Before I make the post, Domino’s Pizza has issued a statement on the page where the video below appears and it reads
Domino’s does not tolerate discrimination against customers. This store was owned and operated by an independent franchisee and that franchisee exited our system in 2013.
Michael P. Jarvis of Winter Haven is named in the Circuit Court suit along with his company, Michael J’s Pizzaria, Inc., which owned the Domino’s Pizza where the incident occurred. Jarvis has said he sold the store about two years ago and he was unaware of the lawsuit. He declined to comment further. Here’s the video
Hakima Benaddi said she had picked up pizza at a Domino’s store in Davenport dozens of times since she moved to the neighborhood in 2011.
The only difference from her routine July 27, 2012, Benaddi said, was that she was wearing a Muslim head scarf.
A lawsuit filed in her behalf contends she was discriminated against by employees, including an accusation by one that she threatened to blow up the building.
The charges were later dropped, but Benaddi said Thursday that her life was turned upside down because of the false accusations.
She’s suing the former owner of the Davenport pizzeria and his company. The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in Circuit Court on behalf of Benaddi by the Council on American-Islamic Relations Florida.
Benaddi said she’s still shaken over being handcuffed and put into jail.
“I never imagined I’d be in that situation,” Benaddi said, standing next to her lawyer, Thania Diaz Clevenger, civil rights director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations for Florida, at a news conference outside the Polk County Courthouse. “I know they discriminated against me.
A Domino’s Pizza spokesman at corporate headquarters in Detroit said the corporation didn’t own the store and wasn’t named in the lawsuit.
“The employees were his (the franchisee), and he is no longer with our system,” said spokesman Tim McIntyre.
Benaddi moved to the United States in 2009 from Morocco.
She was arrested by Polk County sheriff’s deputies on charges of making a bomb threat after the July 27, 2012, incident at Domino’s Pizza, 45717 U.S. 27 N.
The charges were dropped in August 2012 because of “conflicting witness statements,” according to the lawsuit. Her arrest record was ordered expunged on Sept. 13, 2013, by a circuit judge, the lawsuit says.
According to the lawsuit, which is seeking damages, Benaddi’s civil rights were violated and she was wrongly arrested because of false statements made by the store’s assistant manager, Whitney Green.
Green was the only employee who told investigators she heard a bomb threat. “The woman came into the store screaming about her pizza,” Green told deputies, according to an arrest report. “When I went to find out what was wrong, she started yelling, ‘It’s because you’re American, and I’m Muslim. I’m gonna come back with a bomb. I’ll blow you all up.’?”
The argument started over a vegetarian pizza Benaddi ordered. Benaddi said it was her first time wearing a hijab, the Muslim head scarf, at the Domino’s. She bought the pizza and, when she got home, found it was missing toppings, some crust and cheese. She called the store to complain and returned with the pizza.
The suit said when Benaddi asked for a refund, she was told by Green and two other employees that there was nothing wrong with the pizza. Following a verbal confrontation with Green, Benaddi said, “You can keep your pizza” and left the store, the suit says.
Green called deputies about the bomb threat after Benaddi left about 6 p.m. Sheriff’s Deputy William Tull investigated the complaint, placed the pizza box into evidence then questioned Benaddi. She was arrested about midnight, according to the lawsuit.
Sheriff’s spokesman Scott Wilder said he couldn’t discuss the case because the criminal records had been expunged.
This kind of racism is illegal and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I congratulate Ms. Bennadi for doing just that and hope she prevails. Lying because of poor service rendered to a paying customer is unacceptable.
When I saw this the first thing that came to mind was the poor, ignorant people responsible for this “display” probably were including traffic tickets received by the Muslims who live in their area. I wasn’t too far off
Factually, the number of “*19,250 Islamic attacks (*and counting)” is a purposeful fabrication….this so-called “Islamic Terrorism ticker” that gives us the oddly precise round number of 19,250 is taken from the anti-Muslim website “The Religion of Peace” (TROP)
Many of the attacks listed by TROP relate to nationalist insurgencies, such as the conflict involving Baluchi nationalists seeking independence from Pakistan. Some of the attacks listed by TROP are in fact crimes committed by Muslims or people with Muslim sounding names that have nothing to do with Islam or terrorism, such as honor killings, the killing of local policemen, petty assault, etc.
