AMMAN: Jordanian Islamists on Sunday called on Muslims and Arabs to boycott Russian and Chinese products after the two countries vetoed a UN Security Council resolution condemning Syria’s regime over bloodshed.

“By vetoing the resolution, Russia and China have shown that they are taking part in the killing of Syrian people,” Hammam Said, the leader of the powerful Muslim Brotherhood, said on the group’s website.

“All Muslims and Arabs should boycott Russian and Chinese products in order to support the Syrian people, who demand freedom and dignity. The vetoes were against all Arabs and Muslims.”

Said described the crackdown, which rights groups say has killed more than 6,000 people since democracy protests broke out in March last year, as “almost the worst in recent history.”

Russia and China on Saturday used their diplomatic muscle for the second time in four months to block a resolution condemning the violence.

The other 13 countries in the 15-member council voted for the resolution, proposed by European and Arab nations to give strong backing to an Arab League plan to end the crackdown.

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2012/Feb-05/162226-muslims-urged-to-boycott-russia-china-goods.ashx#ixzz1lZFC9oBr
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)

(CNN) — Europe and the Muslim world seem to be on a collision course that could have major political, economic and ideological ramifications. January 23, 2012, may well come to be remembered as the crucial date when Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” thesis, which many of us believed discredited beyond repair, was reaffirmed.

Political scientist Huntington wrote in 1993 that cultural divisions preclude a defining global civilization, and the West and the Muslim world would never share the same values.

Last month, Europe took two different actions that nonetheless sent the same message to the Muslim world: You are not our equals and are doomed to be judged by standards different from those by which we judge ourselves. Future historians might call January 23 the day when Europe irreversibly alienated not one, but both, pivotal powers — Iran and Turkey — that in all probability will dominate the political landscape of the Middle East for several decades.

One action was the European Union’s decision to ban oil purchases from Iran, including imports of crude oil, petroleum products and petrochemical products, to force Tehran to negotiate away its uranium enrichment program, which Tehran insists is for civilian use only. This is the latest in a series of increasingly stringent sanctions that Western powers have unilaterally imposed on Iran. These sanctions go well beyond those required by the U.N. Security Council.
The EU sanctions attempt to hit the Iranian economy where it hurts most: Europe imports about a fifth of Iranian oil. When combined with a ban on transactions with Iran’s Central Bank, this action is aimed at paralyzing the Iranian economy.

At the same time, the French Senate passed a law making it a crime to deny genocides that are officially recognized by France. The two genocides in this category are the Holocaust and the killing of 1.5 million Armenians in Anatolia during the last years of the Ottoman Empire. Because the denial of the Holocaust is already a crime under French law, the obvious objective of the bill is to criminalize the denial of the 1915 Armenian genocide.

Sanctions hurting Iran economy

France passes Armenian genocide bill
The issue of Armenian genocide touches a very raw nerve in Turkey, which denies the scale of the killings — Turkey maintains that roughly 500,000 Armenians were killed — as well as the claim that it was planned. According to Turkey, the killings happened in the midst of the disarray accompanying World War I and the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. Turkey says a nearly equivalent number of Turks and Kurds were also killed in inter-ethnic strife with the Armenians, who were allied with the Ottoman’s Russian adversaries.

It’s not the accuracy of the opposing claims that is at issue; it’s Muslim perceptions. Iran may well be trying to develop nuclear weapons, and what amounts to an Armenian genocide may well have taken place. What roils Muslim opinion worldwide is the perception that the West uses blatant double standards to pass judgment.

Harsh sanctions on Iran are seen as an attempt to prevent a Muslim country from developing deterrents to attacks from Israel and the United States, both nuclear powers hostile to the Islamic Republic. Most Western discussions of the Iranian bomb do not make even passing reference to the well-documented Israeli nuclear capability, even as Israel threatens to militarily strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. This omission is seen as hypocritical, dishonest and self-serving.

For many in the Muslim world, double standards explain why France singled out Turkey, and didn’t criminalize the denial of other nations’ crimes against humanity. Although denying Germany’s crimes is a crime, the Holocaust is universally accepted as genocide, while Turkey’s is not.

Many ask why disputing European massacres of non-European people is not criminalized — such as the French actions in Algeria, as Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan has said. These would include the near-total extermination of native populations by European settlers in Australia, New Zealand, and North America.

They would include the killings of millions of people by the Belgian administration of the Congo Free State, whose population was halved during the early decades of Belgian rule. Most pertinent of all, Muslims ask, why not criminalize the denial of the genocidal Spanish Inquisition that led to the extermination, expulsion or conversion of the entire Muslim and Jewish populations of the Iberian peninsula?

