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  • johnpi 6:59 pm on February 11, 2010 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , hate crimes, , , , , , ,

    Tennessee mosque vandalized after local tv station airs irresponsible report on ‘homegrown jihad.’

    The local news report prominently referenced a ‘documentary’ by the Christian Action Network about Jamaat ul-Fuqra communities, including one in central Tennessee called Islamville. I blogged about both the alarmist irresponsible CAN film and the Fuqra last year (also here and here).

    Amanda Terkel writes about what happened in Tennessee:

    …the Nashville CBS affiliate (Channel 5) decided to give the film legitimacy by conducting an “EXCLUSIVE” investigation into a Muslim community in rural Tennessee called Islamville, which is featured in the movie. “Some believe it is a secret Islamic terrorist training camp,” reads the Channel 5 article. “Others have said that’s simply not true.

    The two-part ’special’ report found nothing of concern, but the two days of hype leading up to the report may have precipitated this:

    Photobucket

    There was also a note taped to a youth facility nearby with a bunch of comments about Islam being the enemy, satanic, etc, etc. A spokesman for the mostly Somali mosque said:

    “It’s unexpected,” he adds. “The only thing I can think of is the sensationalized reporting [by Channel 5] over Sunday and Monday. That’s the only thing I can think of. Even after 9/11 we have never had any vandalism.“

     

  • johnpi 4:22 pm on February 9, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , hate crimes, , ,

    Australian politicians have been sharpening the points on top of their heads.

    Australia says attacks on Indians harm Indian ties.

    The government is committed to preventing attacks against Indian students studying in Australia, which are harming relations with India and damaging the nation’s reputation, a minister said Tuesday while conceding that some assaults appeared racially motivated.

    No kidding? Whoda thunk it…

    At least they’re finally doing something about it:

    Smith said police in four states had recently made arrests for violent crimes against Indians, including 45 arrested in Victoria.

     

  • johnpi 8:36 am on January 15, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , hate crimes, ontario,

    Hamilton, Ontario, police ask for public’s help in investigation of firebombing of Islamic school. Australian keystone kops, take a lesson.

    Police have increased patrols in the area of the Hamilton Mosque on the east Mountain while arson, forensic and hate crimes officers continue to probe the attempted fire bombing at the Islamic School of Hamilton which is part of the mosque building.
    ….

    Speaking to a packed mosque last Friday, the chief told worshippers the attack on the Islamic school was an attack on the entire community.

    Mayor Fred Eisenberger, Mountain MPP Sophia Aggelonitis and Hamilton Centre MP David Christopherson also offered strong words of support for the 20,000 member Muslim community in Hamilton.

    Yasser Haddara, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at McMaster University and an active member of the local Islamic community, said they are grateful the police chief and elected officials came to the mosque. “We think they reacted in a very timely manner and in a very positive manner,” Haddara said. “From what we have seen, it’s not just words, it is action.”

    Haddara said the Muslim community is committed to making Hamilton a better place for everyone.

    “This is something that flows from our faith and from our commitment to being citizens in Canada,” he said “We have to make a contribution. We have to help make our city a better place to live and make our country a better place to live.”

    Prior to hearing from police and elected officials, Muhammad Khattad, the Mullah leading Friday prayers at the mosque, gave a stirring 40- minute address to some 200-300 attendees, where he emphasized that Islam is a religion of peace and a way of life.

    “The attack (on the school) will never deter us,” he said. “It will make us strong.”

     

  • johnpi 8:03 am on January 15, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: hate crimes, , , Meir Kahane, ,

    The 17-year-old grandson of murdered American Jewish extremist Meir Kahane was arrested for torching a West Bank mosque. Both the grandson’s grandfather and parents were murdered by Arab militants in separate incidents.

    The mosque was located in the village of Yasuf.

     

  • johnpi 10:15 am on January 7, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , hate crimes, , , ,

    Photobucket

    A powerful metaphor for official Australia’s response to violence against Indians.

    Last spring, the Victoria police set up a special official help line exclusively for Indians to call in the wake of a spat of violent assaults targeting them.

    Indians who have recently tried to place calls report that nobody answers the phone.

     

  • johnpi 12:55 pm on December 27, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , hate crimes, , , , ,

    An editorial decries the rising tide of hatred in Pakistan.

