The darker side of multiculturalism

October 2, 2010

MCC welcomes Minister Mackay's decision to bar CIC Imam

OTTAWA - The Muslim Canadian Congress (MCC) has strongly welcomed the decision by Minister Peter Mackay to bar an Imam from the Canadian Islamic Congress from speaking at an internal event at Department of National Defence Headquarters Monday.

"In the past few years we have seen the so-called Islamic History Month turned into a propaganda machine for the Islamists in Canada who wanted to introduce Sharia Law and who wish to hide behind the cover of teaching history to infiltrate the highest levels of government in Ottawa," said Salma Siddiqui, Vice President of the MCC.

"Muslims have much to be proud off in their heritage, but what the CIC has been doing is to spread the doctrine of Islamism wrapped in a sugar-coated view of the past that glosses over the facts that have led to today's near universal morass and decay in Islamic societies worldwide," added Siddiqui. "Islamic history should be taught by academics and historians, not clerics and propagandists," she added.

Welcoming the decision by Defence Minister Peter Mackay, the MCC vice president said, "We now need to make sure that all future events surrounding the so-called Islamic History Month be taken away from the grip of the Canadian Islamic Congress and other Islamist organizations." She said she was troubled by the fact that Islamists had managed to penetrate the highest levels of the Ottawa bureaucracy and the political apparatus of all political parties.

- 30 -
_,_

#2561

From: Tarek Fatah <tarekfatah@...>
Date: Sat Oct 9, 2010 4:29 am
Subject: Montreal Calling: Author event with Tarek Fatah on October 27, 2010

tarekfatah

--------------

"The Burka is to the female face what graffiti is to the Taj Mahal"

- Abu Natasha

#2562

From: Tarek Fatah <tarek.fatah@...>
Date: Mon Oct 11, 2010 8:16 pm
Subject: CCMW's Alia Hogben plays the "Islamophobia" card at meet on "Gender, Culture and Religion"

tarekfatah

Friends,

On October 20, I spoke on the issue of Gender, Culture and Religion at a symposium hosted by the Sheldon Chumir Foundation in Calgary. My views about the oppression of women under Islamic rule are well-known and my contempt for the Islamic facemask, the niqab-burka, is no secret. During my speech I exposed the hypocrisy of the Islamists and warned the audience not to fall for the guilt-inducing propaganda of the Islamists, both soft and hard. I said these men and women are relying on the guilt of mainstream political and social institutions to push their agenda, while threatening to slap the label of racism and Islamophobia at the slightest criticism of Islamism or its manifestation.

I did not have to wait for long. It took less than 15 minutes in the Q&A session for someone to prove me right. Many in the audience gave me a standing applause, but the crowd was littered with a fair contingent of visible Muslims who had come quite prepared to question my integrity as a Muslim and to depict me as an Islamophobe. However, what surprised me is the person who took the lead in slapping me with the label; It was none other than the executive director of the taxpayer-funded Canadian Council of Muslim Women, Ms. Aliya Hogben.

Bristling with anger at my critique of Islamism and its resident apologists, she took the mike and then turning towards the audience from her front row seat, lashed out at. She not only defended the burqa, she accused me of being a "Muslim basher". Later, she would oppose the need to label honour killings as honour killings, claiming these well-planned murders by entire families, were no different from crimes of passion.

She was not alone in her apology for the Islamist agenda in Canada. The audience was littered with what Lenin once referred to as "useful idiots." In fact, when one man stood up and asked me how I felt about Lenin's useful idiots, his remark was taken as offensive and labelled anti-Muslim. Hogben was not alone. The other three panelists and the moderator all took turns to attack the proposed Quebec law against the burqa and suggested the French ban on the burka was rightwing discrimination. The fact that leftwing socialists and communists had joined the French centre right in a near unanimous vote, made no impression on the gentle and soft-spoken academics and lawyers who were visibly shocked at my lack of poltical correctness

Prominent white feminists bent over backward to embrace niqabi Islamists. This was sharia-bolshevism at its pungent best. When feminists come to the aid of Isamofascists in the name of "diversity" and "multiculturalism" and "women's right to choose," one can safely conclude that the Left has gone intellectually and morally bankrupt.

Mark Steyn may have been right after all. It seems those who have inherited western civilization and should be its guardians, are unwilling to offer a robust defence of Western values for fear of causing offence. The threat of being labelled as an Islamophobic racist has cast a chill. The fact that a group funded by Canadian tax payers supports the Islamist cause while those of us who stand up to the Islamist agenda have to do so on our own time and money, simply shows how the system itself is being used by supporters of the burqa and those soft on honour killings. It is a mad, mad, mad world out there.

On a positive note, one young woman, Lauryn Oates left me inspired. I was moved by her courage and the absence of ambiguity as she went for the jugular at a luncheon speech, exposing the dangers of playing soft on the Taliban agenda. It is rare to hear a white woman in Canada slam the Islamist ideology of gender-apartheid and its manifestation as the Taliban. Oates received a standing ovation, but many hijabi women in the audience (including two at my table) sat through the applause with glum faces.

Here is a report of the symposium. Read and reflect

Tarek

---------------------

October 7, 2010

The darker side of multiculturalism

By Doug Firby
Managing Editor
Troy Media
http://www.troymedia.com/?p=15560

CALGARY, AB, Oct. 7, 2010/ Troy Media/ � When the Liberal government of Pierre Elliott Trudeau made Canada the first country in the world to officially embrace multiculturalism in the early 1970s, it�s a safe bet those politicians did not foresee the security and gender equality problems western democracies are vexed with today.
Sure, we discovered great new cuisine and colourful traditions that form the centre of major festivals across the country every year. But, there has emerged a darker side � cultural pressures that threaten gender equity, shared values and individual rights.

Janet Keeping
�Some of what is brought from elsewhere is different, but not desirable,� said Janet Keeping, president of the Sheldon Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership. Keeping�s opening remarks set the context for a two-day symposium held in Calgary last weekend to probe tough questions about gender, culture and religion.

Should niqabs and burkas (the full-face coverings) be banned? When should the state intervene in family practices that are at odds with accepted norms in Canada? And, most importantly, in our desire to be an open and welcoming society, are we allowing ourselves � as one presenter alleged � to be bamboozled by �fascist� forces who tell lies in the name of Islam?

�Elephant in the room�

�There is an elephant in the room, and please don�t try to pretend it�s not there,� said Tarek Fatah, the outspoken founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress. �We are confronting a force of which I�m afraid most non-Muslims are not aware.� Fatah was referring to extremists who have hijacked the Muslim faith to advance their own patriarchal, anti-Western agendas.

But presenter Alia Hogben, executive director of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, objected strongly to Fatah�s assertions. �If you�ve come here to bash Muslims, you�re in the wrong place,� she said, to applause from many of the more than 200 participants in attendance.

In a heated retort, Fatah said, �The issue here is that you do not wish to wash your dirty linen in public.�

In fact, the symposium addressed cultural issues that cross the religious spectrum, with members of the Christian, Jewish and Sikh faiths all noting examples of cultural practices within their faiths with which they do not agree. They include preferential treatment for men (such as the orthodox Jewish rule that allows only men to grant religious divorces, or gets). And extreme family violence, such as so-called �honour� killings � in which a family member who steps out of line is murdered in a perverse attempt to restore a family�s honour � are not unique to a specific religion, but are driven by the home culture of immigrants from South Asia and the Middle East in particular.

Family stayed silent

Journalist Richelle Wiseman, executive director of the Centre for Faith and the Media, recounted
Richelle Wiseman
the murder of Aqsa Parvez, a Toronto-area Muslim teen who refused to wear the hijab (hair, not face, covering) as her father demanded.

In 2007, she was was lured back to her family�s home in Mississauga. Her father and brother strangled her to death; her mother later told police she did not intervene because she believed her husband only intended to break Aqsa�s legs. (Wiseman noted such familial complicity is common in honour violence.)

A key theme that emerged during the discussions was the difficulty in assessing who is being harmed and whether a person, often a woman, is truly in a position to make a free choice.

Dan Shapiro, research associate at the Sheldon Chumir Foundation, spoke of his personal revulsion to burkas and niqabs as symbols of oppression, although he defends a woman�s right to choose. But, �How do we sort the oppressed from those who freely choose?� he asked.

Ban adds to victimization

Banning burkas and niqabs, as the Province of Quebec has proposed, may only further victimize a woman if she feels she is unable to go out of her home unless she is fully covered, he said.

Fatah, who favours a ban, insists that the burka is not worn out of choice, except by �white women who have converted to Islam and see it as a symbol of anti-American sentiment.� The burka, he added, is �a symbol of the utter hatred of Western democracy. This is not clothing; it�s a face mask (like) the one that Zorro wears.� How can it be free choice? he argued, when five-year-old girls are rushed into religious indoctrination.

Jennifer Koshan, a law professor at the University of Calgary, argued we cannot assume women of minority religions are victims of brainwashing. The determining factor always has to be whether there has been harm. She said it makes more sense to ban the requirement to wear a niqab or burka than it does to ban the wearing of the niqab or burka itself.
Michael Vonn, policy director for the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, spoke of the difficulty of determining whether the polygamous wives in the fundamentalist Mormon community of Bountiful make a free choice. At best, she said, agencies can provide �meaningful support so people are free to make choices.�

Meaningful support, though, is not always an easy thing to deliver. Aruna Papp, a Toronto-based family counselor who spoke of her own 18-year marital ordeal with an abusive husband, noted that providing shelter for women threatened with violence is often ineffective because the women end up isolated from their communities.
�I�m working with people every single day who don�t know how to get out of (abusive relationships),� she said. Most are convinced that if they do flee they will be harmed, and perhaps killed.

Education a basic right

One of the highlights of the two-day event was Saturday�s keynote presentation by Lauryn Oates,
Lauren Oates
Vancouver-based projects director for Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan. Oates spoke eloquently of her interaction with Afghani women in that war-torn country, and attacked the �cultural relativism� that allows some people to believe that certain practices are acceptable because it is part of their culture.

�I was often told that human rights are western,� she told the delegates. �But denying a girl the right to go to school is not cultural.�

Instead, in Afghanistan such a tactic is the Taliban�s means to exert power and control over the female gender � a practice Oates called �gendercide� or �gender apartheid.�

�Cultural relativism is going mainstream,� she said, defining it as a way to explain �why someone else�s suffering does not apply to us.�
Oates� words set the context for later discussions on whether Canadians have lost sight of core values as they strain to accommodate other cultures.

Morton Weinfeld, chair in Canadian Ethnic Studies at McGill University, argued that while Criminal Code provisions against any threat of violence are strong legal protection, they alone are not enough. He encouraged Canadians to be more proactive in ensuring they speak out against family violence, which may go unreported.

Fatah accused Canadian liberals, and even liberal Muslims, of being victims to political correctness � fearing that if they criticize Islam, they will be labeled racists.
�The more the liberal, left-leaning non-Muslims try to accommodate . . . the more they fall into their (Islamists�) trap.�

�Blackmailed�

�In the name of freedom of speech, (extremists) have blackmailed the more progressive aspects of Islam into silence.�

Ultimately, though, Weinfeld said the changes that are needed � the adoption of Canadian liberal values � must come from within the cultures of those that are new to Canada. Perhaps as an encouragement, he noted this phenomenon is not new, and follows historical immigration patterns to Canada.

Papp argued that Canadians must focus more on the perpetrators of the violence � often husbands � �out� them, and tell them that what they are doing is unacceptable in this society. She urged Canadians not to lose sight of what makes this country so attractive. �Canada was built on certain values,� she said. �That�s why some immigrants have come here. Don�t let those values be eroded.�

Salima Ebrahim, a Calgarian who is now a member of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women in Toronto, talked about growing up in Canada and having a very clear sense of the freedoms it stood for. Since then, that clarity has faded, she says. �Today, I�m pretty sure I don�t know what Canada�s values are.�

Approximately 240 academics, students, lawyers, activists and ordinary citizens registered for the symposium. Many of the presentations will be available on the Chumir Foundation�s web site.

#2563

From: Tarek Fatah <tarek.fatah@...>
Date: Tue Oct 12, 2010 10:53 am
Subject: Canadian Arab Federation head sends e-mail, "Don't Give Canada a Security Council Seat"

tarekfatah

Friends,

The UN will vote today for a seat on the Security Council for Canada. While the rest of the country hopes Canada gets its due place on the world's supreme body, the president of the Canadian Arab Federation (CAF), Khaled Mouammar has distributed an e-mail message titled, "Don't Give Canada a Security Council Seat"

In the message distributed by CAF president Khaled Mouammar, one Murray Dobbin writes:

"How can Canadians honestly claim that we deserve a place on the UN Security Council given this appalling record (for which, by the way, the Liberal party shares some responsibility)? We are, like it or not, responsible for the fact that Stephen Harper is prime minister. It is our duty to kick him out of office and demand that the next government begin to repair the terrible damage done in the past four years. Then, and only then, can we legitimately claim a seat. In the meantime, we have a duty to actively keep the Harper government as far away as possible from more power to degrade and offend the United Nations. We should be lobbying against Canada being given a Security Council seat."

It is disgraceful that at a time when all of Canada is hoping the country finds its rightful place on the UN Security Council, the head of the Canadian Arab Federation would be distributing a message that says, "We have a duty to actively" stop this from happening.

The message then describes Canada as a "thuggish petro-state," quoting the author George Monbiot.

Sad that we have to put up with such nonsense.

Tarek

--------------

Begin forwarded message:

From: Khaled Mouammar <benwalid@...>
Date: September 27, 2010 5:06:38 PM EDT
To: undisclosed recipients: ;
Subject: [socialjusticeglobal] Don't Give Canada a Security Council Seat [1 Attachment]
Reply-To: socialjusticeglobal@yahoogroups.com
Attachment(s) from Khaled Mouammar
1 of 1 File(s)
2010-09-27 Don't Give Canada a Security Council Seat.doc
Reply to sender | Reply to group | Reply via web post | Start a New Topic
Messages in this topic (1)
RECENT ACTIVITY:
Visit Your Group
Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest � Unsubscribe � Terms of Use

#2564

From: Tarek Fatah <tarek.fatah@...>
Date: Wed Oct 13, 2010 10:39 am
Subject: National Post's Barbara Kay on "The Jew is Not My Enemy"

tarekfatah

http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/Islam+Jewish+problem/3661498/story.html#ixzz12EScibVx

"The real solution to the problem is to clone Tarek Fatah, a Muslim who really does count Jews as "some of my best friends," and who would prove to be a billion Muslims' best friend, if their elites would give this frank, humble and courageous book the time of day."

Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2010

Islam's Jewish problem

Barbara Kay, National Post

According to Israeli literary lion Hillel Halkin, Islam is "an insult to human intelligence." That's a harsh assessment, but then Islam is also harsh in its assessment of Jews, so one might say it's a saw-off on the phobia front. What is to be done about Islam's Jewish problem, the source of so much of the world's tensions and misery?

Tarek Fatah, Canada's most outspoken reformist Muslim, would be the first to acknowledge and even sympathize with Halkin's contempt for Islam. In his new book, The Jew is Not My Enemy, to be released Oct. 19, Fatah summarizes the present situation between Jews and Muslims: Jews hate Islam, and Muslims hate Jews. "Even the most radical Islamist websites [attack Jews viciously but] do not have a single sentence attacking the Jewish faith," Fatah notes, while even the most rabidly anti-Islamist Jews "rarely attack Muslims, yet have little reservation in deriding Islam and the Koran."

By coincidence, Jonathan Kay's review of historian Martin Gilbert's In Ishmael's House: A History of Jews in Muslim Lands, appeared in these pages yesterday. Gilbert's book leaves us with a depressing portrait of "a hateful pathology rooted in 14 centuries of Muslim history." But Gilbert is by no means the first, or even the most erudite scholar of Islam, to arrive at this glum and apparently hopeless conclusion.

Tarek Fatah is almost as savage a critic of Islam in its present manifestations as the others, but unlike the others-- whether non-Muslim like Gilbert, or a Muslim apostate like Ibn Warraq, whose new book Virgins? What Virgins? batters Islam to a polemical pulp -- he is also a deeply committed Muslim. He is guardedly optimistic, too. Fatah envisions a peaceful place where Jews' respect for the Koran and Muslims' respect for Jews can co-exist in harmony. His book attempts to take us there. Not on a flying carpet of wish fulfilment, but on a slow, steady train of facts, textual analysis and historical interpretation.

Tarek Fatah grew up in Pakistan. He does not remember any anti-Semitism in his youth. But on a 2006 visit home, he was revolted by the ubiquity and virulence of the anti-Semitism he met when socializing with even educated and wealthy Muslims. In a posh neighbourhood of Karachi he saw a banner over a grocery store announcing, "Bird flu is a Jewish conspiracy." He was dumbstruck to hear the store owner's theory that the "Yahoodis" wanted to destroy the poultry industry of Muslim Indonesia. The owner then pressed a free copy of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion on Fatah and told him it would explain everything, including how the 2004 tsunami was a joint venture by the Yahoodis and the United States.

Anti-Semitism spewed forth from every social and media spigot on this visit, from the Karachi Press Club to the upper crust's charity balls. In Pakistan today, Fatah sadly notes, "expressing hatred of the Jew... is the easiest way to establish one's intellectual credentials."

The visit and the horrific Mumbai terrorist attack of November 2008, with its entirely gratuitous bloody torture-massacre by Pakistani jihadis of Jews running an obscure community centre, spurred the writing of this book. Its purpose, Fatah tell us, is to answer the question, "Why do Muslims hate Jews?" More important, "How can we end this cancer before it consumes us Muslims?"