In other words, the people who come up with these figures have managed to include everything that was ever done by someone with a Muslim sounding name as terror related and I may not be too far off in wondering if traffic tickets have been included in the mix. I’m a bit conflicted however, to read that the people who are obliged to post such displays acknowledge they are offensive but run them because of free speech requirements in place in society. They have come up with an answer to assuage their conscious by saying they will donate profits from the ad to education campaigns against discrimination. May I suggest they give such proceeds to CAIR or any other Muslim organization in their area who in turn will produce and organize the education campaigns. With such a stipulation attached to the airing of such displays there’s no doubt in my mind they will cease to appear on the American landscape. Does anyone have the courage to propose such a thing to the voices of hatred and bigotry?
Some people made a big deal about Hani Nour Eldin, a member of Egypt’s dissolved parliament, getting a U.S. visa and meetings with U.S. officials despite his membership in Egypt’s Gama’a al-Islamiyya, which the State Department deems a “foreign terrorist organization.” It didn’t matter to those same people that the group Gama’a al-Islamiyya renounced violence at around the turn of this century. Nor did it matter to them that the group’s renounciation was accepted by our ally, Egypt’s Hosni Mubara. The problem was/is the US State department, now headed by the dreaded and hated spouse of Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton that the Right has pilloried ever since their appearance on the political stage had gone over to the Islamist/terrorist side. But as in most things that originate from the right side of America’s political spectrum these days, there really wasn’t much substance to their concern for America…..it did give the right the opportunity to sling mud at its two biggest political existential threats, the Obama Administration and Muslims.
It’s little wonder that members of the Right were silent about this bit of news. The Syrian government’s Muslim religious leader, Grand Mufti Ahmad Badreddine Hassoun was quoted last October as saying, ‘I say to all of Europe, I say to America, we will set up suicide bombers who are now in your countries, if you bomb Syria or Lebanon. From now on, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ The as dreaded as the Clinton’s State Department, CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) in today’s America wasn’t going to let that kind of rhetoric go unnoticed and protested
We urge you to deny entry to Grand Mufti Ahmad Badreddine Hassoun, who has threatened our nation’s national security with calls for suicide attacks and whose state-appointed function is to provide a religious veneer for a brutal regime that has killed and tortured thousands of its own people…
Hassoun’s entry into the United States would only serve to provide credibility for his false claim that the ongoing revolution against the Assad dictatorship is inspired by foreign interests, instead of the Syrian people‘s clear desire for peace, freedom and the rule of law.
By allowing Hassoun entry to the United States, we would send a contradictory and counterproductive message to the beleaguered people of Syria at time when they are suffering such hardships at the hands of the regime’s forces.
No doubt CAIR’s diligence is due in no small part to criticism about how Muslims do very little self-policing of themselves which CAIR did to a rather successful conclusion but it will do little to stem the name calling they are part of a larger Muslim Brotherhood conspiracy. They needn’t worry about that however, since it seems EVERYONE is a part of the takeover of America by the Muslim Brotherhood. Neither should CAIR expect anyone from the Right will give them credit for the organization’s outspokenness on an issue that they, the Right likes to call its own….pointing out or highlighting religiously connected terrorism. By co opting the Right’s issue of choice, CAIR has made the Right irrelevant. At the least they deserve an ‘attaboy!
Islamophobes really need to read and listen to what American Muslims say about their religion instead of relying on what some other Islamophobe says about it. (Peter King are you listening?) I was directed to this rather extraordinary website by the excellent website The American Muslim. Apostasy and Islam was put together by a Muslim American academic Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq, whose main purpose was to authentically refute the notion that Islam condemns killing Muslims who convert to another religion. That assertion has been one of the main cries of Islamophobes who claim that Islam, contrary to the religious texts, is not a religion of freedom but of coercion, force and fear. Farooq will have none of that…having compiled 100 sources that directly refute the claim. Take a look
As presented in excerpts from numerous sources below, and links to works available online, there is no worldly punishment solely for apostasy [i.e., changing of one’s faith/religion] mentioned in the Qur’an. ……
…..there is no hadith confirming punishment or retribution solely for apostasy. In every single case, where punishment has been meted out, riddah involved treason or rebellion. The following is an example of how the Prophet dealt with solely apostasy.