    Two NWFP ministers of the beleaguered ANP-led government, who made it to the tragic sites [of a car bombing that killed 120 in October] within minutes of the blasts, were seen and heard across the country pointing in vain to the enemy within. Both are roundly rebuked and branded foreign agents.

    Those differing with them walk through the streets and narrow alleys of the interior city but they choose to ignore the signs and sights of the orgy of death that has engulfed us. Several deadly blasts have taken place in the one-kilometre radius area in and around the fabled Qissa Khwani Bazaar in the recent past. All impacted sites are at a stone’s throw from each other. The area is like a game reserve with teeming flocks of game birds for the gamekeepers presently engaged in ideological war games. And why shouldn’t it be?

    Hate is inscribed in clear and bold fonts all across the area. Massive billboards, which in previous days were a feature of cinema houses, now hold the larger-than-life portraits of militant leaders of certain sectarian organisations. Ancient and sweet-sounding names of the streets have all been discarded and replaced with the names of those who have fallen in the sectarian warfare. Posters and graffiti proclaiming the title of infidel for the adherents of rival groups and death for the US, India and Israel adorn all walls in the area.

    And most disturbing of all:

    Mosques that had jealously guarded their nameless structures for eons have been labelled in factional colours and hence declared restricted places of worship.

     

  • johnpi 12:25 am on December 19, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , hate crimes, , , , ,

    The Sikh Coalition, an advocacy group for Sikhs in the US, is publicizing an attack in West Texas on a Sikh student who was delivering pizzas.

    The local police department failed to designate the attack as a hate crime, failed to take the attack seriously by designating it a misdemeanor assault, and so far have failed even to file the misdemeanor charge against the attackers.

    Here’s a description of the attack. Note that it appears from the language that the attackers had mistaken him for a Muslim. See if you think this sounds like a misdemeanor:

    He brought pizzas into a home on a delivery and four men took the pizza. Without paying, they began eating, while at the same time hurling racial epithets at the Sikh man and threatening him.

    “I’m going to **** you up in Iraq, I’m going to **** you up in Afghanistan, I’m going to **** you up over here.”

    The men then grabbed the Sikh student and threw him into a swimming pool. The four attackers surrounded the pool, kicking him in the head and body. Every time he tried to escape, they would stomp or hit at him. For 20 minutes, he swam for his life trying to escape. He eventually seized an opportunity to flee and barely made it to his car with two men in pursuit.

    I found this story over at The American Muslim, but it’s also been published in newspapers in India, Pakistan and New Zealand, so it certainly is getting widespread attention.

    I have several criticisms of the Sikh Coalition’s advocacy. Nowhere in the press release do they name the town where this happened, or what specific police department failed to do its job. Consequently, the effect of this advocacy is greatly diminished as the opportunity to hold the town and police department up for public opprobrium and shame (powerful behavior changers) has mostly been lost.

    In the press release it says, “Due to the sensitive nature of the case we have been asked not to release personal information at this time.” Why? If this has been reported to the police it is a public matter, likely published in the town paper’s police log.

     

  • johnpi 10:18 am on December 16, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: hate crimes

    Anti-Muslim hate crimes down in California, report finds.

    There was a 13 percent decrease from 2007.

    This is good news, but it covers 2008. Let’s hope the series of high profile arrests of American Muslims on allegations of involvement with extremist activities doesn’t precipitate another rise in those numbers.

     

  • buzz 1:22 pm on November 11, 2009 | 8 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , hate crimes, ,

    A Russian-born immigrant who stabbed to death a pregnant Muslim woman as she gave evidence against him in court was today given Germany’s highest possible sentence for murder – 15 years’ jail with no chance of early parole.

    The case has enraged the Arab world and in particular Egypt, where 31-year-old pharmacist Marwa al-Sherbini grew up.

    Street demonstrators and commentators have blamed Germany for encouraging Islamophobia. The victim has been hailed as a martyr for her faith, a so-called “veil martyr”, because she had stood up against the taunts of the 28-year-old assailant, Alexander Wiens.

    A fatwa has been pronounced on Mr Wiens and as a result the trial in Dresden was held under extraordinary security conditions, with the whole courthouse cleared and 200 armed police encircling the room.