Fatah's basic arguments come down to this: The Koran itself -- the sacred text -- does not express a shred of anti-Semitism. The Hadith, though, were written by men centuries later, and certain Hadith verses "can best be described as hate literature." They can and should be revised or dumped. True anti-Semitism--the blood libel and the exterminationism -- are imports, Fatah says, from medieval Christian converts to Islam and Western fascism. The convergence of Arab and German enmities permitted Nazi-style anti-Semitism to penetrate and flourish amongst Arabs and then throughout the Muslim world. The Muslim Brotherhood is behind the successful transmogrification of the Jew into Islam's existential enemy.

None of these hate engines are inherent to Islam, Fatah insists. They should be extirpated from Islam, and a pluralist, democracy-friendly Islam reinstated.

A scholar by avocation, Fatah is a longtime journalist. His writing is crisp, fat-free and reader-friendly. His chapter refuting the story of Muhammad's AD 627 massacre of the Jewish Banu Qurayza tribe, commonly adduced as proof of Islam's inherent Jew hatred, is particularly interesting. In Martin Gilbert's and other accounts, 700 Jews were taken to the Medina marketplace and slaughtered under the supervision of the Prophet himself. Fatah claims this is a legend, and that there is no evidence to back up the story.

I am not equipped to pronounce on the soundness of Fatah's argument, but I am equipped to judge the quality of a book's rhetorical energy. Fatah's deconstruction of the Banu Qurayza "legend" reads like a detective story ripped from today's headlines.

If there is to be a solution to curbing Islamism's anti-Semitism, Fatah concludes, it lies mainly with Muslim intellectuals, clerics and politicians on one side -- and Israel on the other. A viable Palestinian state would help matters: "Not that Islamist Judeophobia will disappear, but the oxygen that nourishes it will be cut off." The task for Israel is not easy, he says, "but compared to what the Muslim world must do to get its act together, it is simple and doable."

I think it is doable, but not as simple as Fatah seems to believe it is. But that's a small cavil. The real solution to the problem is to clone Tarek Fatah, a Muslim who really does count Jews as "some of my best friends," and who would prove to be a billion Muslims' best friend, if their elites would give this frank, humble and courageous book the time of day.

#2565

From: Tarek Fatah <tarek.fatah@...>
Date: Wed Oct 13, 2010 7:20 pm
Subject: MCC welcomes court decision denying absolute right of Muslim women to wear a face mask in court

tarekfatah

October 13, 2010

MCC welcomes court decision denying the absolute right of Muslim women to wear a face mask in court

TORONTO - The Muslim Canadian Congress (MCC) has welcomed the ruling by the Ontario Court of Appeal that denies the automatic right of a woman to wear a face-mask in court by invoking her right to religious freedom.

In the 3-0 ruling Wednesday, the court ruled that even though the woman identified only as NS may wear the face-mask during testimony, Muslim witnesses wearing a face-covering niqab must remove it to testify if the covering would jeopardize a fair trial. The court ruled, "If, in the specific circumstances, the accused's fair trial right can be honoured only by requiring the witness to remove the niqab, the niqab must be removed if the witness is to testify."

In a statement, Raheel Raza, a spokesperson for the MCC said, "The court decision means the woman known as NS may very well be required to take off her niqab at a later stage of the trail, depending on whether the judge or jury determines it is necessary."

"Because her credibility and or demeanour must be assessed, the judge or jury may decide they can't adequately assess her credibility while wearing the niqab and would at that stage ask her to uncover her face," Raza added.

The MCC spokesperson said, "The judge will have to consider a number of factors including the impact of veiled vs. unveiled testimony on whatever the particular defence is. The judgment does suggest that in a case such as this, where the accused's liberty is at stake, and where the credibility of the niqab-wearing witness is central to the case, that the defence will have a stronger argument that removing the veil is necessary."

"In effect, the three judges have ruled out a blanket right of Muslim women to wear a niqab in all cases invoking the freedom of religion clause in the constitution," added Raza

The MCC also expressed regret that the judges seem to have bought into the argument that Islamist face masks are a step towards gender empowerment. "It is sad to see cultural relativism and the racism of lowered expectations find its way into the echelons of our judiciary," said Raheel Raza.

- 30 -

For more information, please call Raheel Raza at (416) 505-6052

#2566

From: Tarek Fatah <tarek.fatah@...>
Date: Sat Oct 16, 2010 3:18 am
Subject: Rift emerges in Canadian Islamic Congress: President vs. Executive Director

tarekfatah

http://www.nationalpost.com/Speech+exposes+Islamic+Congress+rift/3675198/story.html#ixzz12TA8MtI6

Friday, Oct. 15, 2010

Speech ban exposes rift in

Canadian Islamic Congress

Joseph Brean,

National Post

Defence Minister Peter MacKay's banning of a leading imam from the military's Islamic History Month event has exposed an executive-level rift in the Canadian Islamic Congress between forces of progress and orthodoxy.

In a letter to the National Post today, CIC president Wahida Valiante openly disavows her reform-minded executive director, Zijad Delic, and rejects his criticisms about the Muslim group's many public controversies, especially the failed hate speech cases against Maclean's magazine.

Ms. Valiante writes that Mr. Delic's plan to "purify" and "Canadianize" the CIC, and his desire to avoid lawsuits in favour of dialogue, "in no way reflect the views of CIC board."

The letter is in response to comments Mr. Delic made in an interview last week after Mr. MacKay cancelled his speech -- which was a call to active citizenship for Muslims and a rejection of insular traditions -- because of his association with the CIC.

This latest flap illustrates the harsh consequences for a Canadian Muslim leader who does not pledge loyalty to Mohamed Elmasry, the CIC founder and former president to whom Ms. Valiante was a long-time deputy.

For pointing out that all the CIC's main controversies -- from the "ethnic cleansing in Palestine" essay contest to the lobbying in favour of Hamas -- happened under Prof. Elmasry, and have stopped since his retirement, and that this constitutes a "success," Mr. Delic is now publicly labeled a rebel.

His job is not in danger, he said, and he has spoken with Ms. Valiante about her concerns. He said the CIC board "is not ready to accept my approaches," but said this is a testament to its democratic fairness. "We cannot change an organization in two years," he said. "I will be talking until I change it."

Mr. Delic, a Bosnian who for many years ran a mosque in British Columbia, was hired two years ago by Prof. Elmasry as the CIC's Ottawa-based executive director.

He said his focus has been on promoting the integrated model of Muslim Canadian citizenship that he developed through his PhD in education studies at Simon Fraser University, in reports for the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, and in a forthcoming book.

Even before he became Ms. Valiante's executive counterpart, those writings established Mr. Delic as a leading voice for Muslim progressives, a self-described political "insider" who consults with government and other figures of the Canadian establishment on issues such as youth radicalization, although that image has been compromised by Mr. MacKay's abrupt cancellation of his speech.

It is not clear precisely what Ms. Valiante objects to in her letter, as it echoes much of Mr. Delic's message. She describes the CIC as committed to integration, democracy, and Canada's traditions.

"In a post 9/11 environment, the CIC has advocated for laws and measures that do not unduly limit civil liberties and human rights. Simultaneously, it has encouraged Canadian Muslims to remain vigilant for fringe elements that could harm their community and Canadian society, and to fully contribute to preserving Canada's national security," she wrote.

It is the Maclean's episode, however, and the scandal it created over the exploitation of Canada's anti-hate laws, that continues to divide the CIC between Mr. Delic, who thinks the hate speech allegation created more problems than it could solve, and Ms. Valiante, who thinks it succeeded.

"All efforts were made to settle the issue by negotiation," Ms. Valiante writes. "Failing to achieve the settlement, we had no choice but to got to a human rights commission. We lost the case legally, but achieved the goal in the form of comments by the commission."

(There were three complaints in all, brought by a group of law students with Prof. Elmasry's guidance. One was rejected as outside the jurisdiction of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, but OHRC chief Barbara Hall denounced Maclean's anyway for "promoting societal intolerance." The B.C. tribunal dismissed the complaint after a hearing, but commented that Maclean's tried to "rally public opinion by exaggeration and causing the reader to fear Muslims." The federal tribunal declined to hear the case.)

This newly public spat could also have consequences for the credibility of the CIC's biggest project, Islamic History Month Canada, now in its third year. Already damaged by the apparent federal government blacklist of the CIC, it remains to be seen whether Islamic History Month becomes an established calendar event like Black History Month, or a running joke such as European Heritage Week, the mostly obscure project of the white supremacist Nationalist Party of Canada in which small town councils are tricked into declaring it.

Mr. Delic, for example, denounced the popular conspiracy theories about Israeli and U.S. complicity in 9/11, which are promoted by some members of the Islamic History Month of Canada board of directors, such as Anthony Hall of the University of Lethbridge, who is also a contributor to Prof. Elmasry's latest project, the Canadian Charger website. Even Ms. Valiante herself, in 2006, described the 9/11 attackers as "unknown," although her letter does not mention this question.

She did not reply to a request for comment yesterday.

#2567

From: Tarek Fatah <tarek.fatah@...>
Date: Mon Oct 18, 2010 1:56 pm
Subject: Indonesian Vice President urges Muslims to stand up against Islamic Radicals

tarekfatah

October 18, 2010

Indonesian Vice President urges Muslims
to stand up against Islamic Radicals

Ulma Haryanto & Anita Rachman
The Jakarta Globe
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/indonesian-vice-president-stand-up-against-radicals/401881

JAKARTA - Vice President Boediono has received cautious praise after calling on the �silent majority� to take a stand against a growing radicalism that he describes as threatening to take the country down a path of destruction. �Once we allow radicalism to take over our way of thinking, it will lead us toward destruction,� the vice president said in a speech on Saturday at the opening of the Global Peace Leadership Conference, organized by Nahdlatul Ulama.

�Freedom of expression has been used by certain groups to spread hatred,� he added.

Though racism and interreligious conflict are fundamental issues that exist in most societies, Boediono said, Indonesians should protect the foundation upon which the country was built � the principle of unity in diversity. �Although Islam is the religion of the majority of people, Indonesia is not an Islamic state,� he said. Boediono said the country must not abandon the basic principle that guarantees religious freedom for all.

To do this, he called on the silent majority to take a stand. �Radicals are usually vocal, though they are few in number. They drown out the silent majority,� he said. �But there are times when the silent majority must dare to speak out. We must loudly reject radicalism and return to the original agreement of the founding fathers of the nation.�

Pluralism advocates applauded him for speaking out strongly on a threat they have long warned of but that officials have paid little attention to. Week after week, stories of discrimination against minority religious groups fill news pages, and several surveys have pointed to a worrying increase in intolerance among Indonesians.

Dhyah Madya Ruth, chairwoman of Lazuardi Birru, a group that aims to educate young people about the dangers of extremism, said it was important that the government made a clear stand.

�We have to create a synergy between the government, the people and civil society organizations in solving this problem,� she said. �Most important in this is not just the silent majority, but the silent government has to make a firm stand.� Burhanuddin Muhtadi, an analyst from the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI), said that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had never strongly addressed radicalism.

In August Yudhoyono decried �groups that threatened the nation,� but his vague message could not be grasped by the public, Muhtadi said. �He is too focused on his own image. He doesn�t want to be considered antagonistic toward Islamic hard-liners.� Another important government figure who needs to stand up against those who promote hatred is the religious affairs minister, said Ulil Abshar Abdalla, the founder of the Liberal Islam Network and a Democratic Party politician.

�For example, in several Islamic gatherings people openly call for the banishment of [minority Islamic sect] Ahmadiyah. That should not be allowed,� he said, adding that he regretted that Religious Affairs Minister Suryadharma Ali had adopted a conservative approach that fostered radicalism. Suryadharma has openly advocated banning the Ahmadiyah sect.

#2568

From: Tarek Fatah <tarek.fatah@...>
Date: Tue Oct 19, 2010 10:13 am
Subject: On CBC Radio's The Current this morning to launch my new book

tarekfatah

http://www.amazon.ca/dp/0771047835?tag=chasamira-20&camp=213385&creative=390985&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=0771047835&adid=0KKHQF7NRGXCWR2X0DQD&

Hello good people,

My new book "The Jew is Not My Enemy" hits the bookstores today. I hope all of you buy a copy and one for that friend (we all have one) who sees a Jewish conspiracy in all issues that confront us Muslims.

I'll be on CBC Radio's The Current with Anne-Marie Tremonti this morning at 8:30 am. Tune in to CBC Radio One wherever you are in Canada.

To buy a copy, click here:

Tarek

--------------

"The Burka is to the female face what graffiti is to the Taj Mahal"

- Abu Natasha

#2569

From: Tarek Fatah <tarek.fatah@...>
Date: Wed Oct 20, 2010 10:37 am
Subject: Islamophobia? What Islamophobia? Election of Mayor Nahed Nenshi in Calgary demolishes Islamist claims

tarekfatah

http://www.calgaryherald.com/life/Election+remakes+city+image/3698331/story.html#ixzz12tOxydV4

"Those who make the claim of Islamophobia being rampant in Canada should hang their heads in shame."

October 20, 2010

Election remakes city's image

By Valerie Fortney

Calgary Herald

For his Tuesday morning interview on CBC Radio's The Current, Tarek Fatah was prepared to once again insist that "Islamophobia" in Canada simply doesn't exist.

But when host Anna Maria Tremonti posed it to him on this particular day of all days, the founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress answered with a whole new twist. "I said, 'If there is indeed Islamophobia, then we wouldn't have elected Naheed Nenshi as the mayor of Calgary -- a first in North America.'"

For Fatah, currently on tour for his new book, The Jew Is Not My Enemy, Nenshi's historic moment has only further confirmed his long held but often challenged belief that "those who make the claim of Islamophobia being rampant in Canada should hang their heads in shame."

The 38-year-old intellectual's win was more than a happy coincidence. It was, Fatah says with sheer jubilation in his voice, "A great moment for Calgary, and a great one for the entire country. . . . Nenshi's choice as mayor has at once removed two decades of nonsense."

The Toronto-based author wasn't the only person outside of our city's electoral boundaries talking about Nenshi mere hours after his surprising come-from-behind win.

Throughout Tuesday, the news was winding its way through cyberspace across North America and into the far reaches of the planet, including Reuters' Africa newswire service.

Many Alberta-centric pundits on the radio and in print -- like my friend and colleague Don Martin, the Herald's Ottawa columnist -- were touting this as the final nail in the coffin of the antiquated stereotype of Calgary as the last bastion of redneck intolerance. And our fellow Canadians were giving us our due, but not without a nostalgic nod, of course, to those very stereotypes.

"Hey, remember when the Aryan Guard was encouraging people to move to Calgary . . . because the city was more open to their views?" asked the website of the organization Anti-Racist Canada, noting that while Calgary just elected a Muslim as mayor, Edmonton had re-elected Stephen Mandel, who is Jewish. "Good times, dear readers, good times."

Duane Bratt isn't the least surprised that so many were having a hard time facing such a refutation of our redneck image.

"I talked to a Toronto reporter the other day about Nenshi, and she just couldn't get her head wrapped around the idea that we just had an election where gender wasn't an issue, religion wasn't an issue and the colour of the candidates' skin wasn't an issue," says Bratt, associate professor of policy studies at Mount Royal University.

"They don't understand what Calgary looks like demographically, and think we're just a bunch of cowboys. Even though I try to tell them, 'Hey, Myron Thompson never even lived in Calgary.' "

For Bratt, Nenshi's true history-making accomplishment was in the deft melding of social media with traditional campaigning, not the colour of his skin, his faith or "the fact he's our first mayor who still lives with his parents."

But still, the milestone makes him proud to be a Calgarian. "I don't even see this happening in Toronto, and they call us the rednecks," says Bratt.

But does he think this is going to change our national image?

While Nenshi may have pulled off an amazing feat at the polls, says Bratt, he doesn't expect an overnight shift of such ingrained views to follow his course of miracles. "I'm sure I'll be hearing from Toronto media today," he says, "and that they'll be stunned."

For some members of Calgary's Muslim community, though, Nenshi's win is a victory for Calgarians of all faiths.

"This is a sign of the maturing of the Calgary electorate," says Mansoor Ladha, a retired newspaperman who came to Canada from Tanzania in 1973. "Nenshi is a source of great pride for the Muslim community, but I'm even more proud that Calgarians chose for their mayor the person they thought best to lead, irrespective of skin colour or religion."

"I think for Muslim youth specifically, it's going to remove some of the barriers in people's minds, some negative views," says Mahdi Qasqas, who runs Muslim Youth Services in Calgary. "I believe Nenshi is going to build a lot of bridges between the city's various communities."

Not all members of Calgary's Muslim community are excited to talk about Nenshi's faith, however.

"We're proud of Nenshi, not because he's Muslim but because he's a great part of this city," says Nagah Hage, chairman of the Muslim Council of Calgary. "Calgarians wanted a change, and they chose him because of his qualifications, his charisma."

Still, Hage is willing to concede that such a historic moment is a wonderful thing.

"Canada is the best place in the world to live," he says, "because where else can this happen, except in Canada?"

Just don't expect any big sea change from other parts of the country, where, when it comes to outmoded views of our ethnically diverse, cosmopolitan city, even a major first doesn't mean we've heard the last of the redneck jokes. Or, as one national news blogger noted in a story about Nenshi's win, "We don't really know a damn thing about Calgary, sadly, so we have nothing snarky to add."