A bedouin gave the Pledge of allegiance to Allah’s Apostle for Islam. Then the bedouin got fever at Medina, came to Allah’s Apostle and said, “O Allah’s Apostle! Cancel my Pledge,” But Allah’s Apostle refused. Then he came to him (again) and said, “O Allah’s Apostle! Cancel my Pledge.” But the Prophet refused Then he came to him (again) and said, “O Allah’s Apostle! Cancel my Pledge.” But the Prophet refused. The bedouin finally went out (of Medina) whereupon Allah’s Apostle said, “Medina is like a pair of bellows (furnace): It expels its impurities and brightens and clears its good. [Sahih al-Bukhari, Vol. 9, #318]
Notably, as Dr. M. E. Subhani explained in his book: “This was an open case of apostasy. But the Prophet neither punished the Bedouin nor asked anyone to do it. He allowed him to leave Madina. Nobody harmed him.”
Or there is this
Some people accepted Islam during the period of Umar bin Abdul Aziz, who is called the fifth rightful caliph of Islam. All these people renounced Islam sometimes later. Maimoon bin Mahran the governor of the area wrote to the caliph about these people. In reply Umar bin Abdul Aziz ordered him to release those people and asked him to re-impose jizya on them. [Musannaf Abdur Razzaq, pp. 171-10, cited in M. E. Subhani,Apostasy in Islam (New Delhi, India: Global Media Publications, 2005), pp. 23-24. Abdur Razzaq ibn Humama (d. 211 AH). This is the earliest musannaf (a hadith collection arranged in topical chapters) work in existence.]
From Egypt, which just recently elected an “Islamist” president comes this pronouncement
“The Islamic Research Department of Al-Azhar University has called the penalty for apostasy as null and void and has said that the ways of repentance are open for the whole life. … So an apostate can repent over his mistake anytime during his life and there would be no fixed period for it.” [Al-Alamul Islami, the weekly organ of Rabita Alam al-Islami, 23rd August 2002, quoted in Dr. M. E. Subhani, Global Media Publications, 2005, p. 25]
From one of the sons of the dreaded Muslim Brotherhood, the much maligned organization that is pointed to in order to show extremism, comes this tidbit from Tariq Ramadan
I have been criticised about this in many countries. My view is the same as that of Sufyan Al-Thawri, an 8th-century scholar of Islam, who argued that the Koran does not prescribe death for someone because he or she is changing religion. Neither did the Prophet himself ever perform such an act. Many around the Prophet changed religions. But he never did anything against them. There was an early Muslim, Ubaydallah ibn Jahsh, who went with the first emigrants from Mecca to Abyssinia. He converted to Christianity and stayed, but remained close to Muslims. He divorced his wife, but he was not killed.” [Interview: Tariq Ramadan]
From the equally maligned American Islamic organization CAIR comes this
Islamic scholars say the original rulings on apostasy were similar to those for treasonous acts in legal systems worldwide and do not apply to an individual’s choice of religion. Islam advocates both freedom of religion and freedom of conscience, a position supported by verses in the Quran, Islam’s revealed text … ‘Religious decisions should be matters of personal choice, not a cause for state intervention. Faith imposed by force is not true belief, but coercion. Islam has no need to compel belief in its divine truth. As the Quran states: ‘Truth stands out clear from error. Therefore, whoever rejects evil and believes in God has grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold that never breaks.’ (2:256)
Finally, Muslims living in America have this to say about apostasy in Islam and what if anything should be the punishment
…the Qur’an is the definitive clear authority for protecting the rights of an individual in expressing himself in faith and supercedes any of the distorted interpretations of the hadiths in question. Executing a person because of conversion to another faith contradicts the Qur’an, the ultimate source of Shari’ah.” [The Ruling on Apostasy]-(Muhammad Hanooti)
The Quran states categorically and unequivocally, there shall be no coercion in matters of faith. (2:256). This cornerstone tenet of Islamic faith is violated when an individual is put on trial for converting away from Islam. This verse, very clearly teaches that faith is a personal matter between the individual and God. (Islamic Center of Long Island, New York)
