Religious leaders, followers call for immigration reform
By Francine Knowles, Chicago Sun-Times Inside a government building in Broadview, Elena Segura was focused on comforting and counseling people. Within the hour, their loved ones — illegal immigrants — were going to be shackled and deported. Outside, dozens of religious leaders and congregants from various faiths called on a higher power for change. From […]
Pompeo’s claim about Muslim leaders was ‘irresponsible’
By Phillip Brownlee, Wichita Eagle What possessed Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Wichita, to give a speech on the House floor last week claiming that Islamic religious leaders across America don’t publicly and frequently condemn acts of terrorism? What’s more, he said their “silence” makes them “potentially complicit in these acts, and more importantly still, in those […]
Video: CAIR-MI Asks Feds to Investigate Closing of Muslims’ Bank Accounts
A Muslim civil rights organization has asked the U.S. Treasury Department to investigate JPMorgan Chase & Co. for closing bank accounts of U.S. Arabs and Muslims. The Southfield-based Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Michigan chapter sent a letter Wednesday to the Treasury Department’s Office of the Currency. The letter says CAIR and others have received […]
A Meeting on Tolerance Turns into a Shouting Match
by Blake Farmer, NPR The public meeting in Manchester, Tenn., about 70 miles from Nashville, was supposed to address and tamp down discrimination toward Muslims there. But instead it turned into a shouting match. Bill Killian, the local U.S. attorney who organized the meeting, told the people in attendance that hate speech was not protected […]
NSA snooping erodes American values
By Dawud Walid, The Detroit News, 6/11/13 Recent revelations that the National Security Agency (NSA) and FBI have been involved in widespread collection of Verizon customers phone records — as well as communications from nine internet providers — has sent shockwaves across the country.Programs which started under the guise of counterterrorism during the Bush administration […]
Middle Tennessee Muslims Vow To Keep Talking After Shout-Down In Manchester
Nashville Public Radio After being jeered by hundreds of conservative activists this week, Middle Tennessee Muslims say they will keep up their outreach efforts in Coffee County. “The comments, the rhetoric, the yells, we’ve heard all of those,” says Remziya Suleyman of the American Muslim Advisory Council of Tennessee. “If it was to scare us […]
Will there be an independent investigation of Ibragim Todashev shooting?
By Christopher Balogh, Orlando Weekly On May 29, the Council on American-Islamic Relations held a press conference at an International Drive hotel to demand a private investigation of last week’s deadly shooting of an Orlando man by an FBI agent. As has been widely reported, the FBI turned up at an apartment on Peregrine Drive […]
American Muslims discovering politics
By Jim Hinch, Orange County Register, 6/4/13 For many election cycles, the Arab American Caucus of the California Democratic Party gathered in small conference rooms at party conventions, listened to speeches, made a few endorsements, and went home. This year, something different happened. “The room was packed,” said Rashad Al-Dabbagh of Anaheim, who attended the […]
On the Job with Saly Abd Alla
By Laura French, Star Tribune, 6/4/13 Saly Abd Alla grew up in the Twin Cities suburbs. Because she had been born in Egypt, she said, “People asked about camels all the time. Camels are very rare in Egypt. They used horses. The camels in front of the pyramids are for tourists.” As the Civil Rights […]
Federal Grand Juries and Non-Criminal Investigations
By Amara S. Chaudhry, The Legal Intelligencer, May 31, 2013 Can a federal grand jury be lawfully used solely for purposes unrelated to any criminal investigation? The Philadelphia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Philadelphia) wants to know the answer to that question. To get that answer, CAIR-Philadelphia (which I serve as legal director) […]