Many Muslims perceive these moves as the West targeting Iran and Turkey in an attempt to prevent important Muslim countries from achieving the military capacity — Iran — and the political stature — Turkey — they deserve. Many see behind these moves the not-so-hidden hand of an ideology based on Huntington’s theory of the clash of civilizations. Although these perceptions may not fully conform with reality, it is well established that perceptions count much more than reality in the conduct of international relations.

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Mohammed Ayoob.
Source: http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/03/opinion/ayoob-clash-muslims-and-west/index.html

NEW YORK—Thirty-three civil rights groups from around the country complained to the New York attorney general Friday about police documents that showed the New York Police Department recommending increased surveillance of Shiite mosques based on their religion.

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The letter urged Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to investigate NYPD’s surveillance operations, revealed by an Associated Press investigation, which monitored entire neighborhoods and built databases about everyday life in Muslim communities.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and Mayor Michael Bloomberg have insisted that police only follow legitimate leads and do not conduct preventative surveillance in ethnic communities. A May 2006 report addressed to Kelly, however, recommended increased spying at mosques and an assessment of the region’s Palestinian community to look for potential terrorists.

Even before the AP published the document, Kelly was under fire from Muslim groups who were angry that a controversial movie about Muslims, “The Third Jihad,” was shown at NYPD training sessions. Kelly appears briefly in the movie.

About 150 protesters gathered near police headquarters Friday to challenge the NYPD’s tactics. “Don’t be afraid, stand for justice!” they chanted before holding evening prayers in nearby Foley Square.

“Just the fact of knowing there is someone out there trying to listen to my conversations that can turn me into some kind of criminal, which I’m not, and exploiting my religion, it hurts,” said Sondos Alsilwi, an 18-year-old history major at City College.

Schneiderman’s office did not immediately have a comment on the letter.

The Obama administration has made fighting homegrown terrorism a focus of its national security strategy but has repeatedly sidestepped questions about whether it endorses the NYPD’s tactics. Tom Perez, the U.S. Justice Department’s top civil rights prosecutor, has refused to even answer questions about the NYPD.

The 2006 intelligence report, entitled “US-Iran Conflict: The Threat to New York City,” made a series of recommendations to Kelly, including: “Expand and focus intelligence collections at Shi’a mosques.” It includes a list of mosques and community organizations stretching from southern New Jersey to Connecticut.

The NYPD’s operating rules prohibit it from basing investigations on religion. The NYPD also says it follows FBI guidelines, which would prohibit many of the steps recommended in the report.

But the NYPD faces little in the way of oversight when it comes to its intelligence programs. Both the City Council and Congress are kept in the dark about this secretive aspect of the department. Many first learned about the spying programs from news reports.

“The masses of people around this city are fed up with the police,” City Councilman Charles Barron told protesters Friday. “Who the hell do they think they are?”

On Thursday, Kelly downplayed the significance of the 2006 document, calling it a “contingency plan” for military conflict between the U.S. and Iran. Such language does not exist anywhere in the document.

Fears of such a conflict were rising again Friday amid concerns in the Middle East that Israel was preparing a military strike on Iran. Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that an attack would only hurt the United States.

“A war itself will damage the U.S. 10 times over” in the region, “Khamenei said in a national broadcast Friday.

Iran is a majority Shi’a country, while most Muslims belong to the Sunni sect.

In August, when the AP first reported on the spying operations, Bloomberg said the NYPD doesn’t even consider religion as part of its police work.

“We don’t stop to think about the religion,” he said. “We think about the threats and focus our efforts there.”

Bloomberg spokesman Marc LaVorgna would not say whether the mayor still believes that.

——

Associated Press reporters Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman and Eileen Sullivan contributed to this article.

Online:

View the NYPD document: http://bit.ly/wYrAUX

——

Contact the Washington investigative team at DCinvestigations (at) ap.org

Follow Apuzzo, Goldman, Sullivan and Hawley at http://twitter.com/mattapuzzo, http://twitter.com/goldmandc, http://twitter.com/esullivanap, and http://twitter.com/chawley1
Source: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2012/02/04/muslims_to_ny_attorney_general_investigate_nypd/

The Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz has an article on the ad and Iran’s reaction to it here:

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/iran-mulls-ban-of-samsung-over-israeli-commercial-depicting-attack-on-nuclear-plant-1.410773

The commercial reveals the Israeli attitude about Mossad terror attacks in foreign nations. No other nation would produce a similar commercial in which their secret service blows up a nuclear plant in another nation. It’s unthinkable. The Israelis, however, think it’s funny.

