15 Jan - Australia:

SHOPKEEPERS are demanding sunglasses, baseball caps and religious face veils be banned to guard against criminals trying to hide their identities.

The Queensland Retailers Association yesterday declared its members should have the right to ban customers from wearing any clothing that obscured faces.

But the proposed ban has outraged civil libertarians, Islamic groups and Queensland's Anti-Discrimination Commission. They say the move would be unlawful and unfairly target Muslims and teenagers.

Link

4 Jan - USA:

Although more than one in three Muslim students said they had been hit with ethnic slurs in the past year, only one in six said it happened in school.

More than 600 students from 90 public schools participated in the three-year study conducted by Columbia University's Teachers College.

Most of the Muslim students said that although they still face bias, it has gotten better since the first few years following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Still, 36% of the students said they a faced at least one "discriminatory verbal incident" in the past year.

The study found 28% of Muslim students said they or a relative have been stopped by police as a result of "racial profiling," 12% reported they or a relative had been turned down for a job based on discrimination, 11% had property destroyed and 7% said they or a family member had been physically assaulted.

Link

2 Jan - USA:

A Muslim family removed from an airliner Thursday after passengers became concerned about their conversation say AirTran officials refused to rebook them, even after FBI investigators cleared them of wrongdoing.

Atif Irfan said federal authorities removed eight members of his extended family and a friend after passengers heard them discussing the safest place to sit and misconstrued the nature of the conversation.

Irfan, a U.S. citizen and tax attorney, said he was "impressed with the professionalism" of the FBI agents who questioned him, but said he felt mistreated when the airline refused to book the family for a later flight.

Link

31 Dec - USA:

Merrill Lynch & Co. (MER) has agreed to pay $1.6 million to settle a discrimination lawsuit that alleged an employee was let go from the company because he is Muslim and Iranian, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Wednesday.

The lawsuit filed by the EEOC alleged that the investment bank failed to promote Majid Borumand, a quantitative analyst in its Model Development Group, in August 2005 and ultimately terminated him because of his national origin and religion.

[...]

The lawsuit alleged that while working at Merrill, Borumand was subjected to a number of hostile remarks, including being told that "the reason that you are not allowed on the trading floor is because you are from a country which has a high risk factor and (is) a threat."

Link

19 Dec - Romania:

The Turkish physical trainer of Steaua Bucharest has protested to FIFA after he was fired because he's a Muslim.

Steaua owner Gigi Becali fired Yuksel Yesilova on Saturday saying he brought back luck to Steaua because of his religion.

Becali said: "Steaua is a Christian team and we had bad luck because of him. I don't want to see him here. We can't keep a Muslim in a team that has a cross on its team bus and shirts."

Yesilova said Friday he had been called by FIFA officials about his firing. His contract expired in 2010.

Link

17 Dec - Atlanta, USA:

A Douglasville woman was jailed Tuesday after a judge found her in contempt of court for refusing to remove her hijab, the head covering worn by Muslim women.

Lisa Valentine, also known by her Islamic name, Miedah, 40, was arrested at the Douglasville Municipal Court for violating a court policy of no headgear, said Chris Womack, deputy chief of operations for the Douglasville Police Department.

She was taken before Judge Keith Rollins, who ordered her held in jail for 10 days. However, her husband said she was released Tuesday evening. The reason for her release wasn’t immediately clear.

Last week, the same judge apparently threw out another Muslim woman from his courtroom.

Sabreen Abdul Rahman, 55, said she had gone to court with her son when she was asked to take off her scarf. “I can’t. I’m Muslim,” she mouthed silently to the bailiff, who then removed her from the courtroom, Rahman said.

“This is a religious right,” she said. “This is unconstitutional. And humiliating.”