#2570

From: Tarek Fatah <tarek.fatah@...>
Date: Wed Oct 27, 2010 10:45 am
Subject: Calgary's Muslim mayor accused of "plotting to bring sharia law"

tarekfatah

http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/real+truth+just+matter+reaching/3731704/story.html#ixzz13YOc5FEt

"One might reverse [Tarek] Fatah's question, "What had the Jews done to Pakistan?" and ask, "What did Naheed Nenshi ever do to the letter writer from Ontario?" Nothing, obviously. Yet, this individual sees Nenshi's election to the mayor's chair to be one link in the chain of a perceived Muslim conspiracy of world domination, just the way Fatah noted among Muslims he spoke to, the propensity of "a growing number of Islamists (to) believe that the Jews control the world."

October 27, 2010

The real truth is just a matter of reaching out

By Naomi Lakritz,

Calgary Herald

Some of the letters we received here at the Herald immediately after Naheed Nenshi was elected mayor last week will never be published. They came mainly from Ontario, although that, of course, does not implicate all Ontarians in their message.

One was from Alberta, and again, that in no way makes Albertans complicit with it. The letter writers said that Calgarians had only elected Nenshi because they wanted to be politically correct; they accused him of plotting to bring sharia law in, and worse -- accusations that would be laughable if they weren't so tragic and so ugly.

I wrote back to one of them, attempting to set him straight. I told him that Nenshi's religion was never a factor in the election, that Calgarians had talked only about his ideas, which is the way it should always be. He replied that it was too bad "you can't see the truth." There's really no arguing or discussing anything with someone as incomprehensibly filled with bigotry as this man, so I didn't bother responding to him or to any of the others.

However, I did see the truth. The real truth -- the kind that, thankfully, drowns out the voices of those who promulgate their twisted lies and dare to call those things truths.

I saw the truth at Nenshi's swearing-in ceremony Monday. I heard it in the words of Rabbi Howard Voss-Altman, who, along with former mayoral candidate and pastor Wayne Stewart, and Ismaili leader Mohamud Zaver, officiated at the ceremony. Voss-Altman mentioned the Bible story of Ishmael and Isaac, who moved past their enmity when their father, Abraham, died. Their legacy, he said, can teach us to "seek another way. A way to celebrate our common humanity, a way to celebrate our common heritage."

This kind of thinking is a reflection of the most basic of Jewish tenets -- the obligation to welcome the stranger, to reach out, because we share the common bond of being human, regardless of which faith each of us calls our own.

I saw the truth Tuesday when I opened the National Post and read a full-page excerpt from Tarek Fatah's new book, The Jew is Not My Enemy: Unveiling the Myths that Fuel Muslim anti-Semitism. Fatah, who founded the Muslim Canadian Congress, says that while the idea for his book had been percolating for a while, he was moved to complete the project after the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, in which a number of Jews, including a rabbi and his pregnant wife, were killed.

"It is unlikely (the terrorists) could ever have met a Jew, let alone have a grievance with him, yet they had been brainwashed by their Islamist handlers to the extent that they were willing to die to kill a few Jews. What had the Jews done to Pakistan?" Fatah wrote, adding, " ... I resolved to challenge this hate before it consumes all of us in an Armageddon foretold in medieval literature, but one that will occur in the shadows of nuclear mushroom clouds."

One might reverse Fatah's question, "What had the Jews done to Pakistan?" and ask, "What did Naheed Nenshi ever do to the letter writer from Ontario?" Nothing, obviously. Yet, this individual sees Nenshi's election to the mayor's chair to be one link in the chain of a perceived Muslim conspiracy of world domination, just the way Fatah noted among Muslims he spoke to, the propensity of "a growing number of Islamists (to) believe that the Jews control the world."

This is not about Nenshi in particular, of course. Nobody in Calgary cares what religion he is.

It's just that the fact the bigots are making something out of nothing goes to show how easily hate and groundless fear of "the other" are fomented. It also makes crystal clear that the only way to combat it is to listen to the voices of people like Voss-Altman and Fatah, to be the first to reach out to others, to dispel the lies and suspicion and bigotry -- and in Calgary, in this peaceful city, all Muslims and Jews have a grand opportunity to show the rest of the world how it's done.

#2571

From: Tarek Fatah <tarek.fatah@...>
Date: Sat Oct 30, 2010 12:11 pm
Subject: Winnipeg Free Press reviews "The Jew is Not My Enemy"

tarekfatah

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/entertainment/books/a-voice-for-islamic-moderation-106365618.html

October 30, 2010

A voice for Islamic moderation

By Bill Rambo

The Winnipeg Free Press

The Jew Is Not My Enemy

Unveiling the Myths That Fuel Muslim Anti-Semitism

By Tarek Fatah

McClelland & Stewart, 243 pages, $27/-

The West desperately wants to accept Islam as peaceful, in spite of frequent events that seem to indicate the opposite. But Europe and North America would find it easier to accept Muslim participation in free, democratic societies if moderate voices spoke out boldly against Islamist excesses.

One of those much-needed voices belongs to Pakistani-born Canadian journalist Tarek Fatah. While his important book, his second, has minor flaws, Fatah's courage and his clarion call for change are not among them.

Fatah's earlier effort, Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State, was shortlisted for the Donner Prize in 2008. After 9/11, Fatah founded the Muslim Canadian Congress. It led opposition to the inclusion of Sharia law in Ontario family courts.

Fatah straightforwardly admonishes Muslims to "stand up to members of our community who spread hate against the Jew, the apostate, the Hindu, and the Christian and then hide behind the Qur'an. We should not hesitate to say they are hate-mongers and cowards."

He insists the Qur'an does not support the Islamist hatred that is regularly spewed by Islamic clerics, political leaders and media.

After a year of research, danger from extremism convinced him to abandon the project. He began again after the 2008 terrorist raid on Mumbai, where Pakistani jihadis deliberately targeted the orthodox Jewish Chabad House.

"I resolved to challenge this hate before it consumes all of us in an Armageddon foretold in medieval literature, but one that will occur in the shadows of nuclear mushroom clouds."

Fatah's account of the Mumbai raid includes cellphone intercepts where handlers encouraged the terrorists at the community centre: "When you kill one [Jew]...it is worth more than killing 50 people."

Pakistani security expert Zaid Hamid, incredibly, blamed the Mumbai attack on "Western Zionists and Hindu Zionists" aided by the Israeli Mossad.

Fatah traces Muslim hatred to the influence of colonialism, evolving from Christian anti-Semitism. He also notes that as early as the 14th century, some scholars were "of the opinion that Arabs are superior to non-Arabs."

The craven career of the Hitler-supporting Mufti of Jerusalem illustrates how anti-Semitism grew in the 20th century, leading to the current crop of Islamist extremists.

Fatah is strongest on the background of Islamic prejudice, and how oral hadith lore contradicts direct revelation in the Qur'an. Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood and Saudi Arabia's Wahhabists give hadiths condemning Jews equal weight to the Qur'an.

A Saudi Qur'an translation, available worldwide, spuriously inserts "Jews" into texts condemning general disobedience or misbehaviour.

The chapter prescribing Israeli accommodation of Palestinians is less convincing. Fatah points out that Israeli occupation is a source of worldwide condemnation that gives fuel to Muslim anti-Semitism.

While admitting that accommodationist Palestinians are considered "weak" and "effeminate," Fatah does not explain how Israeli concessions will be taken differently by their enemies.

Fatah spends two chapters on Muhammad's supposed slaughter of 900 Banu Qurayza Jews in Medina, which is not mentioned anywhere in the Qur'an or in any Jewish historical writing. He makes a strong case that this act, which appears to give prophetic sanction to mass-murder of Jews, is nothing but a myth.

Fatah's contribution to the dire need for Islamic moderation is timely and welcome. He praises many Canadian and other moderates, who oppose what he forthrightly calls "their Islamofascist adversaries."

From these pages to Allah's ears.

---------------------

Bill Rambo teaches high school at the Laureate Academy in Winnipeg.

#2572

From: Tarek Fatah <tarek.fatah@...>
Date: Sat Oct 30, 2010 10:50 pm
Subject: "When you kill one [Jew] ... it is worth more than killing 50 people." Winnipeg Free Press reviews "The Jew is Not My Enemy"

tarekfatah

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/entertainment/books/a-voice-for-islamic-moderation-106365618.html

October 30, 2010

A voice for Islamic moderation

By Bill Rambo

The Winnipeg Free Press

The Jew Is Not My Enemy

Unveiling the Myths That Fuel Muslim Anti-Semitism

By Tarek Fatah

McClelland & Stewart, 243 pages, $27/-

He insists the Qur'an does not support the Islamist hatred that is regularly spewed by Islamic clerics, political leaders and media.

Fatah decided to write about Islamic anti-Semitism in 2006, after hearing ludicrous anti-Semitic myths in Pakistan. For instance, Jews and Americans caused the 2004 tsunami "to drown and destroy Muslim nations." After a year of research, danger from extremism convinced him to abandon the project. He began again after the 2008 terrorist raid on Mumbai, where Pakistani jihadis deliberately targeted the orthodox Jewish Chabad House.

"I resolved to challenge this hate before it consumes all of us in an Armageddon foretold in medieval literature, but one that will occur in the shadows of nuclear mushroom clouds."

Fatah's account of the Mumbai raid includes cellphone intercepts where handlers encouraged the terrorists at the community centre: "When you kill one [Jew]...it is worth more than killing 50 people." Pakistani security expert Zaid Hamid, incredibly, blamed the Mumbai attack on "Western Zionists and Hindu Zionists" aided by the Israeli Mossad.

The craven career of the Hitler-supporting Mufti of Jerusalem illustrates how anti-Semitism grew in the 20th century, leading to the current crop of Islamist extremists.

A Saudi Qur'an translation, available worldwide, spuriously inserts "Jews" into texts condemning general disobedience or misbehaviour.

While admitting that accommodationist Palestinians are considered "weak" and "effeminate," Fatah does not explain how Israeli concessions will be taken differently by their enemies.

From these pages to Allah's ears.

---------------------

Bill Rambo teaches high school at the Laureate Academy in Winnipeg.

#2573

From: Tarek Fatah <tarek.fatah@...>
Date: Wed Nov 3, 2010 1:10 pm
Subject: Blood or Brotherhood: Steve Paikin chats with Tarek Fatah on TVO

tarekfatah

2. http://www.tvo.org/cfmx/tvoorg/theagenda/index.cfm?page_id=7&bpn=779886&ts=2010-11-01%2020:00:00.0

Friends,

On Monday, November 1, Steve Paikin of The Agenda sat down with me on TVO for a 30-minute chat about my new book, "The Jew is Not My Enemy: Unveiling the Myths that Fuel Muslim Anti-Semitism"

Just thought I should share this exchange with those of you who do not live in Canada or who missed the show Monday night.

Take a listen at either one of the links below:

1. http://www.AverroesPress.com

Cheers,

Tarek

#2574

From: Tarek Fatah <tarek.fatah@...>
Date: Wed Nov 3, 2010 2:21 pm
Subject: Jerusalem Post on "Racism in the name of Religion" in Israel

tarekfatah

November 3, 2010

Racism in the name of religion

By DAVID NEWMAN
The Jerusalem Post

The call of Safed chief rabbi on city’s Jewish citizens not to rent or sell their apartments to Arabs is as far removed from Jewish values as one can imagine.

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=193594

Imagine you are living in New York or London. The local imam or Catholic priest puts out a public statement to the effect that people should not rent their houses to anyone who is noticeably Jewish.

They look different, he says, some of them dress in strange garments and they bring the general property values down.

No, the religious leader says, I have nothing against Jews in principle, but they should stick to their own areas, not infiltrate into good Christian or Muslim neighborhoods. Anyone in the community who rents or sells to a member of the Jewish faith will no longer be welcome for prayers.

There is a simple word to describe such a statement – racism. It is the sort of practice which in any true democracy would immediately be condemned.

And, if it was practiced against Jews, the many Jewish protection agencies, be it the ADL in the US or the Community Security Trust in the UK, would immediately request that criminal charges be brought against the perpetrators.

IT IS precisely this form of blatant racism which was practiced last week by the chief rabbi of Safed, Shmuel Eliahu, and some of his rabbinical colleagues.

They issued a statement telling residents not to rent or sell apartments to Arabs, especially not to the students who come to Safed to study at the regional college.

Anyone renting an apartment to an Arab should not, in the words of Eliahu, be made welcome in his local synagogue, and should definitely not be called up to the Torah. For a secular Jew, this may not seem significant, but for a religious citizen, for whom his synagogue and community are central to his social acceptance, this is as harsh a punishment as one could imagine; it is akin to social ostracism.

No response was heard from the government, while both the (secular) mayor of the city and the (religious) president of the Safed college refused to condemn the statements, other than to say that they would not have said such things. Their lack of public condemnation made them accomplices. No excuses, or claims that Arab students change the nature of the city and its Jewish spirituality, especially on Shabbat, or that they smoke nargilas in areas where this was not the custom, could disguise the blatant racism.

Nor is this the first time. In recent years, some of the more extreme elements in the world of religious Zionism and the extreme Right have issued similar statements concerning residential areas in mixed Jewish-Arab cities such as Lod, Ramle, Jaffa, Acre and Nazareth. Each time it happens, the police or the attorney-general begin an inquiry which results in nothing, while the religious world – even those who would not necessarily make or agree with such statements – is enraged that its rabbis should be questioned for their “religious” teachings. Religion, they will argue, is not subject to the rules of democracy.

FOR MANY of us who grew up in the world of religious Zionism, for whom the struggle to combine statehood and modernity with the daily practices of a religious lifestyle were central to the way in which we view the world, it is this hijacking of religion in the name of xenophobia and – yes, I’ll use that word again – racism which has pushed so many of us away. It is an embarrassment that people, under the guise of religious leadership, relate in such a way to another group, in a manner which is as far removed from Jewish teachings as one can imagine.

Yes, I can hear the arguments. Jews in North America and the UK are not an enemies of the state.

They don’t threaten the safety and lives of the average citizen, while here in Israel, Arabs constitute a fifth column and would like the Jewish state to disappear.

Why should we behave as friends and neighbors, as democratic equals, if they threaten our very existence? But it is precisely this form of Jewish racism which pushes the vast majority of normal Arab citizens – those wishing to progress in life, obtain a profession and gainful employment – into the camp of the “enemy.”

As they realize that no action will be taken against those who make such statements, as they understand that the notion of a “Jewish and democratic” state is good only for the Jews, why indeed should they remain upright citizens? A country which insists on a loyalty oath for only some of its citizens, those who do not belong to the ethnic or national majority, is a country which quickly slips down the road to racism.

We will continue to cry that we are not an apartheid state, that we do not practice discrimination, that we are the “only” true democracy in the Middle East. But as long as we allow the racist comments of Eliahu and others like him to go unanswered, we are betraying the tenets on which this state was established.

As a “light unto the nations,” we should be showing the world how ethnic groups can live side by side, especially where political and national tensions exist.

By following the policies that the state, with its loyalty oath, and religious leaders, with their calls to close the housing market to Arabs, are advocating, we are proving to the world that we are unable to be a Jewish and democratic state. And even worse, we are proving that the Jewish state does not practice Jewish values or demonstrate Jewish morality. It is a betrayal of what the State of Israel is all about, and puts us into the same category as all those states that, throughout history, persecuted and excluded Jews. It is reverse anti-Semitism, no less.

The writer is professor of Political Geography at Ben-Gurion University and editor of The International Journal of Geopolitics.

#2575

From: Tarek Fatah <tarek.fatah@...>
Date: Thu Nov 4, 2010 4:13 am
Subject: The Muslim Brotherhood in Canada presents a conference on "Islamophobia"

tarekfatah

MCC urges Ottawa to add "Jamaat-e-Islami" and "Muslim Brotherhood" to list of terrorist organizations

November 2. 2010

The Canadian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood

presents a conference on "Islamophobia" in Ottawa

Marc Lebuis

Pointe de Bascule

http://www.pointdebasculecanada.ca/article/1423-the-canadian-branch-of-the-muslim-brotherhood-presents-a-conference-on-islamophobia.php

The Muslim Association of Canada (MAC), a non-profit organization affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood that, according to Meili Faille (Bloc Qu�b�cois MP), maintains a permanent presence on Parliament Hill, will hold a conference entitled The Rise of Islamophobia: A Rational Approach to Irrational Fears in Ottawa on November 7th. Pannelists linked to the Muslims Brotherhood will discuss their perception of the rise of islamophobia in the West at the request of the Youth division of the MAC. The organizers refer to "the Hijab ban in France; faith-based arbitration, faith-based schools; H�rouxville; the banning of minarets in Switzerland; the niqab debate; Tariq Ramadan's visit; NYC ground zero mosque; banning of Imam Zijad Delic" as evidence that the West is becoming increasingly Islamophobic. The organization will examine the best way to interpret these events and to manage them constructively, taking for granted that the diagnosis of islamophobia is the correct one.

Islamophobia

The concept of islamophobia was developed in the 1980s by Islamists as they attempted to delegitimize all criticism of their political project by lumping it together with an irrational hatred of all Muslims. This confusion between islamophobia and the criticism of the ideology adopted by Islamists and the Muslim Brotherhood is a strategy designed to silence all opposition to this totalitarian movement. The most vocal critics of Islamism - and especially of the Muslim Brotherhood - are Muslims themselves, as demonstrated during the last three of Tariq Ramadan's visits to Montreal, as well as by the recent cancellation of Imam Delic's speech at the Canadian Department of National Defence.

