URUMQI, China — With the clock ticking for the opening of Beijing Olympics, Chinese Muslims are complaining of travel restrictions and being picked up for strip searches before boarding.
“They went through everything I have,” Hasmat, an Uighur Muslim trader, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Thursday, July 31, after a body search at the airport in Urumqi, the capital of the mostly Muslim Xinjiang region.
OTTAWA–The federal government is putting border officials at Pearson airport through sensitivity training so they can more appropriately deal with Arab and Muslim passengers.
A US federal agency has issued a comprehensive manual on religious discrimination for workers, citing a dramatic rise in workplace bias against faith minorities, particularly Muslims.
“The goal here is to promote voluntary compliance, to get everyone on the same page, to let them know what the law is,” David Grinberg, spokesman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), told the USA Today on Thursday, July 31.
ANKARA — The Constitutional Court decided on Wednesday, July 30, to financially penalize the ruling Justice and Development (AK) party, rejecting a call to ban it on claims of threatening the secular order.
This historical event will include speakers from around the world, dozens of workshops from hip hop to community organizing, town hall discussions, and cultural events from dabke to painting.
Convention registrations are currently being accepted for this event which promises to be one of the premier gatherings in the history of the U.S. Palestinian community. Continue reading ‘National Conference of Palestinians in Chicago, August 8-10′
http://www.freegaza.org/index.html
ATHENS — A group of peace-loving people from 16 nationalities, including a 81-year-old Catholic nun and an 83-year-old Holocaust survivor, will attempt to sail into Gaza territorial waters next week in solidarity with the besieged people of the Palestinian territory.
Beijing Olympic media center opens Muslim dining, worship room
28.07.2008 21h36
The Beijing International Media Center (BIMC), which will serve more than 5,000 non-accredited reporters during the Games, opened a Muslim restaurant and worship room on Monday.
BIMC official Cui Yaozhong said about 150 of all non-accredited reporters registered at the center were Muslims from both home and abroad.
Continue reading ‘Beijing Olympic media center opens Muslim dining, worship room’
Queen Rania of Jordan is seated behind an enormous desk in her office in Amman with three cameras trained on her.
Two of them are ours, the third belongs to her staff, who are about to film the latest edition for her personalised channel – or V-log – on the video-sharing website YouTube.
GENEVA — The UN human rights committee on Thursday, July 24, disparaged Britain over growing anti-Muslim sentiments, calling for reconsidering its draconian anti-terror measures.
“Negative public attitudes towards Muslim members of society continued to develop in Britain,” said the committee in a summary cited by Reuters.
Two young American Muslim women are suing the world’s largest chain of fast food restaurants McDonald’s over denying them jobs for donning hijab, the Detroit News reported on Friday, July 25.
If France denied a Muslim immigrant from Morocco the French citizenship because she wears the burqa, then we are confronted with an outrage. France’s Conseil d’Etat, the highest Administrative Court to uphold the decision of the city government of Paris this week, would have violated the very Western values it intends to protect. But is that really what we’re dealing with here? Not so fast – it’s more complicated than that.
Ads will be placed on New York subway cars during the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan to promote a better understanding of Islam, but the plan is irking a congressman who describes the ads as “shameful” and “unacceptable”.
“The mission of the project is to encourage people to search for unbiased information on Islam and to promote understanding and dialogue between people of different faiths,” the Islamic Circle of North America, the main sponsor of the ads, said on the “You deserve to know” campaign website.
“Generally, there is very little accountability when it comes to Israeli security forces following up on cases we report – cases like the use of weapons, harassment charges, beating up civilians or killing children,” she said.
Consider the following fact situations and decide if an employer must accommodate the employee in question:
LONDON — The British government is planning to fund a board of Muslim scholars to debate issues affecting the sizable minority in Britain, in the latest government moves to combat extremism.
SYDNEY — In a move seen as aiming to improve strained relations with Muslims, Pope Benedict XVI said on Friday, July 18, that the Catholic Church was open to learn from other faiths.