The ad has several of the key elements of the false-flag terror attacks of 9/11. It features Israeli agents and Mossad operatives working undercover and using disguises, just like the 5 dancing Israelis who were arrested on 9/11 in New Jersey. These Mossadniks use computers to detonate pre-placed explosives to destroy an important asset. This is exactly what happened to the Twin Towers on 9/11. There is certainly nothing funny about Israeli terrorism. Just ask the 10,000 American children who lost their father or mother on 9/11.

Sources:

“Iran mulls ban of Samsung over Israeli commercial depicting attack on nuclear plant”, Ha’aretz, 3 February 2012

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/iran-mulls-ban-of-samsung-over-israeli-commercial-depicting-attack-on-nuclear-plant-1.410773

Source: Bollyn.com
Source: http://www.bollyn.com/israeli-tv-ad

CAIRO (Reuters) – The Arab world’s most famous comic actor, Adel Imam, has received a three-month jail sentence for insulting Islam in films and plays, a court document showed on Thursday.

Imam, who has frequently poked fun at authorities and politicians of all colors during a 40-year career, has one month to appeal the sentence and will remain out of jail until the appeal process is concluded.

The sentence Wednesday evening came weeks after Islamists swept most seats in a parliamentary election. The case was brought by Asran Mansour, a lawyer with ties to Islamist groups, and had languished in court for months, judicial sources said.

Mansour accused the actor of offending Islam and its symbols, including beards and the Jilbab, a loose-fitting garment worn by some Muslims, the Egyptian news portal Ahramonline reported.

Among films and plays targeted by the lawyer were the movie “Morgan Ahmed Morgan” and the play “Al-Zaeem” (“The Leader”), the report said.

Imam was also handed a fine of 1,000 Egyptian pounds ($170) in absentia, the court document showed. He could not immediately be reached for comment.

Court cases against directors, actors, artists and intellectuals for failing to respect religious authority are common in Egypt. But the case against Imam is likely to draw attention due to his high profile and the timing of the verdict.

Egypt’s most successful movie star, Imam has been a box-office sell-out for much of his career. His more serious films have dealt with the rise the Islamist militancy and taken aim at incompetent government officials.

“I think the lawyer who filed the case against Imam is taking advantage of the current circumstances with Islamists gaining power in Egypt,” said Nabil Abdel Fattah, an analyst and researcher at al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo.

He said the sentence had likely been handed down because Imam had failed to appear in court, and expected it to be overturned on appeal.

Egyptian telecom tycoon and political liberal Naguib Sawiris also faces trial on a charge of showing contempt for religion in a case brought by another Islamist lawyer. Sawiris, a prominent figure in Egypt’s Coptic Christian community, was accused of showing contempt by tweeting a cartoon seen as insulting to Islam.

($1 = 6.0285 Egyptian pounds)

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/02/us-egypt-actor-jail-idUSTRE8111AJ20120202

February 2, 2012

PEMBROKE PINES

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La-Fleur Mohamed, a Muslim for the past 12 years, says a Chevron employee humiliated her by barring her from a gas station because she wouldn’t remove her head scarf.

“You can’t come in here dressed like that,” Mohamed said the clerk told her inside a station store west of Boca Raton in October. The clerk allegedly tossed Mohamed’s gas money back at her and instructed her to leave.

Mohamed, 39, a Boca Raton married mother of four, has since been receiving assistance from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights and advocacy group with chapters nationwide.

At a press conference in Pembroke Pines on Wednesday, she and the group demanded that Chevron officials admit that religious discrimination occurred. And they want Chevron to start additional training companywide so that such violations don’t happen again.

The group showed two letters from Chevron. The latest, dated Jan. 17, states the company reviewed the matter, didn’t see evidence of discrimination, but took “corrective action to address this issue.”

“The parties involved for my public humiliation need to take responsibility and accept that they did violate my rights and apologize,” Mohamed said.

Chevron spokesman Brent Tippen said Wednesday that Mohamed was asked by the employee to remove her veil, and when she declined, she was denied service.

But he said it was done for security just before Halloween, when retailers are prone to heists from people wearing masks and other facial coverings.

“We fully believe that our employee acted without the intent to violate Ms. Mohamed’s religious principles and any suggestion that discrimination is acceptable at Chevron is completely false,” he said.

Chevron, which employs 60,000 from around the world, has a policy that requires everyone be treated with respect and dignity, he said.