All featured speakers either belong or are connected to the Muslim Brotherhood movement and/or supporters of the Iranian regime

- Imam Zijad Delic: Executive Director of the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC), a radical organization that anchors its political agenda to that of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). The OIC campaigns worldwide for the redefinition of Human Rights in accordance to those adopted by the Islamic Human Rights Declaration of 1981. The OIC supports a segregation between men and women and of freedom of conscience, as well as a return to Blasphemy laws that would facilitate the censorship of all criticism of Islamism. Delic takes the helm of the CIC in 2006. In 2007, the CIC condemns the Canadian government for voting against an anti-defamation resolution aiming to criminalize the public slander of religion proposed by the OIC at the UN. Also in 2007, the CIC holds a fundraiser in honor of Yvonne Ridley, the British journalist captured by the Taliban and a convert to Islam, whose pronounced radicalism gets her fired from English-language Al-Jazeera in 2003 before being recycled by the Iranian Regime via Press TV. In 2008, The CIC files multiple complaints of islamophobia with federal and provincial Human Rights Commissions against Maclean's and journalist Mark Steyn. In 2010, Delic holds a conference with Zafer Bangash, who, in his magazine Crescent International, favors the worldwide spread of the Iranian Islamic Revolution and supports the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood. Recently, after being disinvited from speaking at Canada's National Defence headquarters in October 2010, Delic was also committed to be the event's moderator for the "Just and Sustainable Peace" conference featuring Iranian professors closely tied to the Islamic Republic's regime. The list of speakers was considered so extreme, that the RCMP was orded away from the conference and even drew a rebuke from the Green Party leader.

- Maher Arar: Known in Canada for his deportation by the United States to Syria and his subsequent imprisonment in 2002-2003, which led to the commission of inquiry that bears his name. The Canadian Government awarded him a settlement of $10.5 million in January of 2007. He has also benefitted from the support of organizations connected with the Muslim Brotherhood such as CAIR-CAN and the Islamist organization CIC. Despite the Canadian court ruling, the United States government has not exonerated Arar and, on the contrary, has made public statements to state their belief that Arar is affiliated with members of organizations they describe as terrorist. One year ago today, on November 2nd 2009, the 2nd Circuit United States Court of Appeals, in a 7-4 decision, upholds the ruling by the district court. In June of 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Maher Arar's petition for a writ of certiorari, ending his bid to hold officials accountable for his transfer to Syria.

- Sheema Khan: Founder and former president of the Canadian branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an organization that is a part of the North American network of the Muslim Brotherhood and that was designated ‘unindicted co-conspirator' by the American government for having funded terrorist activities in the Middle-East from the United States. While she was president in 2003, Khan made a statement under oath that clearly revealed that CAIR-CAN was under the control of CAIR-USA, a claim that she and her successors have continued to deny routinely.

- Ehab El-Komy: Member of the executive board of the MAC and also one of the imams in service at the Gatineau Mosque, which is managed by Salah Basalamah a co-founder with Tariq Ramadan ofPr�sence musulmane (Muslim Presence) is also known to be tied to the movement and the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood. El-Komy also heads an Ottawa base security firm, Trilex Security.

On its website, the youth division of the Ottawa MAC presents writings by radical ideologues of the Muslim Brotherhood, such as Sayid Qutb, who asserted that jihad was not just a means to defend Muslim lands and peoples but an offensive, proactive, and permanent revolution against internal and external enemies who usurped God's sovereignty.

The Ottawa youth division of the MAC also organized summer camps for the Islamic Community Center of Brossard. One of the three alleged terrorists arrested this past August was raised on the South Shore of Montreal and also attended the mosque and Islamic center of Brossard. He also successfully received a degree from McGill, has a family and a medical practice.

The conference claims to take a "Rational Approach to Irrational Fears". In order to address the rising tide of islamophobia in Qu�bec and Canada, Point de Bascule propose a rational approach by introducing a comprehensive nationwide program in mosques and Islamic centers to teach against the ideas of jihad and Islamic supremacism.

#2576

From: Tarek Fatah <tarek.fatah@...>
Date: Thu Nov 4, 2010 4:23 am
Subject: Canadian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood presents a conference on "Islamophobia"

tarekfatah

November 2. 2010

The Canadian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood

presents a conference on "Islamophobia" in Ottawa

Marc Lebuis

Pointe de Bascule

http://www.pointdebasculecanada.ca/article/1423-the-canadian-branch-of-the-muslim-brotherhood-presents-a-conference-on-islamophobia.php

Islamophobia

All featured speakers either belong or are connected to the Muslim Brotherhood movement and/or supporters of the Iranian regime

- Sheema Khan: Founder and former president of the Canadian branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an organization that is a part of the North American network of the Muslim Brotherhood and that was designated �unindicted co-conspirator' by the American government for having funded terrorist activities in the Middle-East from the United States. While she was president in 2003, Khan made a statement under oath that clearly revealed that CAIR-CAN was under the control of CAIR-USA, a claim that she and her successors have continued to deny routinely.

Read also:

Opposing Hassan al-Banna and the Muslim Brotherhood Is Not Some Kind of Racism.

MCC urges Ottawa to add "Jamaat-e-Islami" and "Muslim Brotherhood" to list of terrorist organizations

#2577

From: Tarek Fatah <tarek.fatah@...>
Date: Thu Nov 4, 2010 12:16 pm
Subject: Jew-hatred infects Muslim world, activist says: Urges Jews to distinguish between Islam and Islamism

tarekfatah

Thursday, 04 November 2010

Jew-hatred infects Muslim world, activist says

"Islam is not Islamism"

By DAVID LAZARUS, Staff Reporter
Canadian Jewish News
http://www.cjnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20177&Itemid=86

MONTREAL � Tarek Fatah turns 61 on Nov. 21, but the controversial, Pakistani-born Muslim, a fierce and unrelenting activist and critic of Islamist extremism, doesn�t expect to make it to 71.

Speaking last week at Beth Israel Beth Aaron Congregation as part of a tour to promote his second book, The Jew is Not My Enemy, Fatah described how at a book signing earlier in the day, he was spat on and insulted by a young Muslim.

The insults included calling Fatah �a Jew.�

The incident was consistent with the type of treatment the Toronto writer and broadcaster has come to expect, part of the �cancer that can�t be excised� from an ever-increasing number of fanatical Islamist Muslims who see Jews as vile, subhuman creatures, and the entire West and Israel as entities to be destroyed.

�And it is getting worse,� Fatah warned a receptive audience, despite several thousand enlightened, tolerant Muslims that he cites as being like-minded supporters of an authentic Islam rooted in humanism, tolerance, and faith.

Over and over again in his talk at the synagogue, Fatah emphasized that there�s nothing in the text of the Qur�an or genuine Islam that speaks against Jews, and nothing that justifies the hatred of Jews, Israel, and the West that started to develop three centuries after Muhammad died.

�Islam is not Islamism,� Fatah stressed.

A founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress, Fatah said Islamism is rooted in a centuries-old myth that Muhammad committed mass killings of Jews � an act that therefore remains not only justified but praiseworthy � combined with eight and ninth century shariah laws and �European anti-Semitism.�

�It is all based on a legend that does not exist,� Fatah said, adding that it�s now part of an �Islamo-fascist agenda� encroaching on so many nations.

Fatah has noted that Islamic radicalism, ironically, also grew out of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency providing massive funding to Saudi Arabian-based jihadi groups after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan 30 years ago.

As Fatah describes it, it is all a �toxic mixture� that threatens the world.

Never was this clearer to an incredulous Fatah, he recounted, than when he visited his native Pakistan in 2006 and attended a swank gathering of elites, where he heard �Harvard-educated, secular Muslim nationalists� tell him how �Jews had brought down the twin towers,� that the bird flu was a �Jewish conspiracy,� and that even the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 was an �Israeli attempt to destroy Indonesia.�

Now, he said, Pakistan has become a place that produces terrorists who target not only its usual arch-enemies, Hindus, but Jews, as in the 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai, where a Jewish centre family was tortured and murdered.

In Pakistan today, he said, �falling in love is a sin,� and women can be whipped, beaten, or even conceivably beheaded for allegedly breaking shariah law.

�It is a tragedy of enormous proportions,� Fatah said.

He added that the world has one billion Muslims, 60 per cent of whom are illiterate, and they deserve the world�s � including the Jewish community�s � empathy for being so subjugated and shielded from the forces of modernity.

During a question-and-answer session, Fatah, without hesitation, said he opposed the planned �Ground Zero mosque� in New York City and suggested that its funding is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood.

This 14-storey �repository� of Shariah law, as Fatah described it, should reserve one floor for a synagogue and another for a church, and if it doesn�t, it loses all credibility. He said founder Abdul Rauf should not necessarily be trusted just because �he speaks fluent English.�

Fatah also spoke in support of Quebec�s proposed Bill 94, which would ban the wearing of niqab face veils at provincial public institutions.

Fatah sees niqabs and burkas as nothing less than �symbols of slavery� for Muslim women. He also criticized an Orthodox Jewish group that recently opposed Bill 94 for, in his view, effectively supporting racism.

Fatah also criticized such prominent Canadian figures as activist Naomi Klein and writer Margaret Atwood for supporting a woman�s right to �choose� to wear the veil, suggesting it was hypocritical to in effect support women being treated as �second-class citizens.�

Despite Fatah�s mostly pessimistic views, he said that his message has so far gained �huge traction� among 4,000 Canadian Muslims, whom he described as �ordinary Canadians� who �dress like you and me� and share his faith in genuine Islam.

As for the audience he was addressing, �have faith,� Fatah said, �and pray for us. We need people who fight for justice and human rights.�

Fatah was also due to speak last Thursday evening at McGill University.

#2578

From: Tarek Fatah <tarek.fatah@...>
Date: Fri Nov 5, 2010 11:10 am
Subject: "Attacking Islamo-fascism should never be confused with attacking Islam�

tarekfatah

http://www.themetropolitain.ca/articles/view/896

November 4, 2010

�The Jew is not my enemy!�

Tarek Fatah challenges extremists within his own faith

By Dan Delmar

The Metropolitan, Montreal

Religious extremism in Islam, Tarek Fatah says, is a �disease that is affecting us to the point that we�re becoming insane with our hatred. I wanted to investigate what is the root cause of the hatred of the Jews.� Born in Karachi, Pakistan, Fatah is the founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress and the author of the just-released �The Jew is Not My Enemy: Unveiling the Myths that Fuel Muslim Anti-Semitism.�His book tour included two stops in Montreal last week, including one at C�te St. Luc�s Beth Israel Beth Aaron Synagogue.

An outspoken critic of radicals in Islam, Fatah is no stranger to controversy. He has been criticized by many Muslim leaders for his opposition to the planned Mosque and community centre to be built near �Ground Zero� in New York City; he also went after Islamists � those who support the incorporation of Islam into the political system � with his first book, �Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State.�

�The force of his message is first and foremost important to Muslims because many of the moderate voices have been silenced,� said Rabbi Reuben Poupko, who invited Fatah to speak last Wednesday. He hopes more prominent figures in the Muslim community will speak out against hate speech. �I�m sure this is just the beginning and not just an isolated case.�

Writing this latest book �has been a long journey for me,� Fatah told the Congregation. He spoke of the ties between Jews and Muslims during World War II; Mosques in Paris would shelter Jewish children from Nazis, he said, and hundreds of thousands of Muslims fought in the war as well. He described a pamphlet that was distributed within the Muslim community during the Holocaust encouraging families to help Jews whenever possible.

�They are our brothers,� it read, �with children like our own.�

But in just a period of decades, Fatah said, examples of Muslim-Jewish collaboration have all but vanished. He contrasted the generosity of Parisian Muslims in the 1940s with some of the messages being sent to Muslims worldwide today on television. On one Egyptian program, Fatah explained to the audience of some 300, a seven-year-old boy wishes that Allah would �destroy and torment the Jews with a disease with no cure�to turn their women into widows, their children into orphans.�

�Brothers and sisters,� Fatah said, �we are at a stage in our history where our entire community has a cancer growing on it. That cancer is hatred.�

He also reminded the Jewish community that �attacking Islamo-fascism should never be confused with attacking Islam,� and that there are plenty of secular Muslims who, like him, are tired of being lumped in with the extremists. In Canada, �there are Muslims who look like you � they eat ice cream and sometimes even bacon!� Highly active on social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter, Fatah observed that of his thousands of followers, �the majority are young Muslim men and women who are fed up.�

On top of appealing for more rapprochement between the two communities, he was also critical of the Orthodox Jewish community for opposing Quebec�s Bill 94, which would ban the wearing of burqas or niqabs � radical Islamic dress for women that covers the face � in the public sector.

�Who has come out to support it (the anti-Bill 94 movement)? The Jewish community. We need people like you to take guilt out of our system. You don�t have to apologize for Western civilization. The burqa is a symbol of slavery.�

Again not shying away from controversy, while showcasing his sense of humour, Fatah quoted his wife, Nargis Tapal, who is disappointed when she sees fundamentalist Muslim men walking on Canadian streets with their wives and children, �five yards back. If she walks two yards back, as my wife says, she�s a feminist!�

�The Jew is Not My Enemy: Unveiling the Myths that Fuel Muslim Anti-Semitism� is currently in bookstores. Fatah is the co-host of Friendly Fire, weeknights from 7-10pm on NewsTalk1010

#2579

From: Tarek Fatah <tarek.fatah@...>
Date: Tue Nov 9, 2010 8:19 pm
Subject: Islamist group sues State of Oklahoma for banning Sharia Law by Tarek Fatah on Tues

tarekfatah

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704805204575594793733847372.html

Freinds,

If there was any doubt about the agenda of CAIR and other Islamist groups in the USA and Canada, it was laid bare in Oklahoma yestreday when CAIR went to court to block the banning of sharia law in that state.

CAIR (Council of American Islamic Relations) has been listed by the US Justice Department as an "unindicted co-conspirator" in the Texas Terror Trial where all accused were convicted on all charges. Despite that, it continues to act as if it represents the will of US Muslims. Instead CAIR has created huge hurdles for American and Canadian Muslims as it pursues the agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood in bringing Sharia law to the West. In 2005 they supported the introduction of Sharia law in Ontario, but were challenged by the Muslim Canadian Congress and were defeated in that attempt.

Voters in Oklahoma voted overwhelmingly to reject sharia law, yet CAIR has the audacity to go to court and defy the verdict of the people. Even if they win in the court of law, Muslim will lose big time in the court of public opinion. This promises to be the next fiasco created by Islamists in the USA after the Gropund-Zero Mosque. Unfortunately, there are few, if any Muslims in US who are willing to call the bluff of CAIR and expose them for who they are: mouthpiece of Islamism in North America.

Read and reflect.

Tarek

-------------

November 9, 2010

CAIR sues Oklahoma over Shariah Ban

By JESS BRAVIN

The Wall Street Journal

A Muslim activist in Oklahoma City filed a lawsuit Thursday challenging a voter-approved measure that bars Oklahoma state judges from considering Shariah, the Islamic religious code based on the Koran and the Prophet Mohammed's teachings, in formulating rulings.

State Question 755, which passed Tuesday with 70% of the vote, declares "the legal precepts of other nations or cultures" off-limits to Oklahoma courts. "Specifically, the courts shall not consider international law or Sharia Law," it reads.

The suit, filed by Muneer Awad, director of the state chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, asks the federal district court to block officials from certifying the referendum. Mr. Awad says the measure violates the First Amendment, which protects "free exercise" of religion and prohibits official "establishment of religion." A hearing was set for Monday.

The complaint alleges Oklahoma has singled out Islam for "profound stigma," consigning Muslims such as Mr. Awad "to an ineffectual position within the political community."

Oklahoma's Legislature voted overwhelmingly to place the Save Our State Amendment before voters. A co-sponsor, state Sen. Anthony Sykes, denied it sought to stigmatize Muslims. "We're not trying to send any sort of message here," said Mr. Sykes, a Republican.

Rather, he said, Oklahomans wanted to insulate their judiciary from un-American influences. While no Oklahoma court ever has cited Shariah law, "we are on a slippery slope," he said.

Democratic Sen. Richard Lerblance, one of two state senators to vote against the measure, called it "a scare tactic."

"They call it 'Save Our State.' I don't know what we're saving it from," he said. "We have yet to have any court do anything based on Shariah law."

Several states have considered rules that restrict judges from making decisions that take into account foreign or international legal materials, said William Raftery, a research analyst with the National Center for State Courts in Williamsburg, Va. Only Oklahoma's measure singles out a particular religious tradition, he said, though a proposal in Arizona lists Shariah along with canon law, Jewish law and karma, a conception of fate in Hindu and Buddhist traditions.

Mr. Sykes and other conservatives who perceive a threat from Islamic law cite a 2009 case in which a New Jersey judge declined to issue a restraining order against a Moroccan man who forced sex on his unwilling wife.

Among other reasons, the judge said the husband's belief that his wife must submit to sex "was consistent with his [religious] practices." An appeals court reversed the judge and ordered that a restraining order be issued, citing a Supreme Court decision rejecting a Mormon's claim that his faith exempted him from an anti-bigamy statute.

"To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself," Chief Justice Morrison Waite wrote.

Decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court are binding on all state and federal courts, and no justice of the Supreme Court ever has asserted he or she is bound by any authority other than the U.S. Constitution.

However, beginning in 1791, when Chief Justice John Jay adopted English rules for the new U.S. Supreme Court, American judges occasionally have examined how foreign courts address similar legal problems.

For instance, in a 1997 decision concerning Washington state's ban on assisted suicide, Chief Justice William Rehnquist cited court decisions from Australia, Britain, Canada, Colombia and New Zealand.