Link

08 Dec - France:

For the third time in two years, the tombs of hundreds of Muslim war veterans
were desecrated at a cemetery in northern France on Sunday night, the eve of the
Id al-Adha holiday. Swastikas and anti-Muslim slogans were spray-painted on
nearly all the 576 Muslim graves at the Notre Dame de Lorette military cemetery,
near Arras, which holds the remains of about 40,000 dead from World War I. The
last such desecration was in April. In a statement, President Nicolas Sarkozy
condemned the act as “revolting” and “an expression of repugnant racism against
France’s Muslim community.”

Link

05 Dec - Europe:

The European Court of Human Rights has dismissed a complaint by two French Muslim girls that their school violated their freedom of religion and their right to an education. The girls were expelled after repeatedly refusing to remove their headscarves for physical education classes.

The teacher had said that wearing a headscarf was incompatible with physical education classes. The girls, Belgin Dogru and Esma-Nur Kervanci, are French nationals and were 11 and 12 respectively when they were expelled from the school in the north-western town of Flers in 1999.

Based in Strasbourg, the European Court of Human Rights ruled on Thursday, Dec. 4 that the school's move to expel the girls was not out of line, emphasizing that the girls had been able to continue their education via correspondence classes.

Link

05 Dec - Houston, TX, USA:

A northwest Harris County family said they were treated like criminals after their home was burglarized, KPRC Local 2 reported Thursday.

On the night before Thanksgiving, Raman Deep Sinth said thieves broke into his family's bathroom window and ransacked his home. He said about $15,000 worth of stuff was stolen.

Sinth said he called the Harris County Sheriff's Office for help.
"That night we were actually robbed twice," Sinth said. "Once by the actual burglars, who we don't know who they were, and secondly by the sheriff's department, who we knew who they were."

He said he believes the deputies were troubled by his turban. He wears it as a member of the Sikh faith. He said he also believes the deputies were also afraid of his sister's kirpan, another religious symbol.

[...]

Sinth said soon, he, his sister, mother and another relative were in handcuffs. He said he was locked up in the back of a sheriff's cruiser.

Link

03 Dec - UK:

Saleca Faisal-Parkar, 31, was harassed, overlooked for jobs and training and was even branded "lazy" after she became seriously ill while pregnant.

The abuse was led by Stephen Jones, then head of litigation at the leading law firm Shakespeares, who also referred to her as a "flipping nun".

He was also a deputy district judge and a member of the Solicitors Disciplinary Panel, but has resigned both positions in the light of the scandal.

Mrs Faisal-Parkar, who has a young daughter, joined Shakespeares in 2002 as a legal assistant.
Not long after she started, she found out from a fellow worker that she had been nicknamed "Mother Teresa" because she wore a hijab, which covers her head.

Over the course of the following months, she said Mr Jones - who made the derogatory comments in emails - harassed her, refused her training requests and potentially reduced her annual salary increase by the type of work he gave her.

Link

ImamMohammad Ali Elahi, of the Islamic House of Wisdom in Dearborn Heights, is an American citizen. He has lived in America for 18 years.

As a Muslim and an Imam, Elahi wears robes and the traditional amamah headwear of a Shi'a leader, which has made him a prime candidate for searches at airports.

On Oct. 22, after getting off a return flight from his native Iran at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, Elahi was picked for a search. After a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer searched his luggage, they decided to search Elahi's laptop.

"This is not the first time I've been searched. I am accustomed to it," Elahi said. "I told the officer I had nothing to hide, and they took it away."

When CBP officers brought his computer back 20 minutes later, it was broken.

"I lost eight years of my work, since I did not have any backup of the information. They did not even apologize," Elahi said. [Link]

If Barack Obama were British, racism would keep him from becoming prime minister, said the head of Britain's Equalities and Human Rights Commission.

That racism is not among the British electorate, but among the leaders of the political "machine," said Trevor Phillips, adding he believes the public would embrace a black leader.

"I would be very surprised if even somebody as brilliant as him (Obama) would have been able to break through the institutional stranglehold on power within the Labor Party," Phillips told The Daily Telegraph in a story published Saturday.

