors because she chose to wear a jilbab (full body covering with face exposed) and another in which a Muslim man was held in immigration detention for two additional months because his attorney believed he would pose a threat after the Fort Hood shooting incident. These cases illustrate the constant struggle some Muslims are facing, but we at CAIR-PA are ready to advocate on their behalf.
Moein M. Khawaja
Civil Rights Director
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Focus Article: Homegrown Radicals: Complacency is not an Option
by Parvez Ahmed
The American Muslim
An army major at Fort Hood guns down fellow soldiers, five young men arrested after traveling to Pakistan to join radical elements, a coffee vendor charged in a New York terror plot and a terrorism suspect in North Carolina is arrested. Such headlines involving American Muslims ought to be a source of concern for the community. A recent scholarly report by researchers at Duke University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill asserts that the number of American Muslims vulnerable to radicalization is small but not negligible. Since 9-11, 139 American Muslims have committed terrorist acts or have been convicted or charged with terrorism. Less than one-third successfully executed their violent plots, with a majority of these violent acts being committed overseas.
The American Muslim community should not brush aside these facts by either taking a defensive posture or by being apologetic. Saying that only a handful of American Muslims are involved in terrorism while the vast majority of the community are productive citizens or asserting that America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are the source of such radicalization, while true does not solve the problem at hand. The better path for the community will be to conduct honest soul searching and enact proactive measures that can avoid such attention grabbing headlines in the first place. Read more…
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World Commentary
- Prejudice and Principle Brew at Tea Party Meet by Ed Pilkington
- Hey Congress – Stand up to Wall Street! by Robert Reich
- The Terror-Industrial Complex by Chris Hedges