Mr. Sykes said he wanted to protect the Oklahoma judiciary from the influence of "Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan and, I'm sure, Sonia Sotomayor, given her political leanings," who he believed were inclined to rely on international law.

Justice Ginsburg responded to similar criticism in a July speech to the International Academy of Comparative Law, at American University. She said foreign opinions "are not authoritative; they set no binding precedent for the U.S. judge. But they can add to the store of knowledge relevant to the solution of trying questions."

She cited Justice Robert Jackson's 1952 concurrence that the president lacked authority to seize steel mills during wartime. Justice Jackson "pointed to features of the Weimar Constitution in Germany that allowed Adolf Hitler to assume dictatorial powers. Even in wartime, Jackson concluded, the U.S. president could not seize private property."

University of Oklahoma law professor Joseph Thai said that earlier this year, the state legislature commissioned "a monument to the laws of another religion"--the Ten Commandments--for the state Capitol.

"Oklahoma's apparent approval of the legal traditions of a majority religion and attempt to suppress the legal traditions of a minority religion" may conflict with the Constitution's requirement that government treat all religions equally, Mr. Thai said.

He said the new state law may forbid Oklahoma judges from citing the Ten Commandments, because they are "international in origin."

Corrections & Amplifications Several states have considered rules that restrict judges from making decisions that take into account foreign or international legal materials, said William Raftery. An earlier version of this story said several states have adopted the rules and misspelled Mr. Raftery's name as Raferty.

Write to Jess Bravin at jess.bravin@...

------

#2580

From: Tarek Fatah <tarek.fatah@...>
Date: Wed Nov 10, 2010 1:21 pm
Subject: Amnesty International's working with CAIR exposed on GoldHawk Live

tarekfatah

http://www.pointdebasculecanada.ca/imprimer/article/1426-goldhawk-live-on-the-relation-between-cair-canada-and-amnesty-international.php

10 Novembre 2010

CAIR-Canada and Amnesty International

By �tienne Harvey for Point de Bascule

Transcript by �tienne Harvey

Dale Goldhawk devoted his October 31 2010 show to discussing the condemnation of Omar Khadr to jail for war crimes. He invited Hillary Homes from Amnesty International and David Harris a security consultant to join him on the show. At one point, a caller brought up the issue of CAIR-Canada being associated with Amnesty International and stated that it was affecting Amnesty International's credibility.

Here a transcript of this portion of the show:

42:43 - Dale Goldhawk
Here is Michael calling from Ottawa. Michael, what do you think of this case and these issues?

42:45 - Caller Michael from Ottawa
Thank you and good evening.

42:47 - Dale Goldhawk
Hi.

42:48 - Caller Michael from Ottawa
I want to build upon what was being said about credibility and about those who are having access around Omar. We know that Amnesty International has worked with an organization called CAIR-Canada whose parent CAIR has been ..., has had numerous members convicted of terrorism and the organization CAIR has been deemed an unindicted co-conspirator by the US Department of Justice. Yet, I don't understand why Amnesty International continues to work with such group. It sort of hurts their credibility on this issue and complicates the view for most Canadians when they are looking at organizations like Amnesty International participating and cooperating with groups that are blind to terrorism, or convicted of terrorism... It's quite troubling. I am not clear on what credibility AI or Amnesty International has... talking about this.

43:49 - Dale Goldhawk
All right Michael, thanks for the question. Hilary Homes ...

43:51 - Hilary Homes
We do work with CAIR-Canada in Canada. We have no relationship with the organization in the United States.

43:59 - David Harris
May I...

44:00 - Dale Goldhawk
Does that answer the question? (Goldhawk wants Hilary Homes to elaborate on her answer.)

44:01 - Hilary Homes
That's simply what I can say. We do carefully screen who we work with.

44:05 - Dale Goldhawk
(...) there're other things you can't say?

44:07 - Hilary Homes
That's just a fact. We have no relationship with the people in the US who he's referring to. My only relationship is with a couple of colleagues at CAIR-CAN in Canada. We do carefully look at who we partner up. We would never partner with someone who condones attacks on civilians. I'd like to make that extremely clear.

44:30 - David Harris
It's a legal matter. If you were involved with the Council on American Islamic Relations, you have a problem and the problem is attested to in an affidavit in December 2003 in which the then Chair, Dr. Sheema Khan, attested to the fact that CAIR-CAN is indeed guided, under the control of, the US organization which has had several of its peoples jailed on terrorism related charges including, strangely enough, its so-called Civil Liberties coordinator. This is a Saudi-funded organization in the United States and it is extremely worrisome, especially among some of the Muslims I work with who are concerned about the Wahhabist flavour of this kind of thing. So, I think, perhaps, we all have to be very very circumspect.

45:13 - Dale Goldhawk
Back to you on this please. (Goldhawk is inviting Hilary Homes to answer.)

45:15 - Hilary Homes
That's quite a serious allegation. Like I say...

45:17 - David Harris
It's a very an unfortunate situation.

45:18 - Hilary Homes
(...) The partners we have in Canada are distinct from that group.

45:25 - Dale Goldhawk
But you're saying: there's a relationship anyway (talking to David Harris)

45:28 - David Harris
Look, one of the leading moderate Muslim, Tarek Fatah, has laid out all of this, including the documents and so on. It's a real problem. Not only that but CAIR-CAN was involved in a straight assault on Charter - section 2 and First Amendment rights in concert with its Washington DC based mother organization. They launched a libel lawsuit against the First Amendment and Charter - section 2 between about 2003 and 2006. This is a matter of record and I think those who are human rights defenders as we, of course are, should take very seriously this kind of situation.

45:58 - Dale Goldhawk
Is this under consideration or under investigation by Amnesty International?

46:04 - Hilary Homes
I should ask... These questions should be put to CAIR-Canada.

46:06 - David Harris
If AI is involved... I don't know how involved it is but, of course, that lends credibility to the...

46:13 - Hilary Homes
We are part of a coalition together with them beyond that. I mean... that is the main relationship. There is a national coalition...

46:20 - Dale Goldhawk
But one has to be concerned by one's partner too, don't they? Don't you in these kinds of issues?

46:22 - David Harris
Yes, it legitimizes... We work with people who are, actually, very, very scared Muslims. They see things like this and it is demoralizing, but anyway I guess that's something for everybody to look into...

46:36 - Dale Goldhawk
Is it being looked into as far as you know?

46:37 - Hilary Homes
(Silence)

46:39 - Dale Goldhawk
From your point of view, from Amnesty International Canada? (Goldhawk is inviting Hilary Homes to answer.)

46:41 - Hilary Homes
This, these specific allegations have not been looked into. No.

46:45 - Dale Goldhawk
Will it be looked into? I mean... Is it something?

46:48 - Hilary Homes
All... All...

46:50 - Dale Goldhawk
I guess I've been asking for some reactions from you.

46:54 - David Harris
A Google will bring up all the facts.

46:57 - Hilary Homes
I am just not sure which further comment I can make right now.

Goldhawk Live on CPAC

October 31 2010

Watch the video HERE

#2581

From: Tarek Fatah <tarek.fatah@...>
Date: Fri Nov 12, 2010 11:38 am
Subject: Morocco's continued occupation of Western Sahara: Human Rights groups call for investigation into killing of Saharwi people

tarekfatah

http://www.opendemocracy.net/opensecurity/security_briefings/111110?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzEmail&utm_content=201210&utm_campaign=0

"Western Sahara is a former Spanish colony, annexed by Morocco when the Spanish withdrew in 1975. Now treated by Morocco as its ‘Southern Provinces’, Western Sahara is home to the indigenous Sahrawi people, a Berber ethnic group ... The Polisario Front ... demanding independence for the Western Sahara waged a guerrilla war against the Moroccan state ... The Moroccan government retains a strong interest in Western Sahara because of its rich natural resources. With extensive phosphate and iron-ore deposits, several exploratory missions suggest that there may also be large oil fields in the region. Rich fishing off the coast of Western Sahara is another draw for a government keen to maximise revenues.... Furthermore, a state-sponsored influx of Moroccan settlers since the 1990s has contributed to a process of ‘Moroccanisation’, which is endangering the traditional Sahrawi way of life."

November 11, 2010

Human Rights groups call for investigation into violence in Western Sahara

Josephine Whitaker

Open Democracy

Human rights activists have called for an independent inquiry into a raid by Moroccan security forces on a protest camp in the disputed Western Sahara region, which killed at least eight people on Monday. Moroccan troops entered the Gadaym Izik camp outside Laayoune, Western Sahara’s main city, at dawn, where they reportedly used tear gas and high temperature water cannons to dismantle it. The camp, which had attracted 12,000 people, had been set up by Sahrawi groups protesting against the social and economic exclusion they face and the economic exploitation of their homeland.

The government claims that eleven security force members were killed in the violence, when residents of the camp resisted efforts to dismantle it. The Laayoune governor, Mohamed Guelmous, told reporters that troops were attacked with incendiary devices when they attempted to arrest “troublemakers” in the camp.

The Polisario Front, Western Sahara’s pro-independence organisation, claims that eleven civilians were killed, 700 wounded and many more missing after being arrested by security forces. The raid produced unrest in Laayoune, where many Sahrawis reportedly took to the streets to protest the government’s action.

Human rights groups including Amnesty International and renowned campaigner Aminatou Haider have condemned the raid. Haider today told the BBC that the Moroccan government raided the camp in order to deliberately sabotage ongoing talks. She described the raid as “well-studied, planned and calculated because the protest camp was there for already a month.” These events came just one day before high-level talks were due to take place New York on Tuesday.

The openSecurity verdict: Western Sahara is a former Spanish colony, annexed by Morocco when the Spanish withdrew in 1975. Now treated by Morocco as its ‘Southern Provinces’, Western Sahara is home to the indigenous Sahrawi people, a Berber ethnic group which wants self-rule of the region. The Polisario Front, an Algerian-backed movement demanding independence for the Western Sahara waged a guerrilla war against the Moroccan state until a 1991 ceasefire, since which a United Nations peacekeeping force, Minurso, has been monitoring the ceasefire agreement.

The Moroccan government retains a strong interest in Western Sahara because of its rich natural resources. With extensive phosphate and iron-ore deposits, several exploratory missions suggest that there may also be large oil fields in the region. Rich fishing off the coast of Western Sahara is another draw for a government keen to maximise revenues.

Despite these extensive natural resources, the region remains one of the least economically developed in the region. Official unemployment is around 25%, much higher than the Moroccan national average. However, activists claim that unemployment is far higher amongst Sahrawis, who are denied access to government jobs. Furthermore, a state-sponsored influx of Moroccan settlers since the 1990s has contributed to a process of ‘Moroccanisation’, which, according to Sahrawi rights groups, is endangering the traditional Sahrawi way of life.

The dispute has displaced unknown thousands of Sahrawis, many of whom now live Polisario-run refugee camps in Algeria and Mauritania. In 2005, UNHCRestimated there to be 94,000 Sahrawi refugees ‘of concern’ in Algeria, while the Polisario Front puts the figure at closer to 165,000.

Talks on the ‘Western Sahara question,’ as it has become known, have long been deadlocked, with neither side willing to budge on its position. Rabat has repeatedly offered the Sahrawis a degree of self rule, but the Polisario Front will not be moved on its demand for a referendum on full independence.

The Moroccan government has been quick to paint Monday’s unrest as symptomatic of the Sahrawis reluctance to enter talks about the future of Western Sahara. Khalid Naciri, a government spokesman, said in a statement to the press that security forces resorted to using force in the Gadaym Izik camp only when “troublemakers” prevented Sahrawis from abandoning their shelters. The Moroccan foreign minister, Taieb Fassi Fihrim, also accused the Polisario Front of seeking to “exploit anything to avoid a deep and continuous negotiation,” making clear the government view that the sole aim of the protests was to disrupt Tuesday’s talks on Manhasset, New York.

In response, many Sahrawi and sympathetic organisations, from the Polisario Front to international human rights groups, have also claimed in recent days that the government responded violently to what was a peaceful protest in order to engineer a pretext for cancelling talks.

Counterclaims make a judgement on who is to blame for Monday's violence difficult. What is clear, however, is that this is not an unusual event for Western Sahara. Since the UN-brokered ceasefire of 1991, there have been sporadic flare-ups that have increased tensions in the region and periodically drawn international media attention. Efforts by the international community to support a peaceful resolution of the dispute have, however, been tentative at best.

The talks in Manhasset earlier this week were perhaps typical of discussions on Western Sahara. Although mediator Christopher Ross said that opposing parties met in “an atmosphere of mutual respect” the outcome was little more than a limited commitment to confidence-building measures and a slight increase in the pace of future talks, with another round scheduled for later this month.

Unfortunately, without more concerted intervention from the international community, it is unlikely that future talks will be any more productive. Until a third party (one at a greater remove from the situation than, say, Algeria) involves itself in talks, it is likely that only a crisis-situation in Western Sahara will force either or both sides to make concessions.

Although no other country has recognised Morocco’s right to Western Sahara, Minurso is embarrassingly toothless, even by UN standards. As Amnesty International pointed out in its call for a probe into Monday’s violence, “the absence of a specific human rights monitoring component has undermined Minurso’s effectiveness and allowed human rights abuses to pass without adequate investigation.” The United States and many Western European countries are said to be frustrated by the ongoing conflict, which pits Rabat against neighbouring Algiers, thereby hampering attempts to bolster counter-terrorism efforts in the Maghreb.

At present, Morocco has little incentive to offer the Sahrawis more than self-rule. The gains from Western Sahara, even limited as they are by the present conflict environment, are too big a prize to give up easily. Conversely, the Sahrawis are committed to a referendum on independence because they know that self-rule is unlikely to be meaningful so long as Morocco has a strong interest in extracting the region’s minerals.

What is needed is a concerted international effort, preferably UN-led, to broker a compromise that will guarantee a meaningful degree of autonomy in Western Sahara, protecting the region’s people and natural resources by raising the costs of Moroccan predation. Until this effort is made, Africa’s longest-running territorial dispute will remain just that.

----

#2582

From: Tarek Fatah <tarek.fatah@...>
Date: Sat Nov 13, 2010 3:25 pm
Subject: Turkey's occupation & oppression of the Kurds continues: 5,000 in prison a testament to the hypocrisy of Turkey's Gaza Flotilla

tarekfatah

Saturday, 13 November 2010

Friends,

Four Muslim countries -- Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq -- contniue to occupy historic Kurdistan since the Ottoman Empire collapsed at the end of World War One. Only in Iraq do the Kurds have any semblance of autonomy and dignity. In Iran, Syria and most significantly Turkey, the Kurds continue to grind under occupation of nearly a century, yet not a word is uttered about their freedom in any Islamic capital or any North American Islamic organization. It seems some Muslims are children of a lesser God and deserve no flotillas, specially from Turkey.

Those who rightfully clamour for an end to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories, would have far more credibility if they also spoke with equal, if not more vigour, against the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara. Those Muslims who campaign for an independent Palestinian State should also ask for the creation of an independent State of Kurdistan. Most Muslim don't, and this is why I view the Iranian ayatollahs, Turkey and the Arab nationalists as hypocritical when they froth over Israel's occupation, swoon over aid flotillas to Gaza while they continue to occupy Kurdistan.

Read and reflect.

Tarek

http://www.opendemocracy.net/margaret-owen/turkeys-judgement-day-trial-of-kurds?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzEmail&utm_content=201210&utm_campaign=Nightly_2010-11-13+05%3A30

11 November 2010

Turkey's judgement day: the trial of the Kurds

Margaret Owen

Diyarbakir, Turkey

Open Democracy

A trial that would shame any democracy is now entering its fourth week in Diyarbakir, Turkey. Named the KCK trial, its processes have been widely condemned, on the grounds that the essentials for a fair trial are missing, by the several hundred independent observers who have attended its opening days starting on October 18th.

November 12th is crunch day when the judge, at the 6th Criminal Assize Court, will decide whether to accept the defence team’s argument that there is no case to answer and release those detained, or to determine that the trial will continue, and the suspects remain in prison or are bailed.

Charged with “violating the unity of the State”, “abetting terrorism”, and belonging to the KCK - alleged to be the urban arm of the PKK, are 151 Kurdish politicians, lawyers, mayors, and leaders of Kurdish civil society organisations. 103 of these suspects have already been in detention for the past 18 months, but the details of the charges and the grounds were not disclosed until 12 weeks ago.

The manner of gathering evidence and the actual procedures in the courtroom breach all international and European standards on human rights and fair trials. The trial could last for months, even years. It is vital that those in prison are released on bail, and that the prosecutions are dropped for this is a “political trial” not a legal one.

The Pro-Kurdish political parties, and recently the PKK, have made repeated attempts to obtain a resolution of the 30 year old conflict through democratic dialogue and negotiations rather than through violence. The PKK, it is true, in 1984, began their armed struggle which lasted 30 years and was responsible for many acts of violence and killings. Many Kurds felt they had no alternative but to fight back, against the persistent rejection of their culture, the evictions from their villages, and the wide-spread discrimination they experienced. However, the Kurdish Community, as a whole, has always sought a political and not a military solution.

And in recent years the PKK has called for cease-fires on several occasions, and have just now declared that the present cease-fire, due to expire at the end of the month, will continue until the elections taking place next June. Moreover, the leader of the PKK, Abdullah Ocalan, (still imprisoned on the isle of Imrali ) is also asking for negotiations as a solution, and is committed to a cease-fire.