Despite Obama's success in U.S. politics, Phillips said he believes the United States remains more divided on racial issues than the United Kingdom.

"Here it's more about class. It is about culture, a different way of life and speaking," Phillips said, noting the U.K.'s Muslim community suffers greater discrimination.

"If you asked British voters whether you could have a Muslim prime minister their mouths would drop open, but not with a black one," Phillips said. [Link]

2,500 people investigated by immigration officials as part of Operation Front Line


When federal immigration agents paid a visit to his Santa Clara workplace a month before the 2004 presidential election, the Pakistani engineer assumed they came to talk about his pending visa renewal application.

What they wanted to know, however, was what mosque he attended and if he associated with anyone who has "anti-American" views. And what prompted their attention, according to a copy of the investigation, was an incident three years earlier, in which he attracted suspicion for taking "detailed photos" of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Newly released government documents show the engineer was one of roughly 2,500 immigrants investigated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement as part of Operation Front Line, a 2004 probe that civil rights groups say was biased against Muslims.

An estimated 77 percent of those investigated were from predominantly Muslim countries, and none was charged with terrorism-related crimes, according to a sample of 300 cases released to civil rights groups last month after years of legal battle.

"The most striking thing about all of this is it doesn't work," said Yousef Munayyer, policy analyst at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, which sought the information alongside Yale Law School's National Litigation Clinic. "The numbers show that racial profiling didn't lead to any national security-related charges." [Link]

From the rubble of a firebombed mosque, relationships have emerged.

After local men burned the Islamic Center of Columbia, Tenn., to the ground in February, Muslim families had no place to worship. Donations came in to help establish a new center, and the First Presbyterian Church in town allowed them to worship at its church.

"It's just a great example of how we can believe different things and respect, celebrate each other," said Daoud Abudiab, president of the Islamic Center of Columbia. "And that's regardless of those who carry out acts of hate toward other groups."

Two of the three men charged with destroying and vandalizing the mosque pleaded guilty on Monday in federal court in Nashville, as the Islamic Center works to open its doors at 500 Carter St. in Columbia. [Link]

A drunken man was arrested early Wednesday morning after police say he repeatedly punched a taxi driver in the back of the head, complaining that he was an immigrant from a Muslim nation.

Police say the man continued to threaten the diver near 15th Avenue Northwest and Northwest Market Street until officers were called.

The man was booked for into King County Jail for investigation of malicious mischief.[Link]

In an unusual act of non-solidarity, a veteran Quebec feminist has launched a public attack against her peers on the political left who, she says, undermine women's rights by supporting religious accommodations like the Muslim head scarf.

Singling out the NDP, the Bloc Quebecois, Quebec Solidaire and the Federation des Femmes, as well as the Bouchard-Taylor commission, Diane Guilbault airs her criticism in a new French-language chapbook called Democratie et egalite des sexes (Democracy and Sexual Equality).

"It wasn't long ago in Quebec that women were obliged to cover themselves to go to church, and it's something we, as women, react strongly against now that we see it coming back in the form of the hijab," Guilbault said at her book launch th
"For me, even if it's something those women choose to do, it is in no way a feminist act. A feminist act is something that aims for emancipation, both of oneself, as an individual, and as a group. It's not a feminist choice to choose the veil." [Link]

There are all sorts of people who have volunteered for the Obama campaign for passionate reasons of their own. One of the hardest-working subsets of Obama campaign volunteers are Muslim-Americans, who have struggled for acceptance into American culture ever since 9/11. Whisper campaigns designed to paint Obama as a Muslim (and therefore, a terrorist) has been particularly hurtful to them, especially after John McCain commented to a supporter that Obama was not an Arab, but "a good man, a family man," as if an Arab-American could not be either one.