Discussions of Islamic law by non-Muslims (and, all too often, by Muslims as well) suffer from confusion between the concepts of apostasy and treason. The majority view is that the death penalty applies only to treason during wartime, including providing aid and comfort to the enemy, rather than mere conversion. According to the Constitution [Article III, section 3], treason consists only ‘in levying war against [the United States], or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.’ That Muhammad shared this view can be seen in the fact that he never executed apostates except when they made war or propaganda against the Muslims. (Dr. Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad President/Director, Minaret of Freedom Institute, Maryland, USA
One could go on and on, but the evidence is there on the printed page for all to see and it clearly dispels the notions put forth by Islamophobes that people in the West should be fearful for their lives if they leave the Islamic religion. Surely there are some who believe that but there is no substantive textual evidence that justifies killing someone because they have stopped being Muslim. This literature is vast, authentic and easily available. One should ask the question why is it not mentioned by the detractors of Islam; what else is it they don’t want you to really know about the religion of Islam?
Sometimes all it takes is for someone to take a principled stand against people who intimidate by fear and hatred. That’s what Hillsborough County school board chair Candy Olson did at a school board meeting this month when confronted by parents who were upset the school system allowed a Muslim to speak to classrooms about Islam.
They (assembled parents) said the presentation by CAIR’s Hassan Shibly — made to an advanced-placement world history class in November at Steinbrenner High — was a threat to children, to schools, to America.
“As a father to a child, this breaks my heart to know this is even considered in the schools,” said William Terrell of Tampa.
“CAIR funds homicide bombers to do what they do. They fund the ability of rockets being shot into Israel,” said Ryan Italiano, an 11-year-old who is home-schooled.
“Why you’ll let this religion be taught in our schools but you won’t let the religion that this country was made of be taught in the schools. What’s the point in teaching religion that caused the twin towers to fall down?”
Finally, after 17 speakers on the topic, and with dozens more anti-CAIR forces in the crowd who didn’t speak, school board Chairwoman Candy Olson had heard enough. And she unleashed on the group.
“Our teachers do need to give our students a broad view of the world,” she said, clearly irritated. “The Muslim faith is here to stay. I don’t think we can protect our children from the fact that there are people in this world who believe in Islam.”
She called those in the audience out of touch and criticized what she labeled a negative and mostly anonymous e-mail campaign that she said was meant to intimidate.
“This was one speaker for part of one class. This wasn’t an indoctrination,” Olson said. “How dare you show such disdain for people who are by and large competent professionals? It is essential, it is imperative we support our teachers in showing a broad view of the world.”
Olson said that despite speakers’ statements to the contrary, there were plenty of opportunities for other faiths to be present in the schools. After all, Olson said, there are Bible studies and clubs such as Fellowship of Christian Athletes.
Instead of being bullied, cowed or merely quiet, Olson took a stand on the issue and held her ground. She needs to be congratulated for that. Too many have capitulated to assembled voices of hatred and not defended the rights and responsibilities we all have and share, regardless of faith, color or creed. Olson would have none of that however and held fast. Would that American politicians on both sides of politics had such bravery; it’s a trait that’s sorely missing in them. Kudos, Ms Olson!
Everyone has their breaking point for hate speech and racism. Mine came when I watched the video you can find here, where what started out to be a “decent” interview between a Fox reporter, Megyn Kelly, and a representative of the Media Research Center and Council of American-Islamic Relations ended with the Fox reporter shouting ‘that’s way out of line, that’s way out of line’ at the CAIR representative as if to imply he had no businesss making the assertion that more abortion clinic personnel have been killed by members of the Christian right who protested what is a legal right women have to abortion than people who’ve been killed by Muslims protesting depictions of the Last Messenger and Prophet. Evidently that fact doesn’t fit into Fox News’ ideas of domestic terrorism and who the adherents of terrorism are especially if they are white Christians and not brown skinned bearded, covered and menacing Muslims.