Sadly, time and again, the authorities have closed down their pro Kurdish political parties; imprisoned Kurdish political leaders; and declared Kurdish civil society and human rights organisations illegal and their activities criminal. Peaceful protests and demonstrations pleading for an end to armed conflict, and respect for basic human rights are subject to brutal harassment by the police.

The Democratic Society Party (DTP) was the last of several parties to be closed down in 2009. Today, legal-democratic Kurdish politics continues under the roof of the newly named BDP (Peace and Democracy Party), but not only have many of its members been arrested and imprisoned, but its distinguished Chair, Ahmed Turk, has been banned from all political activities for the next five years, and the brilliant and charismatic Mayor of Diyarbakir, an international figure, Osman Baydemir, faces not only prosecution but also assassination threats as he continues to speak out on behalf of the Kurdish population whose lives are wracked by persecution, extra-judicial killings, torture, displacement and extreme poverty.

Some 5,000 Kurds are in prison on charges of supporting terrorism, but this trial will reveal exactly Turkey’s status in the context of democracy, justice and the Rule of Law.

What exactly are these defendants accused of? They are accused of being the “urban arm” of the PKK.

The PKK is labelled a “terrorist organisation”, and they have been responsible for many acts of violence in the recent past. But the security forces, police and gendarmes have also been responsible not only for many killings, disappearances, and torture during interrogations and in detention, but for brutal harassment of peaceful protests and demonstrations, for the arrests and detentions (sometimes on long sentences) of women and children.

But while the PKK, based in the mountains of Northern Iraq, carries the “terror tag”, within Turkey the Kurdish political leaders and civil society organisers have always, in all their public statements, activities, and publications, pursued the path of dialogue as a means for peace. This prosecution seeks to prove that all activities, all organisations of the Kurdish people are ipso facto supportive of, or even members of the PKK. Yet the so-called “evidence” included in the indictment fails to prove this alignment in any way.

This trial of the 151 “suspects” represents the most repressive of actions yet to shut down the lawful and democratic activities of Kurdish organisations and eliminate all political activity. The manner in which the evidence to be proven in the trial was gathered gives cause for extreme concern. It is clear from a reading of a summary of the 7,500 page indictment (the whole has been read by lawyers for the accused) and so-called supporting evidence that there are no grounds for suspecting that any actual crimes have been committed among all the alleged references to planned violence, weapons, acts of violence, or conspiracy for terrorism.

Most of the evidence is based on (unlawful) wire-tapping and bugging to draw conclusions from private daily conversations, or on routine political propaganda and secret statements by anonymous prosecution witnesses. Innocent conversations, for example, referring to the purchasing of “tomatoes”, or “bread”, are construed as codes for bombs and grenades and have found their way into the indictment, along with intimate and personal conversations between family members and friends.

To prepare for this event, and accommodate not only the 151 defendants, but their 250 lawyers, the press, the many relatives of the accused, the members of foreign observer delegations, and over sixty armed prison police, the Turkish government built a vast new courthouse in the old open courtyard between the existing courts. The joke went round that everyone should be grateful to the Kurds for this new Courtroom, and will probably need to thank them again for a new prison.

Security precautions have been intense. There were over 1,500 armed police on duty around the building and armed snipers on the surrounding rooftops. It took ages to get into the court, going through body searches and scanning. My purse containing some Turkish lira in coins was confiscated because “I might use them as missiles to throw at the Judge”.

Once in, the scene inside the court was bizarre. In the middle, in a sort of corral, and surrounded by prison police, sit the prisoners. The police, visibly armed, some of them even sitting among the accused as if anyone of them is likely to commit a violent act if not closely watched and guarded, change their rotation at half-hour intervals, marching between the rows of lawyers, the judges and the relatives, in military formations.

We recognised several of the suspects – men and women whom we have shared panels with in London and in Brussels, in the Houses of Parliament Committee Rooms, and in meetings hosted by the UK Bar Human Rights Committee. Many of the accused are lawyers. One of them is the Head of the IHD (Human Rights Commission), Muharrem Erbey, who has continually spoken out on the need for diplomacy, dialogue to end the conflict, but has rightly drawn attention to the human rights abuses – torture, disappearances etc. – that have afflicted the Kurdish people.

The trial began with the Judge, Menderes Yilmaz, dismissing the defence lawyers’ submissions that:

a) the defendants should be able to defend themselves in their Kurdish mother tongue, in accordance with Article 6 of the ECHR (European Charter of Human Rights) which sets down the criteria for “fair trials” and Article 39/5 of the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne which also lays down the rights of minorities to use their own language, as an essential of a fair trial

b) the indictment, (7,500 pages) which also contained unchallenged and therefore unproven evidence of crimes, should not be read in its entirety, but instead could be summarised

c) The defendants be immediately released from prison on bail, since this trial could last many months

On these opening days the accused lawyers argued ferociously and passionately that these proceedings were in fact a “show trial”, a “political trial”, that there were no victims, the evidence was based on hearsay, and the trial should be abandoned.

In spite of the obvious tension in the courtroom there were moments of hilarity as several of the suspects insisted on answering the roll call of prisoners in their native Kurdish. “I don’t understand you, and you don’t understand me, and I don’t understand anyway what is going on here” responded one middle-aged man. Another wittily enquired when asked to verify his address “Which do you mean? My current or my previous? Also, joy tinged with emotion as relatives, wives and mothers, waved to their loved ones, separated from them for so many months.

How long this trial will last is anyone’s guess. Right into the third week, the judge was still reading through the indictment. Therefore the defence lawyers, representing 151 individuals have only a few days to argue their case. This Friday, November 12, the judge will decide whether or not there is a case to answer. If the case is to continue then it could be months, even years, before it is completed. It is imperative that these 103 defendants are released on that day, and reunited with their families. Meanwhile, there are well over 1,000 other BDP members in prison awaiting their own indictments and trial.

March, 2009 was a time for rejoicing with a new hope for peace, justice and democracy when the DTP won a victory over the AKP (the ruling Justice and Development Party) in the local elections. Some of us observing this KCK trial also monitored those elections and joined in the celebrations, as the DTP increased its local government holds and mayoralties from 54 to 99 units. But just two weeks after these victories, in April, 2009, 53 members and executives of the DTP, including three vice-chairs and former mayors were detained and remanded in a brutal police operation. In December last year the DTP was closed down and its 37 executives banned from politics for five years. This is the background to this trial.

There are only four more days left for the accused to argue their defence. On Friday November 5, the end of the third week, Judge Mendez again refused to hear the defence in Kurdish. He stated, for the record that the suspect “talked in an unknown language”. Ramozan Morkoc responded “You cannot call Kurdish an unknown language. You insult our language, our culture, and our people”.

The legal expert’s reference to Article 39/5 of the Treaty of Lausanne, 1923, which guaranteed mother-tongue rights as essentials for fair trials, was discounted. Finally, the judge ordered army officers to remove Mr. Morkoc from the court. The UK delegation is calling on UK MPs to sign an EDM (early day motion) and letters are going out to both government and opposition leaders asking that they protest these human rights abuses taking place in Turkey.

There is still time for Turkey’s AKP government to acknowledge that this trial has no basis in law, order its closure, and the immediate release of those detained.

---

#2583

From: Tarek Fatah <tarek.fatah@...>
Date: Sat Nov 13, 2010 11:05 pm
Subject: Islamism's threat to Canada and the West: Michael Enright chats with Tarek Fatah on CBC Radio's Sunday Edition

tarekfatah

Friends,

I will be on The Sunday Edition with Michael Enright on CBC Radio tomorrow morning (Sunday) at 9:15 AM to discuss the threat posed by Islamism to Canada and the West.

If you don;t have a radio, you can tune in to the show at http://www.cbc.ca/radio/

Cheers,

Tarek Fatah

Member Centre: Login | Sign Up

The Sunday Edition
with Michael Enright

Coming Up

Hour One: Tarek Fatah - probably the most important Muslim intellectual and writer in the country - says that Islamists have infiltrated the Canadian government, the department of defense, CSIS and the RCMP. Is he right? If so, what should be do about it? Fatah says we're running out of time.

Hour Two: In 1960, the Quiet Revolution gained real momentum and every element of Quebec life was targeted for change - the economy, the popular culture, the system of education, the status of women, the role of government. To mark the 50th Anniversary of the Quiet Revolution we are devoting our Middle Hour this morning to a look back and a look ahead.

Hour Three: One of Canada's greatest authors, Charlotte Gray will bring us a fascinating look at the Klondike Gold Rush of the 1800s.

Elsewhere in the program: We'll look at the battle against AIDS in Lesotho, and you'll hear some thoughts on the lingering death of newspapers.

Public Displays of Dissent vs. Incitement to Commit Violent Acts

Michael's weekly essay for November 7, 2010

During the 1968 Federal election campaign I, was assigned to cover the tour of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.

During a visit to Toronto, his political handlers decided to have him make a walkabout on the Toronto Islands to glad hand party workers, picnickers and sun bathers.

At one point I was a few yards in front of him, notebook in hand, walking backwards when three young men who looked like students jumped out and began screaming at the PM - Something about "traitor" and "capitalist lackey" or some such.

Trudeau, barely aware of the shouting, was quickly ushered to one side by his security people.

Comments2|Recommend7

November 7, 2010

To the End of the Land - David Grossman is not only Israel's best known novelist he is also one of its most astringent critics. For decades he has condemned his government's treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories and called for an end to new settlements. He has labored for peace while at the same time turning out world class literature. His latest best seller, To the End of the Land is set against the background of the latest Lebanon war. A war in which his young son Uri was killed. In this hour, a powerful conversation with David Grossman about parenthood, the loss of a child and the heart-breaking search for peace in his troubled land.

Comments2|Recommend3

The Sunday Edition Podcast

RSS | iTunes | More CBC Podcasts

Air Times

CBC

Network	Times
Radio One	Sundays at 9 a.m. (9:30 NT)
Sirius 137	Sundays at 7 a.m. (EST)

#2584

From: Tarek Fatah <tarek.fatah@...>
Date: Sun Nov 14, 2010 10:06 pm
Subject: CAIR opposes ban on Sharia Law in Oklahoma: Investors Daily shines "A Light On Shariah Creep"

tarekfatah

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/ArticlePrint.aspx?id=553407

"…CAIR has ignited a legal firestorm that will likely rage all the way to the Supreme Court. Thanks to CAIR's latest bit of lawfare, Americans will get to hear a long overdue debate not just about the constitutionality of such bans on Shariah law but about the constitutionality of Shariah law itself."

Friends,

In 2005, when the Ontario government wanted Sharia law in the province, it had the backing of many Islamist organsiations including the US-based CAIR and ISNA as well as the infamous Canadian Islamic Conference who lobbied intensely to sneak in the medieval law of ninth century Baghdad into 21st century Canada. However, other Muslim groups with a liberal and secular bent vigorously opposed the move and on Sept. 11, 2005, the government announced Sharia law will not be validated by the province.

Today, CAIR is again involved in pushing for Sharia Law, this time in the USA. After 70% of Oklahomans voted to ban the application of Sharia law in their state, CAIR has gone to court to negate the will of the Oklahoma citizens and is thumping its chest after a judge decided to suspend the ban until further hearings. CAIR may have won in the court of law, but like every other iuntiative this Islamist group takes, it loses big time in the court of public opinion, thus setting back the clock for Muslim Americans.

Here is Investors Business Daily welcoming the CAIR move as one way of bringing the horros of Sharia law into the full view of the American people.

Read and reflect.

Tarek

-------

November 10, 2010

Shining A Light On Shariah Creep

Investors Business Daily

Council on American-Islamic Relations may wish it never sued to overturn an Oklahoma ban on Shariah law. Now the entire nation will get to see it and other Islamists' true anti-American colors.

CAIR is thumping its chest over persuading a Clinton-appointed federal judge to temporarily block Oklahoma from enacting a state constitutional amendment that prohibits state courts from considering Islamic law when deciding cases. Fully 70% of Oklahoma voters passed the landmark measure.

But CAIR has ignited a legal firestorm that will likely rage all the way to the Supreme Court. Thanks to CAIR's latest bit of lawfare, Americans will get to hear a long overdue debate not just about the constitutionality of such bans on Shariah law but about the constitutionality of Shariah law itself.

This is not a debate CAIR wants to have, since it ultimately will have to defend the indefensible. It claims in a press release that Shariah law is "a dynamic legal framework" derived from Islamic scripture "and analytical reasoning." In fact, there's nothing reasoned about it. It's a medieval legal code that administers cruel and unusual punishments such as stonings, amputations and honor killings. Think the Taliban.

Shariah can be seen in action this week with Pakistan's death sentence on a Christian woman for blasphemy. Between 1986 and 2009, at least 974 people have been charged for defiling the Quran or insulting the Muslim Prophet Muhammad.

CAIR, which thinks free speech is a one-way street, is working with the Organization of the Islamic Conference on an international blasphemy law that would criminalize "Islamophobia," according to the book, "Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America."

Shariah also permits wife-beating, something CAIR also knows about. Its sister organization, the Islamic Society of North America, condones it in its fatwas (or religious rulings) for Muslim Americans. More, CAIR distributes a book, "The Meaning of the Holy Quran," which authorizes men to hit their wives.

CAIR says it's just a "civil rights advocacy group." But the Justice Department says it's a front group for Hamas and its parent, the radical Muslim Brotherhood, a worldwide jihadist movement that has a secret plan to impose Shariah law on the U.S. "From its founding by Muslim Brotherhood leaders, CAIR conspired with other affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood to support terrorists," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg in a recent court filing.

U.S. prosecutors in 2007 named CAIR an unindicted co-conspirator in a criminal scheme led by the Holy Land Foundation to funnel millions to Hamas suicide bombers and their families.

"CAIR has been identified by the government at trial as a participant in an ongoing and ultimately unlawful conspiracy to support a designated terrorist organization, a conspiracy from which CAIR never withdrew," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Jim Jacks, who recently won an award from Attorney General Eric Holder for convicting the Holy Land terrorists.

Federal courts found "ample evidence" linking CAIR to the conspiracy and are expected to unseal the dossier in coming weeks.

The Holy Land revelations prompted the FBI to sever ties with CAIR until it can demonstrate it's not a terror front. "Until we can resolve whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and Hamas, the FBI does not view CAIR as an appropriate liaison partner," advised Assistant FBI Director Richard Powers in a 2009 letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

CAIR's leaders don't want a ban on Shariah law, because they have a secret agenda to institutionalize Shariah law in America. "I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future," CAIR Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper let it slip out to a Minneapolis Star-Tribune reporter in 1993, before CAIR was formed.

CAIR's founding chairman, Omar Ahmad, wants Shariah law to replace the Constitution. "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant," he told a Muslim audience in Fremont, Calif., in 1998. "The Quran should be the highest authority in America."

CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad is an Islamic supremacist who thinks Muslims should run Washington: "Who better can lead America than Muslims?"

Islamizing America also happens to be the agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood — the radical, Cairo-based outlaw group the government says CAIR is fronting for. The founding archives of its U.S. branch, seized in an FBI raid and introduced as evidence in the Holy Land trial, reveal a "strategic goal" of "eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house ... so that Allah's religion is made victorious over all other religions." The Brotherhood calls its plan a "grand jihad."

CAIR argues in its suit that "the Shariah ban's purpose is to stigmatize, denigrate and segregate plaintiff's faith in the public's mind as something foreign and to be feared."

No, the goal is to make sure no Oklahoma judge considers Shariah law in rulings on domestic violence, family law, probate, free speech, contracts and other matters, as judges have in other states, to a wider degree in Canada and now on a routine basis in Britain. The ban is to prevent courts from legitimizing a religious legal system antithetical to the U.S. Constitution in the areas of freedom of speech, equality and humane punishment, among other bedrock Western principles.

Thanks to CAIR's lawsuit, all this can now be aired out for the public.

#2585

From: Tarek Fatah <tarek.fatah@...>
Date: Tue Nov 16, 2010 12:29 pm
Subject: The many faces of Political Islam in Turkey: Is it Europe's Trojan Horse?

tarekfatah

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LK17Ak02.html

November 17, 2010

Political Islam has many faces in Turkey

By Justin Vela

Asia Times OnLine

ISTANBUL - During the now infamous Mavi Marmara crisis between Turkey and Israel last summer, a board member of the Insani Yardim Vakfi (IHH), the Turkish aid organization that sponsored the Free Gaza flotilla, was asked about the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Connections between the IHH, Turkey's first and largest humanitarian organization, and the AKP were clear. Members of the AKP had even been planning to travel on the flotilla to Gaza, but canceled at the last minute. Yet the board member said, "Look, I do not vote for the AKP." He was less clear about which political party he did support.

Given the degree of the IHH's religious conservativeness, it was likely that most members of the organization cast their vote for the Saadet Partisi (the Felicity Party), one of Turkey's few still functioning Islamic political parties that received votes in local and national elections, though never enough to pass the 10% threshold to enter parliament

Though the country's opposition has accused them of possessing a secret, long-term plan to establish an Islamic state in Turkey, the AKP is officially a secular political party. In mass media they are usually described as "Islamic-rooted" or coming from an "Islamic background" or another variation of this vague categorization.

Over the course of the AKP's eight years in government, the power of the secular military and judiciary has decreased, the constitution has been reformed, and democracy has grown, all of which are in line with the demands of Turkey's European Union accession process.

While a recent European Commission report blasts declining press freedoms, the EU has lauded Turkey's progress in revamping the economy and raising its level of democracy even as religion appears to be increasingly at the forefront. In many ways, this might be expected. Turkey is a 99% Muslim country. Yet it is experiencing an increased polarization between the secular and religious, a trend that will most likely increase in the lead-up to June 2011 parliamentary elections.