Madrid – Rajab 13 1429/ July 17, 2008 – Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz underlined the need for “constructive dialogue” to end disputes amongst the world’s major religions. Opening a three-day Global Interfaith Dialogue Conference at El Pardo Palace on the outskirts of Madrid yesterday afternoon, King Abdullah also urged followers of the world’s leading faiths to turn away from extremism and embrace a spirit of reconciliation, saying that history’s great conflicts were not caused by religion but by its misinterpretation. In his address at the opening session, King Juan Carlos of Spain hoped the conference would be successful. “We have always been interested in strengthening peace, dialogue and cooperation on the international stage,” he said. The conference was organized by the Makkah-based Muslim World League (MWL) as per the directives of King Abdullah.
King Abdullah began his keynote speech reciting a verse from the Holy Qur’an. “O mankind we have created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other. Verily the most honored of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you.” Quoting from the Holy Qur’an, and after salutations to Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and all the prophets and messengers, he thanked King Juan Carlos and the Spanish people for convening the conference on “a land that has a historic and civilized heritage among the followers of religions, and which has witnessed coexistence between people of differing ethnicities and religions and cultures, and contributed, with other civilizations, to the advancement of humanity.”
Following is the text of the King’s speech: “Dear friends, I came to you from the place dearest to the hearts of all Muslims, the land of the Two Holy Mosques, bearing with me a message from the Islamic Ummah, representing its scholars and thinkers who recently met in the confines of the House of God. This message declares that Islam is a religion of moderation and tolerance, a message that calls for constructive dialogue among followers of religions, a message that promises to open a new page for humanity in which, God willing, concord will replace conflict. “Dear friends, we all believe in one God, who sent messengers for the good of humanity in this world and the hereafter. His will, praise be to Him, was that people should differ in their faiths. If the Almighty had so desired, all mankind would have shared the same religion. We are meeting today to affirm that the religions that God Almighty desired for the happiness of man, should be a means to ensure that happiness.
“It is therefore incumbent upon us to declare to the world that difference must not lead to conflict and confrontation, and to state that the tragedies that have occurred in human history were not due to religion, but were the result of extremism with which some adherents of every divinely revealed religion, and of every political ideology, have been afflicted. “Mankind is suffering today from a loss of values and conceptual confusion, and is passing through a critical phase which, in spite of all the scientific progress, is witnessing a proliferation of crime, an increase in terrorism, the disintegration of the family, subversion of the minds of the young by drug-abuse, exploitation of the poor by the strong, and odious racist tendencies. This is all a consequence of the spiritual void from which people suffer when they forget God, and God causes them to forget themselves. There is no solution for us other than to agree on a united approach, through dialogue among religions and civilizations.
“Dear friends, most of the past dialogues have failed because they have deteriorated into mutual recrimination focusing on and exaggerating differences in a sterile endeavor that exacerbated rather than mitigated tensions, or because they attempted to fuse religions and creeds on the pretext of bringing them closer together. This is likewise a fruitless effort, since the adherents of every religion are deeply convinced in their faith, and will not accept any alternative thereto. If we wish this historic meeting to succeed, we must focus on the common denominators that unite us, namely, deep faith in God, noble principles, and lofty moral values, which constitute the essence of religion.
“Dear friends, man could be the cause of the destruction of this planet and everything in it. He is also capable of turning it into an oasis of peace and tranquility in which adherents of religions, creeds and philosophies could co-exist, and in which people could cooperate with each other in a respectful manner, and address problems through dialogue rather than violence. Man is also capable, by the grace of God, of vanquishing hatred through love, and bigotry through tolerance, thereby enabling all mankind to enjoy the dignity that the Almighty has bestowed upon all of them. “Dear friends, let our dialogue be a triumph of belief over disbelief, of virtue over vice, of justice over iniquity, of peace over conflicts and wars, and of human brotherhood over racism. Thus, with God we began, and through Him we seek assistance. I offer you my sincere greetings and appreciation. Thank you and peace be upon you.”
HI/HA/IINA
By IOL Staff
The US watch list of terror suspects and “suspicious characters” has ballooned to 1 million records, a leading civil rights group has revealed, slamming the list for unfairly flagging innocent people.
By GLEN JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 5 minutes ago
CHICAGO – Democrat Barack Obama said Tuesday that the New Yorker magazine’s satirical cover depicting him and his wife as flag-burning, fist-bumping radicals doesn’t bother him but that it was an insult to Muslim Americans.
Continue reading ‘Obama says New Yorker insulted Muslim Americans’