Glen Greenwald’s breaking point must have come when he read a New York Times editorial by one Ross Douthat a rather nasty Islamophobe who has been featured in the pages of Miscellany101 before here. Douthat’s piece put forth the premise Muslims can intimidate artists who live by poetic license into not offending Muslim sensibilities but law abiding Christians who supposedly don’t engage in the same polemic are offended by artists who are not afraid of them nor have any respect for Christian religious beliefs. Greenwald pretty much slams the door on Douthat and by extension the visibly upset FoxNews reporter’s argument thusly:
It looks like Ross Douthat picked the wrong month to try to pretend that threat-induced censorship is a uniquely Islamic practice. Corpus Christi is the same play that was scheduled and then canceled (and then re-scheduled) by the Manhattan Theater Club back in 1998 as a result of “anonymous telephone threats to burn down the theater, kill the staff, and ‘exterminate’ McNally.” Both back then and now, leading the protests (though not the threats) was the Catholic League, denouncing the play as “blasphemous hate speech.”
I abhor the threats of violence coming from fanatical Muslims over the expression of ideas they find offensive, as well as the cowardly institutions which acquiesce to the accompanying demands for censorship. I’ve vigorously condemned efforts to haul anti-Muslim polemicists before Canadian and European “human rights” (i.e., censorship) tribunals. But the very idea that such conduct is remotely unique to Muslims is delusional, the by-product of Douthat’s ongoing use of his New York Times column for his anti-Muslim crusade and sectarian religious promotion.
The various forms of religious-based, intimidation-driven censorship and taboo ideas in the U.S. — what Douthat claims are non-existent except when it involves Muslims — are too numerous to chronicle. One has to be deeply ignorant, deeply dishonest or consumed with petulant self-victimization and anti-Muslim bigotry to pretend they don’t exist. I opt (primarily) for the latter explanation in Douthat’s case.
It’s nice that The New York Times hired a columnist devoted to defending his Church and promoting his religious sectarian conflicts without any response from the target of his bitter tribalistic encyclicals. Can one even conceive of having a Muslim NYT columnist who routinely disparages and rails against Christians and Jews this way? To ask the question is to answer it, and by itself gives the lie to Douthat’s typically right-wing need to portray his own majoritarian group as the profoundly oppressed victim at the hands of the small, marginalized, persecuted group which actually has no power (it’s so unfair how Muslims always get their way in the U.S.). But whatever else is true, there ought to be a minimum standard of factual accuracy required for these columns. The notion that censorship is exercised only on behalf of Muslims falls far short of that standard.
(1) Several people are insisting that the problem of violence and threats by Muslims is far greater than, and thus not comparable to, those posed by Christians and Jews. This is just the same form of triabalistic, my-side-is-always-better blindness afflicting Douthat. Who could possibly look at the U.S. and conclude that brutal, inhumane, politically-motivated, designed-to-intimidate violence is a particular problem among Muslims, or that Muslims receive special, unfairly favorable treatment as a result of their intimidation? Do you mean except for the tens of thousands of Muslims whom the U.S. has imprisoned without charges for years, and the hundreds of thousands our wars and invasions and bombings have killed this decade alone, and the ones from around the world subjected to racial and ethnic profiling, and the ones we’ve tortured and shot up at checkpoints and are targeting for state-sponsored assassination?
(2) There’s no question that violence or threatened violence by Islamic radicals against authors, cartoonists and the like is a serious problem. But (a) simply click on the links above — or talk to workers in abortion clinics about the climate in which they work — and try to justify how you can, with a straight face, claim it’s not very pervasive among extremists and fanatics generally, and (b) avoid exaggerating the problem. The group that threatened the South Park creators is a tiny, fringe group founded by a former right-wing Jewish-American settler in the West Bank who converted to Islam and spends most of his time harrassing American Muslims (the former “James Cohen”; h/t Archtype); they’re about as representative of Muslims generally as Fred Phelps and these people are representative of Christians. Moreover, numerous blogs displayed the Mohammed cartoons and plan to do so again; the notion that the Western World is cowering in abject fear from Muslim intimidation is absurdly overblown.