This polarization is dangerous for a variety of reasons. On the one hand religion's more obvious role in society proves an increased democratization in a country whose degree of devoutness has perhaps been underestimated. The secularists are also experiencing a shift from being the traditional power-holders to now seeing the more religious lower classes suddenly possessing more influence.

On the back of a surprisingly strong victory in September's referendum on controversial constitutional amendments, the AKP has brought the long-running headscarf issue to the forefront of the political discourse. This is likely the first attempt at invigorating voters before next year's election.

The headscarf is an issue Turkey is long overdue to settle and even main opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, of the Republican People's Party, or CHP, is signaling that a change to the laws surrounding the headscarf, which is currently banned in public institutions, including universities, must take place. This is despite the military boycotting this year's National Day celebrations at Cankaya Palace in Ankara where First Lady Hayrunnisa Gul attended wearing a headscarf, a act that is technically illegal due to the headscarf being banned in public institutions.

Since the founding of the modern Turkish republic in 1923, there has perhaps not been another time when Islam in Turkey has gone through such transformations, both in matters of presentation and style, and also importance. The AKP has supported traditionally practicing Muslims economically and politically more so than any previous government and has also changed and modernized what it means to be Islamic in Turkey.

Yet the AKP does not enjoy the support of the openly Islamic Saadet Party and many more conservative Muslims in Turkey. There is indeed a deep rift between the groups, with members of Saadet believing the AKP to have been co-opted by Western powers, becoming a pawn of a global imperialism extending from these countries. The AKP's neo-liberal trade policies are, also, condemned by Saadet as Turkey maintains high unemployment and uneven wealth distribution.

The current head of Saadet, Necmettin Erbakan, recently lashed out at Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul in an August 2010 interview with the German newspaper Die Welt. "Some foreign powers brought them into their current position. Zionist, imperialist and racist powers in the current world order. They are supporting a Western, Zionist world order unintentionally. Most of what they have done is wrong. They are making the Zionists richer with taxes and debts. Erdogan became the cashier of Zionism. He was my student before. Yet now, our aim is to knock him over."

Erbakan served as Turkey's prime minister in a coalition government from 1995-1997, before being forced to step down by the military in what is called by some a "post-modern coup". He was also vice prime minister between 1974-1978, in coalition with various right-wing secular parties, an especially strange twist to the practical steps often taken by those who desire power. Called the "hoca", a term for a religious leader that is also sometimes used in Turkey to refer to university teachers, Erbakan had been a mentor to Erdogan and Gul when the two were members of his Refah Partisis (the Welfare Party) and Fazilet Partisis (the Virtue Party), which were banned in 1997 and 2001, respectively.

Fazilet and Refah followed Erbakan's numerous previous parties such as the Milli Selamet Partisi (The National Salvation Party) and Milli Nizam Partisi (National Order Party), and were closed by the judiciary for violating the secular principals of Turkey's constitution. Erdogan and Gul, seeing that there was no way they could hold national power without becoming more moderate, founded the AKP in 2001. Erbakan was banned from politics in 1997 following the closure of Refah, but had his supporters founded Saadet, which continued to serve as the party of traditionally conservative Muslims.

Due to the majority of their voters deciding to support the AKP, Saadet was never very popular. In 2009 local elections, the party polled only 5.16%. In 2007 national elections, they won 2.34% of votes. Saadet's primary strength actually is likely to lay outside of Turkey, among Turks living abroad in Europe. For them, Saadet is the current leader of the "Milli Gorus" (National Vision) movement, which seeks to re-establish Islam as a leading force in Turkey and reportedly has 300,000 members throughout Europe.

Like the shadowy Gulen movement, Milli Gorus, which takes its name from a manifesto Erbakan wrote in 1969, is a vast social network providing services and community as well as a political force. Not as powerful as the Gulen movement however, which is said to have pull within the Turkish government, to control thepolice force, and posses Islamic-turanistic tendencies, Milli Gorus is focused more on strengthening traditional Islam within Turkey.

They also profess a desire to end Turkey's alliance with Western countries, despite Erbakan, during his times in power, failing to significantly change any of Turkey's core policies. Many of Turkey's connections with the EU and trade policies were even strengthened during his time in power yet he maintained an anti-Western stance, especially when out of office.

At 84 and needing assistance to walk, Erbakan was elected the head of Saadet in October 2010. The party was run since its inception by his close supporters until an April 2009 court decision allowed Erbakan to again directly participate in politics. Maintaining that the AKP is the product of a Western-Zionist conspiracy that aims to take over Turkey, Erbakan recently told the Turkish paper Taraf that "imperialism is doing new studies to polish AKP" for the 2011 elections.

Although many members of his party welcomed Erbakan's return, what appeared to be the establishment of a family dynasty within Saadet caused a new split. In October, Erbakan's son, Fatih, daughter, Elif, and son-in law, Mehmet Altinoz, were elected to Saadet's administration in a party congress that saw huge posters of Erbakan and Mustapha Kemal Attaturk, the republic's founding father, together in the same hall.

The move to establish a more prominent role for his family within Saadet was not taken kindly by Erbakan's former confidant and the previous Saadet head, Numan Kurtulmus, who split off from Saadet and on November 1 founded the Voice of the People Party (HAS), the 67th political party in Turkey.

HAS is expected to hold its first congress on November 28, where elections will be held to form its administrative bodies. Difficult to categorize, HAS united a number of politicians from different backgrounds. There are members of past Islamic political parties, as well as Kurtulmus' supporters from Saadet. With him there are also people from leftist parties and right of center parties.

Turkish United Workers' Party leader Zeki Kilicaslan said that he joined HAS because "when Kurtulmus was introducing the HAS party to me, he said it would be a party that is against imperialism, neo-liberal policies and brutal exploitation policies. He also said the party would be the people's party and not be based on religion or conservatism."

At least one commentator has said that HAS was positioning itself to stand somewhere between AKP and Saadet in ideology and seeking to appeal mostly to the victimized segment of Turkish society. As it includes some members of parties that voted "yes" to the constitutional amendments in September's referendum, but did not support the AKP itself, HAS could provide an alternative during future elections. It also could become a possible coalition partner for the AKP should the scattered opposition organize itself enough to win a sizable amount of votes in a future election.

All this is likely only to come after the AKP forms a single-party government following the parliamentary elections in June 2011. Then there will be the decidingly telling time during the writing of the new constitution. The AKP's increasingly authoritarian bent will be exposed for what it is or isn't. Following September's referendum, Erdogan professed a desire to be inclusive during the writing of a new constitution. Yet what inclusive means in a Turkey that is more confident, perhaps even over-confident, in its importance on the global stage, is yet to be seen.

Justin Vela is a freelance journalist based in Istanbul, Turkey.

#2586

From: Tarek Fatah <tarek.fatah@...>
Date: Thu Nov 18, 2010 4:21 am
Subject: Book reading from "The Jew is Not My Enemy" at the Toronto Library on Monday, Nov. 22 at 7PM

tarekfatah

http://www.nowtoronto.com/news/story.cfm?content=177875

Hi,

On Monday, November 22, the Toronto Library's Barbara Frum Centre will be hosting me for a book reading as part of its “ehList” that showcases Canadian literature.

I hope to see some of you on Monday, even if you come to heckle :-) The Barbara Frum library is located at 20 Covington Road, Toronto . You can get more information at (416) 395-5440.

Here is NOW Magazine endorsing the event at the Toronto Library, describing it in these words:

"It’s a hot-potato issue for sure, but author Tarek Fatah doesn’t shy away. The founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress presents his new book, The Jew Is Not My Enemy: Unveiling The Myths That Fuel Muslim Anti-Semitism."

Tarek

#2587

From: Tarek Fatah <tarek.fatah@...>
Date: Sat Nov 20, 2010 5:43 am
Subject: Did Prophet Muhammad kill 900 Jews in Cold Blood? Toronto Star reviews "The Jew is Not My Enemy"

tarekfatah

November 20, 2010
The Jew Is Not My Enemy: Tarek Fatah

By John Goddard
The Toronto Star

The Prophet Muhammad committed mass murder against Jews, the story goes. After fending off an invading army at Medina, the Prophet turned on the resident Jews of the Banu Qurayza tribe, who had remained neutral in the battle. He picked out 600 to 900 Jewish men and slaughtered them. He divided their wives, children and property among Muslims and traded other female Jewish captives for horses.

The tale, says Toronto author Tarek Fatah, is told not by Islamophobes or Danish cartoonists. It is recounted in Islamic religious texts (but not the Quran) and repeated shamelessly by leading clerics, feeding Muslim anti-Semitism.

“One would expect Muslims to denounce the depiction of their Prophet as a mass murderer,” Fatah writes in The Jew Is Not My Enemy: Unveiling the Myths that Fuel Anti-Semitism. “On the contrary, any Muslim who questions or denies the reliability of this legend is labeled anti-Islamic and a traitor to the faith. Most clerics and scholars not only insist this legend is true but cite it as a source of pride.”

To Fatah, 61, no subject is taboo. He calls himself a secular Muslim and ranks as one of Canada’s most fearless critics of Islamism — the ideology that promotes Islam as a political system as well as a religion. Two years ago, he published Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State, now sold out, arguing that when Muslims buried the Prophet they also buried many of his values.

Born in Karachi, Fatah settled in Canada in 1987 and became best known after 9/11 as founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress, an alternative to the city’s many Islamist organizations. He writes op-ed pieces, appears as a TV pundit, co-hosts a nightly NewsTalk 1010 radio show and prolifically feeds personal and political commentary several times daily to 4,300 Facebook followers. To books he brings a deeper level of scholarship but not less timidity.

“A full house,” the host of the Toronto Jewish Book Fair told a packed synagogue prior to Fatah’s appearance last month. “If you didn’t get a book, I’m sorry. We had 200 copies but we sold them already.”

In the new book, Fatah documents what he calls an alarming rise in recent years of Muslim anti-Semitism, which he says violates Islam’s essence.

The Pakistan of the 1940s and 1950s had no tradition of anti-Semitism, he says, but in 2006 he spotted it almost everywhere. A banner across a Karachi street read, “Bird Flu is a Jewish conspiracy.”

“I was dumbstruck,” Fatah writes. “Israel, I was told . . . wanted to destroy the poultry industry of Indonesia, a Muslim nation.”

Fatah also asks: Is Israel fueling anti-Semitism? “Yes,” he writes. Israel must end its “illegal” and “immoral” occupation of Palestinian territory and push for a Palestinian state alongside Israel. “Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state,” the author also states emphatically, one of the few high-profile Toronto Muslims to do so.

Among the book’s delights is Fatah’s independent and inquiring mind. In a field riddled with dogmatism, he offers fresh material and original insights.

On one hand, he documents Adolf Hitler’s odious alliance with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem during World War II. On the other, he brings to life stories of selfless heroism among Muslims saving Jews from persecution.

For Muslim readers, perhaps the toughest chapters deal with Muhammad’s slaughter of the Banu Qurayza. Fatah denounces the story as invented by influential scholar Ibn Ishaq nearly 100 years after the Prophet’s death. No archeological evidence supports it. No Jewish text corroborates it. Yet the story forms part of Islam’s Hadith literature and the Sira, the biography of the Prophet, and has come to be regarded as divine truth, Fatah says.

The problem, the author says, is that Islam lacks a tradition of questioning religious texts. So far, no Toronto imam has joined him to reject the Banu Qurayza story. So far, no mosque has invited him to speak.
-----------
Star reporter John Goddard is co-author, with Frank H. Epp, of The Palestinians: A Portrait of a People in Conflict (1976) and The Israelis: A Portrait of a People in Conflict (1980), both from McClelland & Stewart.

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/article/894004--the-jew-is-not-my-enemy-tarek-fatah

#2588

From: Tarek Fatah <tarek.fatah@...>
Date: Sat Nov 20, 2010 4:13 pm
Subject: Join me for a book reading at the Toronto Library's Barbara Frum Centre on Monday at 7PM

tarekfatah

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/article/894004--the-jew-is-not-my-enemy-tarek-fatah

Friends,

If you live in Toronto, I'd like to invite you to a book reading event with me on Monday, Nov. 22 at the Toronto Library's Barbara Frum Centre. Not only will you have a chance 'hear' me, you may even take the liberty of heckling me on �behalf of my naysayers

The event starts at 7:00 PM and it'll be nice to see some familiar faces in the crowd, specially those among you, who "are not my enemy."

Toronto Library's Barbara Frum Centre is located at 20 Covington Street, just north of Lawrence on Bathurst. For more information on the event, please�click here.

BTW, today's Toronto Star carries a review of my book as a birthday present to me (yes, I am 61 today) Here is the review that may just tickel your curiosoty enough to buy a copy :-)

Cheers,

Tarek

--
http://www.TarekFatah.com

#2589

From: Tarek Fatah <tarek.fatah@...>
Date: Mon Nov 22, 2010 9:05 pm
Subject: How the French Banned the Burka: A Countdown to Sanity

tarekfatah

http://www.meforum.org/2787/france-ban-the-burqa

How the French Banned the Burka

A Countdown to Sanity

by Benjamin Ismail
Middle East Quarterly

Send

RSS

On July 13, 2010, France's lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, approved a bill outlawing the wearing of "clothing intended to hide the face" in public spaces and slapping a fine and possible jail time on offenders;[1] on September 14, the bill was also approved by the French senate.[2] While the bill refrained from mentioning specific communities or religions, it was common knowledge that it was primarily aimed at the Muslim full body and face-concealing garments, the niqaband the burqa. Justice Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie, who presented the bill to parliament, had specifically argued that being forced to wear these Muslim garments "amounts to being cut off from society and rejecting the very spirit of the French republic that is founded on a desire to live together." President Nicolas Sarkozy was even more forthright, stating that "the burqa is not welcome in France because it is contrary to our values and contrary to the ideals we have of a woman's dignity."[3]

In the run up to the full-face ban, President Nicolas Sarkozy made his position crystal clear: "The burqa is not welcome in France because it is contrary to our values and contrary to the ideals we have of a woman's dignity."

An increase in the number of immigrants and converts to Islam in France wearing the full-face cover had set off alarm bells about indigenous culture and traditions,[4] and the prolonged parliamentary debates preceding the vote had centered on fears for the future of French values and the republic. How well founded were these fears? And why did the government decide to predicate the ban on a religiously and ethnically-neutral rationale rather than on the actual considerations underlying it?

Run-up to the Vote

The 577-seat National Assembly approved the law with 335 votes to one out of a total of 339 votes. After having been amended, the bill set a maximum of a €150 fine per breach and penalties of up to €30,000 and a year in jail (doubled if the victim is a minor) for anyone forcing a person to cover his or her face in public.[5] "Democracy thrives when it is open-faced," enthused Alliot-Marie.[6]

Opponents of the bill quickly pointed to the small number of women wearing the burqa and the niqab; and indeed, a 2009 Ministry of the Interior study estimated the number of women wearing the burqa and the niqab at 1,900, including 270 living in French territories overseas.[7] Yet it was not the scope of the phenomenon that alarmed both parliamentarians and the public at large—a Pew Research Center poll done in April and May 2010 found that 82 percent of French voters favored the ban[8]—but rather its underlying trends, notably that two-thirds of niqab and burqa wearing women were of French nationality, including many second and third generation immigrants.

The Situation in Europe

The bill put France at the forefront of proactive states within the European Union, alongside Belgium, which had passed a similar law on April 29, 2010.[9] The Spanish government, after some local initiatives to ban full-face covers in public buildings, intends to present a law on the freedom of religion that will restrict their use in public places.[10] In Germany, there is no general prohibition on concealing the face though the issue has been hotly debated for quite some time, and a few local bans, especially in schools, have taken place. In Denmark, wearing the burqa and the niqab in public places has been restricted since January 2010 while in the Netherlands, several bills prohibiting the burqa and the niqab, notably in the education and public sectors, are under preparation. In Britain, by contrast, the newly-formed Conservative-Liberal-Democrat coalition seems to have taken a rather contrarian approach; Immigration Minister Damian Green precluded such a move as "rather un-British" while Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman suggested that wearing the burqa could be seen as an "empowering" feminist statement.[11]

This diversity of official attitudes and legislative approaches underlines the relative absence of an official EU position as Brussels prefers to leave its member states the wiggle room to legislate on the matter so long as they respect the European Convention on Human Rights. In this regard, the European Court of Human Rights had its say in 2005 in response to a writ by a Turkish student who objected to the burqa ban at the University of Istanbul. The court stipulated that freedom of conscience, protected by article 9 of the convention, "does not always guarantee the right to behave in a manner governed by a religious belief and does not confer on people who do so the right to disregard rules that have proved to be justified."[12] A later attempt by Turkey's Islamist prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to pass a regulation allowing the headscarf in universities was struck down by the Turkish Constitutional Court.[13]

In France, a similar "law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools" was passed on March 15, 2004, banning the wearing of the hijab (traditional Muslim headscarf) in public primary and secondary schools, alongside other symbols including crosses and the Star of David, and other clothing denoting religious affiliation. But, since the wearing of the full-face cover was almost nonexistent in the early 2000s, no additional law on the matter was passed until July 2010.

To be sure, in June 2009, following violent protests at NATO's sixtieth anniversary summit in Strasbourg, a decree relating to illicit concealment of the face during public demonstrations was passed but was, at the time, aimed primarily at masked delinquents.[14] It was only after a string of recent incidents involving women with full-face coverings—refusal of a wedding by a mayor,[15] denial of French citizenship for wearing the burqa,[16] the booking of the first woman driver for wearing the niqab—that the wearing of these attires became a hot public issue.

