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Associated Press - Oct. 24, 2007
Oklahoma lawmakers return Qurans
By RON JENKINS
OKLAHOMA CITY— Two dozen Oklahoma lawmakers plan to return copies of the Quran to a state panel on diversity after a lawmaker claimed the Muslim holy book condones the killing of innocent people.
The Qurans were given to Oklahoma's 149 senators and representatives by the Governor's Ethnic American Advisory Council.
"Most Oklahomans do not endorse the idea of killing innocent women and children in the name of ideology," Rep. Rex Duncan said.
He said he has researched the Quran on the Internet and believes it supports such killing.
"That's exactly what it says," Duncan said. "I think it's pretty straightforward. By their own admission those are the exact words. They don't all practice that."
Allison Moore of Tulsa, who converted to the Muslim faith more than a decade ago, said Tuesday that the lawmaker is taking out of context what the Quran says. "We do not condone suicide bombers any more than the Christians."
Duncan, a Republican, expressed his feelings about the Quran in a letter to colleagues Monday. By Wednesday evening, at least 24 legislators had notified the panel they will return the gift.
Marjaneh Seirafi-Pour, chairwoman of the council and a Muslim, denounced Duncan's assessment of Islam. "I know he referred to Islam as an ideology. That is not a fact. It is a religion. It is very peaceful, very inclusive," Seirafi-Pour said.
In Washington, spokesman Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Duncan's statement is "disturbing" and "offensive" to Muslims. "It just points to the amount of education about Islam and the American Muslim community that is needed in all levels in our society, including elected officials," Hooper said.
Seirafi-Pour said the gift was a way to introduce the council to lawmakers so they could use it as a resource to "serve their offices and constituents."
Oklahoma lawmakers also received a copy of the Bible earlier this year from The Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma. "It's one of the nicest things I've received in my three years in the Legislature," Duncan said of the Bible.
Seirafi-Pour estimated between 30,000 and 50,000 Muslims live in Oklahoma. No state funds were used to purchase the books, she said.
(According to the governor's council, other Republican representatives declining a copy of the Quran are David Derby of Owasso, Guy Liebmann of Oklahoma City, Scott Martin of Norman, Mark McCullough of Sapulpa, Mike Reynolds of Oklahoma City, and Susan Winchester of Chickasha.)
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iC148Op3ONR1eApu4ANjmVXAYwbw
Agence France Presse - October 13, 2007
Afghans protest latest desecration
of the Quran by U.S. troops
ASADABAD, Afghanistan, 13October 2007 — Hundreds of angry villagers demonstrated in eastern Afghanistan today alleging that US troops had burned the Holy Qur’an, a charge the US-led coalition rejected. Residents of Kunar province blocked a road for several hours before parliamentarians, in their home districts for the Muslim holiday of Eid Al-Fitr, were able to calm the crowd, an AFP reporter said.
The protesters alleged coalition forces had torn and burned a Qur’an copy during an overnight raid in which they had arrested four men. The reporter saw torn pages of the Muslim holy book in the village of Kodu, which is about 20 kilometers south of the provincial capital Asadabad.
The owner of the house where two men were arrested said the soldiers had burst into his house in the early hours of the morning and gone through his books. “They tied up and took two of my sons with them,” the man, Char Gul, said. “They went through our books, spread them on the floor. They tore and set ablaze a Holy Qur’an and they took another Qur’an with them.”
An elder, Haji Mumtaz, said the raid started at midnight and lasted until early morning. “They took them with four people and they desecrated the Holy Qur’an,” he said. The coalition, which is rounding up Taleban and Al-Qaeda militants, confirmed there had been an operation and that four men were detained but rejected the allegations about the Qur’an.
“The coalition force involved in this incident didn’t desecrate any religious articles,” said coalition spokesman Army Maj. Chris Belcher. “We respect all religions and treat the holy articles with the respect they deserve.” Afghanistan is a deeply devout country and allegations of abuse of Islam have in the past touched off protests that have turned deadly.
In April 2005, thousands of people took to the streets to protest allegations in Newsweek magazine that the Qur’an was desecrated at the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay. Violence erupted at one demonstration, leaving at least 15 people dead and 120 wounded. Newsweek later retracted the story, which alleged that a Qur’an copy had been flushed down a toilet.
The Kunar province police chief, Abdul Jalal Jalal, said it was not clear what had happened in the latest incident, and authorities had sent a delegation to the area to find out.
“The Americans have not come here to desecrate our religion and disrespect our culture,” he told AFP. “But if anything like this has happened, we hope that the authorities of the foreign forces penalize the perpetrators.”…….
http://www.arabnews.com/?article=100774
Star-Telegram - October 27, 2007
Texas Muslims sue Florida Islamophobe for defamation
By MITCH MITCHELL
ARLINGTON -- Islamic organizations in North Texas are seeking libel damages in a lawsuit against Joe Kaufman, leader of the Florida-based Americans Against Hate.
Kaufman visited Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington on Oct. 14 to lead a protest against Muslim Family Day, an event celebrating the end of Ramadan, a period of holy days on the Islamic calendar marked by fasts and prayer.
The lawsuit, filed Oct. 12, asked a judge to prohibit Kaufman from threatening, harming or inciting violence against anyone associated with the outing, in addition to libel damages, according to court records.
Area Islamic organizations were granted the temporary restraining order against Kaufman. They have also asked a judge to make a determination of libel against Kaufman. The organizations charge that Kaufman's Web site was used to paint all Muslims participating in Muslim Family Day as radical fanatics who used the event to spread anti-American hatred.
"He has scrawled JIHAD (in red that appears to be dripping in blood) over a map of the state of Texas, centered of Arlington and Six Flags," and placed it on the Americans Against Hate Web site, according to the lawsuit.