(3)Sarah Palin recently defended the Rev. Franklin Graham’s statement that Islam is “a very evil and wicked religion.” That barely caused a ripple of controversy. Imagine if a leading political figure had said anything remotely similar about Christianity or Judaism. The claim that Muslims receive some sort of special protection or sensitivity is the opposite of reality.
I might add everywhere you see The New York Times and or Ross Douthat in Greenwald’s piece above, you can safely insert FoxNews and Megyn Kelly, or any other corporate media type and their corresponding lackey/reporter….the rhetoric is essentially the same and equally perverse. If you want to really get a flavor for Greenwald’s piece read it in its entirety here.
What is common about these two media encounters, mine and Greenwald’s is how it appears media wants to inflame public passions against a group of people who are 0.00067% of the Muslim population (548 members of Revolution Muslim out of an estimated population of 6 million Muslims) of the US in such a way as to imply they can possibly limit or even do away with the freedoms of speech we hold so dearly when it has been the government’s response to this minuscule number that poses a greater threat to that freedom than anything the Revolution Muslim can conjure. Such is the rhetoric which drives media and government ever closer to the precipice of destroying the social order in a way no amount of terror, Islamic, foreign, domestic, militia driven or otherwise could ever do and yet the general public seems alright with that notion that freedom and liberty are ok to forfeit or lose at the expense of persecuting minorities, the opposition, but certainly for now Muslims. It is a notion we have embraced to readily in our past and it’s time to forgo it now.
Chris Gaubatz, pictured on the right next to Representative Andre Carson, along with his father have produced what they think is an explosive book about the Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR, a Muslim civil rights organization’s attempts to infiltrate Congress with spies as interns. Yes, this is another in a long line of attempts to discredit, denigrate, pollute Islam’s presence in America, and you the reader should ask yourself the question why is so much effort being made to destroy a religion in the land of the free and the home of brave. The book in question is called Muslim Mafia, and the writer, Chris’ dad, Dave Gaubatz is literally on the fringe when it comes to sanity in today’s America; you can read about his dubious past here. Among some of his more enlightened pronouncements is the one where he says when talking about the Obama campaign, ‘We are now on the verge of allowing a self admitted ‘crack-head’ to have his finger on every nuclear weapon in America.’ His tendency to make things up out of thin air is continued in the aforementioned book. What’s disturbing about it, apart from the fact he prostituted his son to lie and deceive the people who work in the offices of CAIR where he stole memos from them, no doubt that the FBI already possessed, to prove his theory of spying, is the fact this book was announced by four members of Congress, one of whom wrote the forward for the book…….a bit of self-promotion never hurt anybody I guess. This is the same Congress, an institution where one of their own esteemed members has already been outed as a spy!
Jane Harman, democrat from California has been recorded discussing making a deal with some Israeli intelligence officer who was being monitored by the feds through a court approved wiretap. Harman was to throw the full weight of her office behind getting the Justice Department to drop the charges against two AIPAC officials….the DOJ inevitably did just that, who were accused for spying for Israel in exchange for being appointed chairman of the House Intelligence Committee with the help of said Israeli officer. It doesn’t help Harman’s supporters to know that Harman had been under investigation since 2006 and that DOJ attorneys had decided she indeed committed a crime in her discussions with the Israelis. That doesn’t seem to matter to the likes ofReps. Sue Myrick (NC), John Shadegg (AZ), Paul Broun (GA), and Trent Franks (AZ), who claim the Muslim menace is imminent and deadly and by extension trumps anything Harman ever did. Yet, the CAIR’s literature used by Gaubatz to expose their dastardly plot reveals them to be no more than a public advocacy group for the rights of Muslim Americans and a lobbying organization with far less effectiveness than AIPAC.