    “We find you bear a particularly heavy burden of guilt,” said Judge Birgit Wiegand. The phrase is German legal language indicating that Mr Wiens will not be considered for early release. Fifteen years constitutes a life sentence.

    “We are very satisfied with the verdict,” said Ramzy Ezzedin Ramzy, Egypt’s ambassador to Berlin, “the maximum sentence was demanded and the maximum sentence was awarded.”

    TimesUK

     

  • johnpi 7:17 am on November 11, 2009 | 2 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , hate crimes

    Fort Hood backlash: Marine reservist chases, assaults Greek Orthodox priest whom he mistook for an Arab terrorist.

    Alexios Marakis, a Greek Orthodox priest visiting the U.S., got lost in Tampa and tried to stop and ask directions from Marine reservist Jasen D. Bruce. But instead of offering help, “Bruce struck the priest on the head with a tire iron.” The reservist believed Marakis, who spoke limited English, was an Arab terrorist. Bruce chased the priest for three blocks, “and even called 911 to say that an Arabic man tried to rob him.”

    Police arrested Bruce for “aggravated battery with a deadly weapon” and are investigating whether he committed a hate crime.

     

  • johnpi 9:35 pm on November 9, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , hate crimes

    Cops investigate possible hate crime against Muslim family on Long Island.

    I think there must be more to the story than was reported because the head of the hate crimes unit spent the morning at the condominium where it happened, as did the head of a local Muslim advocacy group.

    The woman who lives in the condo on Overlook Drive says she went out for a walk this morning and when she returned the house was ransacked and $200 was taken, 1010 WINS’ Mona Rivera reports.

    Police would not say if the couple had been targeted due to their religious beliefs, however head of the Hate Crimes Unit was on the scene. Police would not say, at this point, if they believe it was a hate crime.

    The head of the Long Island Muslim Alliance was also on the scene and said he was concerned this incident could be backlash from the Fort Hood shooting rampage.

    A second story that also said ‘a hate crime was being investigated’ says there was graffiti. I infer that there was something about the graffiti that indicated the elderly couple was targeted because they were Muslims and/or in relation to the Fort Hood attack.

     

  • johnpi 5:23 pm on November 8, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , hate crimes

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    Authorities give up on case of murdered Southern California imam – crime was never designated a hate crime, FBI never investigated.

    The case involving a local Muslim leader killed in a Yermo house fire still hasn’t produced any suspects and investigators are now shelving the case, according to officials from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.

    “We’ve pretty much exhausted all of our leads,” said sheriff’s spokeswoman Arden Wiltshire.

    Ali Mohammed, 51, died on June 27 while he was out visiting the Yermo property his family had recently moved out of when the building went up in flames.

    Investigators from the bomb and arson unit have confirmed that the fire was human-caused and not a result of faulty equipment, Wiltshire said. At the time, several neighbors confirmed hearing a loud explosion ring out before seeing the house on fire.

    But they have not been able to determine who started the fire, she said.

    Though the fire left only charred remains, photographs that Mohammed had taken two days before his death showed vandalism had taken place inside the vacated house. Spray-painted Nazi swastikas and racial epithets that singled out the family’s Middle Eastern heritage covered the interior walls. The family gave the digital photographs to investigators as part of the evidence.

    (More …)

     

  • johnpi 1:00 pm on November 6, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , hate crimes

    Right-wing activists use Fort Hood shooting to rally opposition to hate crimes legislation.

    Scarborough predicted that the expansion of the federal Hate-Crimes statute, signed into law by President Obama recently, will not prevent crimes like the Fort Hood shootings, but will instead be used to silence dissent.

    “Gay activists will use it against preachers who present the Biblical view of homosexuality. Muslim groups will use it against those who speak the verifiable truth about Islam. The federal Hate Crimes Law doesn’t target crime, but free speech,” Scarborough charged.

     

  • johnpi 6:50 am on November 6, 2009 | 31 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , hate crimes, ,

    Fort Hood anti-Muslim Backlash immediate.

    Funny thing about this story is that there is no “lead,” no summary or topic sentence, just backlash examples and background information on Hasan.

    His name had barely been released, his heritage and history not immediately known, but the reaction was fast and furious.