According to Tippen, the company regrets the misunderstanding. It has apologized twice to Mohamed, encouraged employees to “be more aware of potential diversity issues” and “continues to take Ms. Mohamed’s allegations seriously,” he said.

Mohamed, a native of St. Vincent in the Caribbean, pulled up to the station at 19345 U.S. 441 on Oct. 28, she said.

She said hello to the female worker, who appeared to be in her mid-20s, handed the worker $20 and asked if she could “please have $20 on Pump No. 1.”

After the worker declined to serve her, Mohamed collected her money and walked back to her car in tears, she said. Her parents were in the vehicle waiting for her, she said.

“I was so embarrassed to tell them that I was just denied service,” she said.

With her car’s fuel guage on empty, Mohamed said she was concerned that her car would run out of gas if she tried to drive to another station. She phoned 911.

When a Palm Beach sheriff’s deputy arrived, the deputy unsuccessfully tried to persuade the employee to provide service, she said.

A dispatch log from the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office confirms the agency responded, taking her report that the station was “refusing to give her gas because of her religion.” No additional action was taken by the Sheriff’s Office because it was a civil matter involving a private business, a sheriff’s spokesman said.

Mohamed phoned a friend to meet her at Chevron and accompany her to another station for gas, she said.

South Florida’s Council on American-Islamic Relations often receives reports of religious discrimination, but Mohamed’s encounter was one of “the most egregious” recent examples of refusal of service, said Nezar Hamze, the group’s regional executive director.

“It’s important that this is publicly vetted so that our society learns that this type of behavior is unacceptable and un-American,” Hamze said.

Wilfredo A. Ruiz, the group’s Florida legal counsel, questioned whether security was Chevron’s reason for declining service. He said security concerns no longer were a factor when a sheriff’s deputy also showed up to ask that Mohamed be provided service.

“This case goes beyond security,” Ruiz said.

Chevron’s Tippen replied that the deputy asked the clerk only why she was declining to provide service. The clerk explained she was following instructions to ask customers to remove facial coverings for the security camera.

Mohamed said she has lived in the United States for the past 25 years. She said she lived in New York and New Jersey before she and her family moved to South Florida for the warmer weather about eight years ago.

Mohamed said that over the years, she has drawn stares from the public for her traditional religious garb. She said she uses such moments to educate people about being a Muslim.

Her veil drew extra attention in July, when she was taken into custody on a domestic battery charge in Alachua County, accused of wrestling her daughter over a cellphone, according to an article posted online by the Gainesville Sun newspaper. It was her first and only arrest, and the charge was later dismissed, records show.

Her initial jail mugshot shows her wearing the veil. But she later was photographed again without the veil to show her face in accordance with jail policies, the newspaper reported.

The Chevron visit in Palm Beach County was the first time Mohamed was barred from getting service at a business, she said. She said she’ll never again visit the business.

“I don’t even drive by there,” she said.

Staff writer Jorge Valens and staff researcher Barbara Hijek contributed to this report.

jcortega@tribune.com or 954-356-4701
Source: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/state/fl-alleged-religion-discrimination-20120202,0,1867250,full.story

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: January 24, 2012
RYE, N.Y. (AP) — Fifteen Muslims won conditional dismissals on Tuesday of charges stemming from an amusement park disturbance that started when women were told they could not wear religious headscarves on some rides.
A Rye Town Court judge told the defendants that their cases would be dropped if they stayed out of trouble for two months. Most had been charged only with disorderly conduct, but the charges ranged up to second-degree assault.

All the female defendants wore headscarves.

Some of the defendants said after the court session that they planned to file a civil rights lawsuit against Westchester County, alleging police brutality and racism in the disturbance. The county owns Playland park in Rye, a national landmark, where the disturbance occurred.

Lamis Deek, a defense lawyer, said the defendants could have gone to trial and won acquittals, but trials would have been inconvenient because none of the defendants live in Westchester.

“It’s unfortunately more convenient to accept this offer, not have to enter a plea of guilty, move on with their lives and pursue this matter in a civil courtroom,” Ms. Deek said.

Lucian Chalfen, spokesman for the district attorney’s office, declined to comment on why the dismissals were accepted. Ms. Deek suggested that prosecutors felt they could not win convictions. She said the dismissals “speak loudly to what they think really happened.”

About 3,000 Muslims were at Playland on Aug. 30, celebrating the end of Ramadan, Islam’s holy month of fasting. Officials say Playland bans baseball caps, eyeglasses and other headgear on several rides for safety reasons.

County officials said at a hearing in September that some Muslim women who were wearing religious scarves known as hijabs objected when told they could not go on certain rides. They said the county had made the policy clear to the trip organizer, the Muslim American Society of New York.