The second part of the misdirection involves diverting attention away from the efforts Muslims have made to report, bring to the attention of authorities or police, members of their community only to have their efforts denied, like the community in California that reported an obviously errant Muslim who it later turned out was a FBI informant only to have one of their own arrested and the subject of a government investigation. Or how about the Muslim community leader, known as an Imam, who was arrested by federal authorities because while he agreed to help law enforcement round up radical leaning Muslims he refused to do so surreptitiously. Left with examples like this Muslim communities throughout America feel helpless to stop what are many times government inspired plots of violence against American citizens because such disclosure to or cooperation with federal authorities often leads to negative consequences to otherwise law abiding citizens. Perhaps this high publicity appearance of the four horsemen congressional representatives was meant to get the members of CAIR and other Muslim civil rights groups to come running back to federal officials begging to be accepted by them and agreeing to any terms dictated by law enforcement to counter any negative publicity generated by this “book”. I hope that doesn’t happen, and it shouldn’t. The Muslim community has done more than their share to show good faith in working with law enforcement to eliminate any threat to the security of American citizens….many of them Muslims. This spurious book, Muslim Mafia, is the thanks they get for that.
Any form of religious expression which is incontrovertibly linked to a religion should be classified as free speech in America and therefore the bearer or wearer should be allowed to go wherever need be. It was disgraceful for personnel in a Georgia court room to cite a Muslim woman for contempt of court and sentence her to 10 days in prison for the “offense” of wearing her religiously mandated scarf to court. She wasn’t scheduled to testify, she wasn’t a defendant or lawyer in court, she was merely accompanying a relative and was met at the door with the State’s infringement on her right to freedom of religion. That has now changed, for the Muslim citizens of Georgia.
Georgia courtrooms will allow religious headgear after last year’s arrest of a Muslim woman who refused to remove her headscarf in a west Georgia courthouse.The Judicial Council of Georgia voted unanimously this week to allow religious and medical headgear into Georgia courtrooms. It also allows a person to request a private inspection if a security officer wants to conduct a search.
“If this had been a nun, no one would have required her to remove her habit,” said Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Carol Hunstein, who heads the Judicial Council. “I think this is a good rule, and I think it’s clear.”
The policy shift stems from the December 2008 arrest of Lisa Valentine, who was ordered to serve 10 days in jail for contempt of court after she refused to remove her hijab at a courtroom in Douglasville, a town of about 20,000 people west of Atlanta. She was released in less than a day.
Muslim rights activists were infuriated by the incident, pressing the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the incident and organizing a protest. The city also said its employees would take sensitivity training classes.
City officials at the time said they were trying to follow courtroom rules that restricted headgear, but the city said the officer who detained Valentine should have sought a solution that “would preserve the spirit of the law.”
Valentine, who did not immediately return phone messages Friday, said she was accompanying her nephew to a hearing when officials stopped her at the metal detector and told her she couldn’t enter the courtroom with the headscarf, known as a hijab.
She said she was stopped by officers when she objected and turned to leave, and that she was later brought before a municipal court judge who ordered her held for contempt of court.
City officials did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment, but Douglasville Police Chief Joe Whisenant characterized the incident at the time as a miscommunication.
The police department said in a news release that Valentine was found in contempt for fighting with one of the officers, not for wearing a scarf. The city said she was released after it was determined there had not been a fight.
Muslims are just as much a part of the American fabric as any other ethnic group and their rights as citizens cannot and should not be abridged because of personal dislikes or community wide prejudices. Personal likes and dislikes have no place in determining what is legal and illegal. The Constitution, and particularly the 1st amendment says in clear language that the legislative body of this Republic cannot make any law prohibiting the free exercise of any religion. In this regard we are different and better than our European cousins who bend the rules to satisfy contemporary societal mores usually directed towards those they deem distasteful. Whether we like it or not, we have become a pluralistic society that is home to people of faiths, colors, creeds that span the entire breath of human existence; we must live under this umbrella of law that has been developed throughout the lifetime of America, sometimes carefully and deliberately, and at other times impulsively yet judiciously. To do otherwise would make us criminals before the law and before our Creator.