    “Jihad at Fort Hood?” read the headline of a post on the Jihad Watch blog just moments after Nidal Malik Hasan was identified as the alleged perpetrator of a mass shooting at the Texas military base that killed 12 people and wounded 31 others.

    “The name tells us a lot, does it not, senator?” Fox News’s Shep Smith said while interviewing Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Texas senator.

    This is also where I become very critical of the older civil rights and anti-discrimination organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center. There is not one word today on the possible impending backlash from this attack on either their blog or their website. Yet, if you read the linked story above you’ll see progressive/liberal bloggers (ideologically, the SPLC’s fellow travelers) throughout the blogosphere are talking/cautioning/warning and imploring people to resist collective punishment/retaliation. The SPLC does note anti-Muslim attacks from time to time, but it seems to be wearing blinders the rest of the time when it comes to Muslims.

     

  • johnpi 2:47 pm on October 29, 2009 | 4 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , hate crimes, , , , , ,

    The sensational media feeding frenzy around the death of Luqman Ameen Abdullah continues as news organizations around the country begin to make desperate, absurd efforts to “localize” the story by claiming Abdullah “had ties” to the local area if he has ever happened to pass through there.

    This is from a tv station out of Atlanta:

    Federal authorities in Detroit said the leader of a radical U.S. Sunni Islam group, whom Channel 2 has confirmed had ties to Atlanta, was killed in a shootout with federal agents.

    What are the “ties”?

    Channel 2 Action News investigative reporter Mark Winne said Abdullah had many friends and associates in Atlanta. Winne said Abdullah attended the opening ceremonies for an Islamic sports competition in 2007 in Atlanta’s West End area. Prominent Islamic leaders from around the country were also there.

    The result of this kind of ‘localization’ will be to heighten fear and mistrust of local Muslims, and will likely feed into new incidents of discrimination and hate crimes.

     

  • johnpi 1:21 pm on October 2, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: hate crimes

    In UK, Muslim graves smashed by vandals.

     

  • johnpi 8:01 pm on August 27, 2009 | 3 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , hate crimes,

    New York man accused of threatening to kill Muslim women.

    A landscaper with a virulent hatred of Islam tried to run over two Muslim women at a suburban gas station after threatening to kill them because of their religion, police said Thursday.
    ….

    Ballance approached 49-year-old Chervern Cartier and her 20-year-old daughter, who were wearing the traditional Muslim robes called abayas, in a service station parking lot in Smithtown, authorities said. The daughter’s name was not released.

    After hurling epithets at the women and threatening to “chop you up into little pieces and kill you,” Ballance spat on their car and drove his own toward them before driving off, according to police and a court complaint.

    The self-employed landscaper later told investigators, “They don’t belong here” and “They shouldn’t be walking around like that,” Detective Sgt. Robert Reecks said.

    “He is full of hatred,” Reecks said. “He saw them, the way they were dressed, and it just set him off.”

     

  • johnpi 11:03 am on August 27, 2009 | 4 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: hate crimes,

    ‘Racists kidnapped Muslim leader.’

    A Muslim community leader has claimed he was kidnapped by white racists who threatened to kill him unless he stopped running prayer sessions.

    Noor Ramjanally, 35, says two men abducted him at knifepoint from his home in Loughton, Essex, in broad daylight and bundled him into a car.

    He claims the men told him to stop running prayer sessions at Murray Hall in Loughton.
    ….

    “They drove me to nearby woodland and then walked me around the area for 10 minutes and then I was threatened.”

    Mr Ramjanally said his abductors told him Muslims were not wanted in Loughton and if he did not stop they would come back for him.

    The attackers then left him alone in the woods.

     

  • johnpi 7:19 pm on August 1, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , hate crimes, , , , ,

    Recently, I posted a link to a blog post by Richard Silverstein that explained how Zionist hasbara-heads were promoting the first-ever all-Israeli, all-Jewish gay porn film for the purpose of placing Israel on a pedestal and showing how ‘tolerant’ and ‘freedom-loving’ it is – which, as the theory went, would also throw into stark relief the morbid homophobia of the Arabs/Palestinians.

    A story out of Tel Aviv tonight:

    Israeli police say a gunman entered a youth club for gay teens in central Tel Aviv on Saturday night and sprayed the interior with automatic rifle fire, killing three people and injuring 11.
    ….