They said dissatisfied patrons were being given refunds when scuffles broke out within the group. Ms. Deek said Tuesday that it was an argument just between two Muslim women.

The police were called, five people were arrested, and things began to calm down until a flash mob, summoned by texting, gathered rapidly outside the park police station, said Commissioner George Longworth of the county police. The crowd became unruly, and 10 more people were arrested.

Ms. Deek said the arrests were carried out with “a great deal of brutality,” injuring several Muslims.

“This is the result of stereotyping and racist ideologies and beliefs” toward Muslim communities, she said, “the idea that for some reason these Muslims would be more violent.”

Kieran O’Leary, a county police spokesman, said Tuesday that the arrests were “a lawful and necessary response to calm an escalating situation that could have put the safety of 6,000 Playland patrons at risk.”
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/nyregion/charges-against-muslims-dismissed-in-westchester-park-dispute.html?_r=1

Iraqis express outrage at US use of small fleet of surveillance drones to protect embassy, consulates, American personnel in Iraq.

Middle East Online – January 30, 2012
WASHINGTON – Iraqi officials have expressed outrage at the United States’ use of a small fleet of surveillance drones to help protect the US embassy, consulates and American personnel in Iraq, The New York Times reported late Sunday.

The newspaper said the State Department began operating some drones in Iraq last year on a trial basis and stepped up their use after the last US troops left the country in December.

The US government plans to take bids for the management of drone operations in Iraq over the next five years, the report said.

The State Department drones carry no weapons and are meant to provide data and images of possible hazards, like public protests or roadblocks, to security forces on the ground, the paper noted. They are much smaller than armed drones.

But the US government needs formal approval from Iraq to use such aircraft there, the paper noted, citing unnamed Iraqi officials.

Such approval may be hard to get given the political tensions between the two countries, The Times said.

A senior American official said negotiations were under way to obtain authorization for the drone operations, but Ali al-Mosawi, a top adviser to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki; Iraq’s national security adviser, Falih al-Fayadh; and the acting minister of interior, Adnan al-Asadi, all said in interviews that they had not been consulted by the Americans, the report said.

“Our sky is our sky, not the USA’s sky,” Asadi is quoted by the paper as saying.

The US Embassy, built on 104 acres of land, is supposedly called by the local Iraqis the “George W. Bush Palace”.

The Embassy in Baghdad is the largest and most expensive of any embassy in the world. At 0.44 square kilometers it is nearly as large as Vatican City. It also employs 15,000 people and cost $750 million to build.

The Embassy opened in January 2009 following a series of construction delays. It replaced the previous embassy, which opened July 1, 2004 in Baghdad’s Green Zone in a former Palace of Saddam Hussein.
Source: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=50342

Hajj exhibition explores history, journeys, experiences of pilgrims who travel from around world to reach holy city of Mecca.

Middle East Online – January 25, 2012
LONDON- The British Museum in London opens its doors on Thursday to the first major exhibition in the world on Hajj, the Islamic pilgrimage to the heart of Islam.

Using priceless artefacts, video footage, personal audio recordings and photographs, the show explores the history, journeys and experiences of pilgrims who travel from around the world to reach the holy city of Mecca.

Among the artefacts on display is a “Mahmal”, one of the ceremonial curtained transports in which the Sultans were carried from Cairo to Mecca in what is now Saudi Arabia, and a Koran from the eighth century.

Also on show is “Milestone”, one of the stone slabs once used by pilgrims in Iraq to mark their route to Mecca, so they could find their way home.

“Magnetism”, a minimalist piece of art by Saudi artist Ahmed Mater of the Kaaba, the sacred site around which the pilgrims pray, adds a modern touch.

The Hajj exhibition is the third by the British Museum in a series of sacred spritual journeys that included “Treasures of Heaven” and “Book of the Dead”, and is intended to improve understanding of the pilgrimage and Islam itself.

“We had to contact museums from all over the world to request if we could borrow some of their artefacts, and if there were items that related to the routes of Hajj,” said curator Venetia Porter.

Many of the artefacts were donated by Nasser Khalili, one of the biggest collectors of Islamic art in the world.

“This exhibition is a journey that sends out a religious, spiritual, ritual and cultural message that proves how harmonious Islam is,” Khalili said.

Muslims are obligated to try to make the Hajj to Mecca at least once in their lives, during the last month of the Islamic year known as Dhu’l Hijja.

“Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam” opens at the British Museum on January 26, and runs until April 15.
Source: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=50256