America needs to get rid of the group of people least inclined towards peace and friendly relations with their neighbors. The FBI is being led by the nose by the likes of con artists like Craig Monteilh who has left such a trial of deceipt and lies he should be the one in prison, not Ahmadullah Sais Niazi, on the left. Craig is the guy the FBI placed their bets on to disrupt California masajid, or places of worship for Muslims, with his slow but steadily increasing incendiary terrorist rhetoric. Of course it was all a show to get people to sign on to the game so that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies could disrupt a so called terrorist cell brewing on the homeland. What the feds didn’t count on was that the masajid targetted by them would be so upset with Monteilh’s terrorist rhetoric they would actually turn him into the FBI instead of joining him. That didn’t go over to well so retribution was taken against the law abiding Muslim citizens for not going along with the program and poor Ahmadullah Sais Niazi was arrested and charged with a variety of “immigration charges” the likes of which are used whenever the government needs an arrest to justify the enormous amounts of money spent going nowhere; and nowhere is what they got with Monteilh, a con artist who has people, not just Muslims, writing about how bad a con artist and lover he really is. What’s troubling about this case is the people the FBI wanted to entrap were perfectly willing to work with law enforcement and provided the feds with a terrorist…..the feds’ own terrorist, but that simply wasn’t good enough and someone ELSE had to pay for Monteilh’s deception. Why the FBI didn’t do a better job of seeing what kind of history their informant had, who he had abused in the past that might blow this guy’s cover, (hell hath no fury like a woman scorned), and what a liability he could potentially be to their case, they could have saved themselves this set back with a group of citizens who wanted to do the right thing and in fact did. As a result of such a lousy informant, the Muslim community has decided for now to withdraw their offer to help the government and the FBI too has retreated from its community outreach. That is not good for either group, but there are some within government who are probably quite happy about that. Craig Monteilh no doubt is one of them.
Dignity means not begging for inclusion. CAIR and other Muslim organizations had done a somewhat decent job of not begging when it came to the federal government and it’s law enforcement arm, the FBI; that was until the FBI decided to end the love fest with CAIR and stop doing community outreach programs with them. The FBI has been infested with Islamophobes the likes of Steve Emerson and Daniel Pipes whose hatred of anything Islamic is as rabid, demented and misguided as anyone from your local insane asylum. As long as the federal government is under the sway of folks like the two above there’s very little CAIR can do to get the feds to change their mind. I was a little upset therefore to read this “plea” from CAIR for the FBI to justify their breaking of relations. I think it’s more dignified for CAIR to continue with its program of uncovering abuse directed towards Muslim Americans and working with those institutions that are willing to work with them to stop such abuse, but if anyone wants to give in to the rhetoric and racism of Islamophobes there’s nothing you can do to change that, and begging them to like you certainly won’t work.
And speaking of CAIR did you read where they have changed leadership and gone more “local” as it were. The former head of the organization, a Palestinian-American was just the lightening rod the likes of Pipes and Emerson needed to make and then make stick the accusation that CAIR was somehow affiliated with home grown Islamic terrorism. Yes, we all know no such thing exists, but that didn’t stop Pipes, et.al from slinging the mud. Larry Shaw a North Carolina state representative is now taking over the reigns of CAIR and showing another dimension to Islam in America.
Shaw, who has served in the senate for seven terms, has a reputation for honesty and fair dealing. A champion of interfaith understanding, he has gained support in the Jewish community, too.
“I’m very much impressed with his fine personality,” says Rabbi Yosef Levanon of Congregation Beth Israel in Fayetteville. “I think he has good intentions, and I’m praying he will avoid the pitfalls that have plagued this organization.”
Indeed, some have suggested that Shaw was chosen to lead CAIR precisely because he can soften its sometimes combative image.
Khalilah Sabra, a Raleigh activist who directs the local chapter of the Muslim American Society’s Freedom Foundation and consults with Shaw on a weekly basis, says Shaw brings a uniquely American political vision to CAIR.
I don’t know what all happened to make Mr. Shaw’s leadership at CAIR possible but I think it has something to do with the group’s tarnished image, a la Mr. Pipe and Emerson. Perhaps Shaw can transform that image and focus the vision of the group to pursuits that will make it more necessary to the American fabric.
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