A hearing in the case has been set for Monday, a court official said. Whether Kaufman will appear at the hearing is unclear. Kaufman said he and his attorneys will decide whether his appearance is necessary.
"I'm going to fight this thing," Kaufman said in a telephone interview Thursday. "This whole case against me was filed to stop my freedom of speech and freedom of assembly rights."
Kaufman asserts that the group that sponsored Muslim Family Day, the Islamic Circle of North America, supports terrorist organizations overseas. Seven North Texas Islamic organizations are named as parties bringing the lawsuit, but the Islamic Circle of North America is not one of them.
http://www.star-telegram.com/news/v-print/story/282152.html
St. Petersburg Times - October 20, 2007
After seven months, man has freedom but not answers
By REBECCA CATALANELLO and ABBIE VANSICKLE
TAMPA -- Iyad Abuhajjaj walked out of jail last week with as many questions as he had when he went in 7-1/2 months earlier.
Over those weeks, he had been questioned by police detectives, FBI agents, newspaper reporters and attorneys. Every part of his life from birth to now was spilled and discussed in detail with strangers. And yet, he says, he never got the answer he craved: Why was he held by immigration authorities 3,000 miles from home?
He lost 20 pounds, his job in California, his car. He prayed every day for God to release him in time to celebrate the last day of Ramadan with his wife, Karen.
He got that wish, reunited with her the day before the end of the Muslim holy month, but not much more.
"Seven and a half months of my life are wasted," he said this week during a stop in Tampa. "Taking me away from my family, my work, my clients, my friends, my soccer team, my singing choir."
Justice Department and immigration officials won't talk about his case. One of his attorneys said he thought the government was trying to recruit Abuhajjaj to be an informant. Another attorney thinks bureaucracy played a role.
On Tuesday, 37-year-old Abuhajjaj boarded a Southwest Airlines plane, bound for San Jose, Calif., where he lives. A thousand times he wondered whether he shouldn't just drive cross country instead. It was, after all, a Southwest flight that led to his incarceration in the first place.
Water pooled in his eyes when he thought about what might happen next.
* * *
The details of that first Southwest flight on Feb. 28 come from Abuhajjaj, a physical therapist who works with the developmentally disabled.
He wanted a Florida vacation.
On the flight from San Jose to Phoenix to Tampa, he went to the restroom and stretched his legs and was told to be seated. On his laptop, he watched scenes from a movie he acted in: The Strange Case of Salman abd al Haaq, a film by two Stanford University students about terrorist torture.
When he landed, police questioned him about the flight and the movie. They found a warrant for his arrest out of Okaloosa County. A Florida woman he met online accused him of accessing her AOL account without her permission, according to documents. Abuhajjaj said he thought the charges had been dropped.
He was jailed in Tampa but was moved to Okaloosa County. On March 14, he pleaded not guilty, posted $20,000 bail and expected to be released. Instead, the Department of Homeland Security took him into custody and shipped him to the Wakulla County Jail in Crawfordville.
* * *
What are my charges? he wanted to know. Why am I being held?
Abuhajjaj tried to see into the minds of his questioners for answers. Two men who introduced themselves as FBI agents grilled him for four to five hours.
"They talked about my life," he remembered this week, "since I was born to the day I met them -- Palestine, Israel, my travels elsewhere, my stay in America, my activities, my work."
Abuhajjaj's attorney wrote in court documents that Abuhajjaj believed he was being detained to force him to spy on fellow Muslims.
The same month Abuhajjaj was arrested in Tampa, Hamas terrorists killed his nephew while trying to kidnap Abuhajjaj's brothers, both of whom work for the Palestinian National Authority police, records show.
Federal prosecutors argued in court filings that it was time to boot Abuhajjaj from the United States. He had come here with conditional residency in 2000, married to an American. But in 2001, he was convicted of stalking the same woman, now his ex-wife. He said he was merely being insistent, as is expected of men in his homeland. The concept of stalking, he said, was new to him.
The government ordered his deportation after the 2001 conviction, documents show. While Abuhajjaj was free on bail and living with his life in San Jose, he spent three years appealing the government's decision on grounds of changed political conditions.
In 2005, he got a break: An appeals court granted a stay, allowing him to remain.
But amid reapplying for asylum in 2007 came his Florida arrest. Abuhajjaj was dangerous, prosecutors argued, and his most recent charge in Florida showed a pattern that should not be ignored……
http://www.sptimes.com/2007/10/20/Hillsborough/After_seven_months__m.shtml
CNN - Oct. 10, 2007
Carter says U.S. tortures prisoners
WASHINGTON - October 10, 2007 - The United States tortures prisoners in violation of international law, former President Carter said today. "I don't think it. I know it," Carter told CNN's Wolf Blitzer.
"Our country for the first time in my life time has abandoned the basic principle of human rights," Carter said. "We've said that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to those people in Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo, and we've said we can torture prisoners and deprive them of an accusation of a crime to which they are accused."
Carter also said President Bush creates his own definition of human rights.
Carter's comments come on the heels of an October 4 article in The New York Times disclosing the existence of secret Justice Department memorandums supporting the use of "harsh interrogation techniques." These include "head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures," according to the Times.
The White House last week confirmed the existence of the documents but would not make them public.
Responding to the newspaper report Friday, Bush defended the techniques used, saying, "This government does not torture people."
Asked about Bush's comments, Carter said, "That's not an accurate statement if you use the international norms of torture as has always been honored -- certainly in the last 60 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was promulgated.
"But you can make your own definition of human rights and say we don't violate them, and you can make your own definition of torture and say we don't violate them."
After reading a transcript of Carter's remarks, a senior White House official said, "Our position is clear. We don't torture."
The official said, "It's just sad to hear a former president speak like that."…..
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/10/10/carter.torture/index.html
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