Appearances, however, are often deceiving. Rather than the hasty outcome of vigorous public debate, the government's bill was the result of much longer and more deliberative discussions on the legal, cultural, religious, political, and social aspects of legislating a ban, discussions which had begun in the French National Assembly two years earlier. These deliberations convinced the government to change the legal basis used to ban the niqab and burqa from the principles of secularism, gender equality, and other principles of a liberal democracy to the more politically correct and less contentious justification of maintaining public order.

First Attempts

The first bill dealing with niqab banning was the so-called proposal No. 1121 "to fight against attacks on women's dignity from certain religious practices," presented by Member of Parliament (MP) Jacques Myard on September 23, 2008.[17] In the explanatory memorandum introducing the bill, Myard pointed to the March 2004 school ban, noting that its application had not created any "major incident." If the hijab was considered "a distinctive and proselytizing" sign, he reasoned, surely the niqab could not but be viewed in the same vein. While carefully refraining from targeting the full-body cover directly, he recalled the June 27, 2008 decision of the State Council validating a decree that had refused French citizenship to a Moroccan Muslim on the grounds that she was wearing the burqa. The decree had defined such dress as incompatible with the basic values of the French community, notably the principle of gender equality.

The proposed bill suggested a €15,000 fine and two months' imprisonment for anyone on French territory concealing his or her face or encouraging others to do so, thus legislating two offenses punishable by the law. The bill stipulated the doubling of sentences for repeat offenders and allowed authorities to deport foreign offenders. It also noted that the prohibition referred to the "concealment of the face" and not to the wearing of any special garment. Though specifically referenced in the explanatory memorandum introducing the bill, neither the burqa nor the niqab, nor for that matter Islam, were mentioned in the bill itself.

Myard's bill raised the question of restricting certain religious practices protected by French laws and the French constitution, the European Convention on Human Rights, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yet it provoked little public reaction,[18] probably because of the global financial crisis, which consumed the public's attention at the time. Not having been vetted previously by the Commission of Constitutional Laws, Legislation, Universal Suffrage, the Rules and General Administration (commonly called the Law Commission), the proposal was not reviewed by the National Assembly, which would eventually discuss only the government bill.[19] Yet it outlined the general gist of the debate in clear and unequivocal terms: The burqa and the niqab were clothes flaunting religious extremism that threatened the principle of laicism.

Almost a year later, on June 9, 2009, MP André Gerin and eighty members of all political persuasions (including Myard) proposed a resolution to the National Assembly "for the establishment of a commission of inquiry on the practice of wearing the burqa or the niqab on the national territory."[20] The memorandum included the content of the September 2008 proposal but went a step further by explaining the present state of laicism in France and by commenting on current Islamic dress habits. The text spoke of "threatened … laicism" and evidenced the statements of a French imam in 2004 "in favor of corporal punishment for adulterous wives" as an example of where French Muslims could be heading. Regarding the niqab and the burqa, it said that they were "virtual, itinerant prisons" putting women who wore them "in a situation of imprisonment, and unbearable exclusion and humiliation." The MPs further stressed: "We also know that to this dress is added a degrading submission to their husbands, the men of their family, and a denial of their own citizenship." Finally, the proposed resolution recalled the September 15, 2008 decision of the High Authority against Discrimination and for Equality. This decision confirmed the requirement to remove the burqa during a language course given by the National Agency for Welcoming Foreigners and Migrations as part of a welcome and integration contract—an optional contract mainly consisting of a day's civic training presentation and an individual meeting with a social assessor, which foreigners admitted to reside on French territory and wishing to settle permanently can sign to show their willingness to integrate.

On June 23, 2009, the requested commission of inquiry comprising thirty members was created to study the practice of wearing the "full veil." Neither the burqa nor the niqab were mentioned in its mandate, as the expression "full veil" was considered more neutral and general.

Parliamentary Debates

On January 26, 2010, after six months of investigation, including the testimony of more than two hundred people in France's major cities—of which about 10 percent were key figures of the Muslim community such as Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Great Mosque of Paris, or international public figures such as Tariq Ramadan—the committee published its conclusions in the form of a 650-page report.[21] After a lengthy exposition on the historical and cultural aspects of the dress code in Middle Eastern societies, as well as a psycho-sociological examination of these practices, and a comparative legal study of twelve countries—ten European countries plus the United States and Canada—the report concluded that wearing the full-face cover affected "basic [French] values as expressed in the motto—freedom, equality, fraternity—and poses a challenge to [the] republic." Although the commission admitted internal divergences over details, the final conclusion underscored multiparty consensus among its members regarding the need for legislation.[22]

Meanwhile, on July 27, 2009, fifty-four senators presented a proposal "to allow [for] the recognition and identification of persons."[23] The proposed law prohibited an "item of clothing of someone in the public space that prevents their recognition and identification" and punished violations by one month's imprisonment. Terms like the niqab or the burqa, and even "full veil," were visibly absent from the explanatory memorandum, yet upon closer examination, it was evident that these clothes had been taken into account in drafting the bill. Indeed, the preamble invoked article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which allows the restriction of religious freedoms to ensure public safety, indicating that the senators braced themselves for any religious opposition that could arise from this legislation. Basing itself on the legal concept of respect for public order, this bill clearly stood out from Myard's September 2008 proposal, which had referenced religious and ethical rationales.

On February 5, 2010, MPs of the center-right Union for a Popular Movement proposed a bill "to prohibit the wearing of uniforms or accessories that have the effect of concealing the face in public places and on public roads."[24] In its preamble, the bill referred to acts of masked delinquency and to the practice of wearing the niqab. The proposal's main significance lay in its second article, which specified penalties on law violations. Unlike the two previously suggested bills, the latest proposal treated violations as misdemeanors, whose specific details were to be decided later by decree. This created a glaring contradiction between, on the one hand, the explanatory memorandum emphasizing the dangers posed by fully-covered persons, such as the growing threat of terrorism, threats to public order, and sexual discrimination, and, on the other, the lightness of the proposed sentence, making wearing the full-face veil the least serious possible type of infraction in France.

Four days later, Senator Jean-Louis Masson underscored the evolution of the "law and order" basis for proposed legislation on the full-face cover by presenting his bill "to prohibit the wearing of uniforms hiding the face of persons in public places."[25] In Masson's opinion, it was impossible to legislate a ban on religious dress because of the principle of laicism which prohibited state interference in individual religious choices. However, public order could be invoked without "specifically targeting the full veil worn by Muslim women." While using the justification of public order as its underlying rationale, this proposal differed from the February 5 version by imposing one fine on women wearing the full-face cover for religious reasons and another for lawbreakers hiding their faces while perpetrating a crime. This differentiated penalty system stipulated a single €5,000 fine for the simple concealment of the face (an offence that clearly applied to those wearing the niqab or the burqa), as opposed to a three-month imprisonment for masked criminals.

On April 27, 2010, the Union for a Popular Movement came up with a new proposal, this time for a resolution on "the commitment to respect republican values against growing radical practices that could undermine them." By way of strengthening its case, the proposal relied on six pieces of landmark legislation: the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, the preamble to the French 1946 constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of December 1948, the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of November 1950, the 1979 U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union of December 2000, as entered into force on December 1, 2009, and in particular article 20. Having concluded that the full-face cover was a radical and discriminatory practice against women and that the principle of freedom of religion did not justify it, the French National Assembly reaffirmed its intention to implement all appropriate means "to ensure the effective protection of women who suffer violence or pressure, in particular women being forced to wear a full veil."[26]

The Road to the Bill

Although the resolution's single article was not legally binding, it underscored the clear discrepancy between the principles it reasserted and the rationale used in the previous bills. Indeed, in a report that had been ordered by the prime minister and handed to him on March 30, 2010, the Council of State, advising the government on legal affairs, including the preparation of bills, ordinances, and certain decrees, argued that a total ban of the full-face cover on French territory "could find no unassailable legal basis."[27]

This was not what most MPs thought. A study published in May by the National Assembly described the wearing of the full-face veil as "self-denial and a denial of others [that] forbids the establishment of a relationship between people. This practice carries in itself a symbolic violence which destabilizes the social pact." Concealment of the face was not only an attack on the dignity of the human person that "attests to a fundamentally inequitable vision of relations between men and women," the study added, but was also "a source of threats to public order."[28]

This parliamentary discussion was eventually followed by the submission of the government's bill on May 19, 2010, for a total ban on the niqab in all public spaces and not just in places where public services were offered. The bill described the wearing of the niqab as "symbolic violence" that ran counter to the "republican social contract" thus causing a disturbance to "the public order."[29] Based on the jurisprudence of the Council of State, the bill stressed that "certain practices, even [if] lawful" might be "contrary to human dignity" and could therefore be prohibited.[30] As such, it provided for a total ban on wearing any clothing hiding the face.

The bill added the possibility of requiring offenders to serve a probationary period of citizenship. However, its uniqueness lay in its far stricter penalization of persons forcing women to cover their face than the female violators themselves, imposing a €15,000 fine and one year imprisonment on perpetrators. Previously, only the 2008 Myard proposal had targeted people other than those actually hiding their faces.

Socialist opposition parties responded by submitting their own bill[31] the next day—the last proposed bill in the run-up to the July 2010 resolution. The opposition MPs argued against a "burqa ban" in all public spaces, citing the March 30, 2010 opinion of the Council of State which expressed doubts about the "possibilities of [a] legal ban on wearing the full veil." They also referred to a February 2010 assertion by the European Court of Human Rights whereby "to condemn [people] for wearing these clothes falls under the ambit of Article 9 of the Convention, which protects, inter alia, freedom to manifest religious beliefs."[32] In the opposition's proposal, only places of public service would be affected by the ban and only if the identification of the person in those places was deemed necessary. The difference was significant because public places (parks, shops, streets) were to be excluded except in cases where chiefs of police invoked public safety concerns as a justification for prohibiting face concealment.

The Public Debate

Despite the sweeping support for the ban in parliament where the burqa and the niqab were seen as contravening the principle of "vivre ensemble" (living together), some segments of the media, together with politicians from the opposition, sought to promote their own beliefs by deriding the ban as a political ploy aimed at creating a diversion.[33] After accusations by Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux that the husband of a woman driver booked for wearing the niqab was also guilty of polygamy and cheating on welfare, the case turned into a political squabble that exacerbated the already polemical "grand debate on national identity"[34] launched by the government in November 2009. Conducted on a national scale until January 2010, the debate generated considerable controversy and drifted into other spheres not directly relevant to the issue such as "national identity" and "immigration."[35]

Indeed, the debate initially meant "to address the concerns raised by the resurgence of certain communitarianisms," of which the case of the burqa was one example, and aimed at making all French citizens think carefully about what it means in the early twenty-first century to be French. [36]

An Internet website allowed anyone to contribute to the debate by consulting a textual database and glancing at the positions taken by leading figures as well as to respond to a questionnaire or to provide reflections. The debate was also conducted locally through meetings in each of the 96 departments and 342 districts in mainland France and in the departments and territories overseas. These meetings were chaired by local civil servants or by one or more national parliamentarians, MPs, or senators.[37]

However, the debate on national identity was strongly denounced by various parties from the opposition. Even though "the government said that more than 58,000 people [had] participated in the debate on an Internet site,"[38] a poll conducted in January 2010 showed that only 22.2 percent of the French found the debate "constructive" while 53.4 percent thought it was an "electioneering move."[39]

Conclusion

Does the vehemence of some media criticism imply that the banning of the niqab and the burqa is too sensitive and too complex an issue to be determined by law? Quite the reverse in fact. The question of whether France should legally ban the wearing of the full-face cover on its territory was answered in the affirmative, resoundingly and unequivocally, during parliamentary debates held over the past two years. The only remaining problems for its enactment are more a matter of form over substance, namely, what will be the best rationale for this legislation?

Nor should lingering doubts about the bill's constitutionality be overstated. While the media rarely tires of reiterating the possibility of the French Constitutional Council or the European Court of Human Rights ruling against a ban—a ruling presented by opponents as a possible propaganda coup for religious extremists[40]—this eventuality is highly unlikely. An EU decision to invalidate the French ban would have to be based on the unlawfulness of the government's bill or some of its provisions. Yet this possibility has been fully anticipated by the government which, by changing the bill's rationale from the principles of secularism or the dignity of women to public order, has greatly reduced the likelihood of invalidation. Moreover, and contrary to the received wisdom in the media and press,[41] the extent of the prohibition specified in article 2 of the government's bill is not fully challenged by the Council of State's ruling. Although the council found no "unassailable legal basis" for a total ban, it does not automatically follow that such a ban would be unconstitutional. Furthermore, Belgium's April 2010 ban on face-concealing attire in public spaces created a powerful precedent and made it easier for other EU states to follow suit.[42]

Thus far the French bill has triggered no reaction from the European Court of Human Rights or the European Commission, which is loathe to legislate on the subject.[43] Years of parliamentary debates preceding the ban may not have provided a definitive answer regarding the validity of a total ban. Nonetheless, they helped delineate the substantial contradictions between the republican principles of secularism, human, and female dignity and those of Islam and its radical drifts. Additionally, the discussions have helped sharpen the legal options available to implement the values that various parliamentarians have sought to affirm so forcefully.

It is precisely these tensions between long-held French notions of religious freedom and governmental disinclination to interfere in the religious sphere that explain why one of the most avowedly secular Western societies has found it so problematic to legislate against dress codes that contradict its ideological ethos, despite overwhelming public support for such measures. Meanwhile, countries where Islam is the state religion, such as Tunisia or Syria, have had few qualms about banning the public donning of the niqab, basing their decisions on a desire to combat what Damascus termed an "ideological invasion"[44] and what Tunis called a "sectarian form of dress which had come into Tunisia uninvited."[45]

Benjamin Ismail holds a degree in Chinese language and civilization and a master of arts in advanced international studies from Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales, Paris. He specializes in Sino-Central Asian relations, studying the role that Islam plays.

[1] No. 675, Sénat, July 13, 2010.
[2] Associated Press, Sept. 14, 2010.
[3] The New York Times, July 14, 2010.
[4] "Étude d'impact: interdisant la dissimulation du visage dans l'espace public," Assemblée Nationale, Paris, May 2010.
[5] No. 675, Sénat, July 13, 2010.
[6] BBC News, July 13, 2010.
[7] "Étude d'impact," May 2010.
[8] "Widespread Support for Banning Full Islamic Veil in Western Europe," Pew Global Attitudes Projects, Washington, D.C., July 8, 2010.
[9] Fox News, Apr. 29, 2010.
[10] La Croix (Paris), July 4, 2010.
[11] The Daily Telegraph (London), July 17, 19, 2010.
[12] Leyla Şahin v. Turkey, European Court of Human Rights, Strasbourg, Nov. 10, 2005.
[13] The New York Times, Feb. 10, 2008; Pierre Tristam, "Turkey at Loggerheads with Itself over Veil Ban," About.com, June 9, 2008.
[14] Le Monde (Paris), June 20, 2009.
[15] Le Figaro (Paris), Oct. 15, 2007.
[16] L'Express (Paris), July 11, 2008.
[17] No. 1121, Assemblée Nationale, Sept. 23, 2008.
[18] Centpapiers.com, Oct. 9, 2008.
[19] This, however, is not an uncommon practice as a mere 10 percent of proposed bills become laws. They are important, however, in that they alert the government to the desires and concerns of the MPs, and in this respect Myard's bill achieved its main objective.
[20] No. 1725, Assemblée Nationale, June 9, 2009.
[21] No. 2262, Assemblée Nationale, Jan. 26, 2010.
[22] "Mission d'information sur la pratique du port du voile intégral sur le territoire national," Assemblée Nationale, Jan. 26, 2010.
[23] No. 593, Sénat, July 27, 2009.
[24] No. 2283, Assemblée Nationale, Feb. 5, 2010.
[25] No. 275, Sénat, Feb. 9, 2010.
[26] No. 2455, proposition, Assemblée Nationale, Apr. 27, 2010; No. 459, resolution adopted, Assemblée Nationale, May 11, 2010.
[27] "Étude relative aux possibilités juridiques d'interdiction du port du voile intégral," Conseil d'État, Mar. 30, 2010.
[28] "Étude d'impact," May 2010.
[29] No. 2520, Assemblée Nationale, May 19, 2010.
[30] No. 136727, Conseil d'État, Oct. 27, 1995.
[31] No. 2544, Assemblée Nationale, May, 20, 2010.
[32] Affaire Ahmet Arslan et autres c., Turquie, European Court of Human Rights, Strasbourg, Feb. 23, 2010, sect. 2.
[33] Libération (Paris), Jan. 21, 2010.
[34] "Grand débat sur l'identité nationale," French Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity, and United Development, Paris, accessed Aug. 26, 2010.
[35] L'Union (Reims), Feb. 4, 2010.
[36] "Organisation du débat," French Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity, and United Development, Paris, accessed Aug. 26, 2010.
[37] Ibid.
[38] The New York Times, Feb. 8, 2010.
[39] Le Point (Paris), Feb. 1, 2010.
[40] No. 2544, Assemblée Nationale, May 20, 2010; Le Nouvel Observateur (Paris), Mar. 30, 2010; Reuters, Jan. 15, 2010.
[41] L'Télégramme (Paris), May 21, 2010.
[42] Le Monde, Apr. 29, 2010.
[43] Le Figaro, June 28, 2010.
[44] ABC News, July 20, 2010.
[45] Noha Mohammed, "A Triple Whammy," Egypt Today, Jan. 2007.