    “This was a hate crime, a premeditated attack,” witness Yaniv Weisman told Channel 10 TV. He said Cafe Noir, the basement club, was popular with youth.

    “Those hurt were very young,” he said.

    Openly gay Knesset lawmaker Nitzan Horowitz said it was “without a doubt the biggest ever attack on the Israeli gay community, we are all in shock.”

    Witnesses told Israeli media that the gunman was dressed all in black, and described the scene as a “bloodbath.”

    The gunman fled the scene and has not been caught. May Allah give the victims peace and justice.

     

  • johnpi 12:01 pm on July 10, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , hate crimes, , , , , , ,

    One reason Muslims need their own civil rights organizations is that traditional civil rights groups often ignore anti-Muslim, anti-South Asian and anti-Arab attacks in their reports, thereby obscuring the real extent of the problem.

    The Southern Poverty Law Center, a prominent civil rights and anti-hate organization, has produced a report, “Terror from the Right: 75 plots, conspiracies and racist rampages since Oklahoma City.” Of the 75 listed only one involved attacks on Muslims (St. Petersberg, FL, 2002). It’s not credible that in the eight years since September 11th and the Islamophobic swell of fear and hatred it prompted, that only one attack could have made the cut. Here’s how SPLC describes its list:

    What follows is a detailed listing of major terrorist plots and racist rampages that have emerged from the American radical right in the years since Oklahoma City. These have included plans to bomb government buildings, banks, refineries, utilities, clinics, synagogues, mosques, memorials and bridges; to assassinate police officers, judges, politicians, civil rights figures and others; to rob banks, armored cars and other criminals; and to amass illegal machine guns, missiles, explosives and biological and chemical weapons. Each of these plots aimed to make changes in America through the use of political violence. Most contemplated the deaths of large numbers of people — in one case, as many as 30,000, or 10 times the number murdered on Sept. 11, 2001.

    Neither the recent suspicious death of an imam in Southern California nor the assault on a Muslim woman in Seattle are mentioned anywhere on the site.

    Below the jump, a list of eight acts of violence perpetrated against Muslims (or people mistaken as Muslims) since September 11th, 2001, that prompted federal prosecution as reported by the US Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, only one of which appears on the SPLC list:

    (More …)

     

  • johnpi 5:50 am on July 9, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: hate crimes, , , , ,

    Seattle Muslim woman attacked by neo-Nazi.

    A self-proclaimed white supremacist with a history of threats and harassment was charged today under the state’s hate crime statute after he allegedly threatened a young Muslim woman with a knife while she was waiting in line for services at the Seattle Indian Health Board…
    …Eric Lee Garner walked up to the woman on July 1, pointed at her head scarf and said, “you Muslim people scare people when you wear things like that!” He followed up with other derogatory remarks.

     

  • johnpi 5:39 am on July 7, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: hate crimes, , ,

    Photobucket

    Suspicious death of an imam in Southern California.

    The FBI is investigating the death of a Muslim leader whose body was found inside a burned home that had recently been spray painted with racial epithets and Nazi symbols.

    CAIR has photos of the graffiti here. Inexplicably, Imam Ali Mohammed never reported the graffiti to the police. This is the first thing someone should do if victimized like this.

     

  • johnpi 8:54 am on March 20, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , hate crimes, , ,

    The conflict between Muslim civil rights and political groups and the FBI after the agency cut ties with CAIR has reached the commanding heights of the US media industry with a story at CNN this morning:

    The groups claim the FBI has sent undercover agents posing as worshippers into mosques, pressured Muslims to become informants, labeled civil rights advocates as criminals and spread misinformation.
    ….

    The FBI’s Miller declined to comment on specifics, but said the FBI wants to avoid “formally constructed partnerships” with CAIR.

    “Our concerns relate to a number of distinct narrow issues specific to CAIR and its national leadership,” Miller said.

    Before the FBI severed formal ties, CAIR officials had met with the FBI to discuss hate crimes targeting Muslims. On occasion, CAIR offered assistance in investigations. The group also held training sessions for FBI agents on Islamic culture and ways to improve interactions with the Muslim community.

    What the hell – so can we infer that the FBI is going to ignore or stifle investigations of hate crimes against Muslims in retaliation against community leaders and individuals who won’t kowtow to them?

     

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