Even worse for the community was an incendiary DVD circulated in thousands of newspapers and paid for by a right-wing political action committee entitled, "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West." This was deeply distressing because then, even friends, co-workers, and neighbors began to regard Muslims they'd known for years with suspicion.

Needless to say, there is a strong Get Out the Vote effort underway within the Muslim-American community. While they are disappointed that Obama has not been more forceful in their defense, they do believe that his election would help a great deal to tamp down some of the discrimination they have had to face[.] [Link]

The Australian Muslim community has accused the Federal Government and police of double standards over their treatment of a free online game in which the aim is to kill as many Muslims as possible.

Keysar Trad, president of the Islamic Friendship Association, wrote to the Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, expressing outrage over the game, Muslim Massacre, saying it teaches young people to "further hate Muslims" and encourages them to carry out "acts of discrimination, vilification or outright violence against Australian Muslims".

The game, launched as a free download on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, invites players to take control of an American "hero" and "wipe out the Muslim race with an arsenal of the world's most destructive weapons". [Link]

Republicans spread a false rumor that Barack Obama, whose middle name is Hussein and whose paternal grandfather was Muslim, is secretly a Muslim himself; Obama, a church-going Christian, denied it, and many said he did not go far enough in denouncing the racism behind the claim. At a rally, John McCain corrected a supporter, saying Obama is not an Arab but a family man.

"There is a subtext of extreme distrust that filters in the mainstream," Ramey says, "that Muslims are not patriotic. That Muslims are unworthy of trust. The comments generally tend to underscore an element of deep racism and xenophobia in the political establishment. Sometimes, it's spoken openly. Sometimes, it is spoken in code."

"The rhetoric of anti-Muslim sentiment has become more acceptable in public gatherings and in the right-wing media," Hossain says. "It has made Muslims very, very concerned that there is a rekindling of the post 9/11 paranoia," when many Muslims were detained for questioning simply for being Muslim and many more feared being attacked in the streets.

So Hossain, a Bangladeshi immigrant who laughs when he tells you he has just bought a farm in rural Virginia "where the real Americans live," organizes. The 48-year-old dictates news releases. He distributes get-out-the-vote literature. He gives speeches at mosques. He calls taxi drivers, promising monetary help for those who take time Tuesday to get people to the polls.

* * *

"Many of the Muslims who came to this country came from countries where voting was a dangerous and dirty thing to do," Hossain says. "We have to convince them that voting is not only safe and clean, but it is a civic responsibility."

In the center parking lot, he hands Obama volunteer David Kirshbaum, 53, a stack of yellow cards printed with a mild endorsement of the candidate by the Virginia Muslim Political Action Committee: "Muslim Americans were upset that Senator Obama, when called a Muslim by fear and hate mongering bigots, failed to make a principled stand . . . by not asking what's wrong in being a Muslim anyway while he asserted his own faith. However . . . now that has become a target of racial slurs and pejorative epithets, it is incumbent on us to make the same principled stand we had asked of him. We must challenge the politics of bigotry and divisiveness."

It took Colin Powell, a Republican, to break the tension.

"Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?" Powell said last month on "Meet the Press." "The answer's 'no.' Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, 'He's a Muslim, and he might be associated with terrorists.' This is not the way we should be doing it in America." [Link]

An operation in 2004 meant to disrupt potential terrorist plots before and after that year’s presidential election focused on more than 2,000 immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries, but most were found to have done nothing wrong, according to newly disclosed government data....

[D]ocuments show that more than 2,500 foreigners in the United States were sought as “priority leads” in the fall of 2004 because of suspicions that they could present threats to national security in the months before the presidential election and the inauguration. Some of those foreigners were detained and ultimately deported because they had overstayed their visas, but many were in this country legally, and the vast majority were not charged....

“This was profiling,” said Michael Wishnie, a professor at Yale Law School who helped lead the research effort. He added that the findings raised questions about both the effectiveness and the propriety of the program.

“The resources devoted to this were enormous,” he said, “but the results clearly were not.” [Link]