Imagine being a parent explaining to their children what the sounds of bombs are. “When the shelling became heavier, I would tell them it was fireworks, but I could not lie any longer,” one mother says in the video. The only voices we seem to hear in the U.S. are the ones that invoke fear … Continued
BY: Sami Asmar/Contributing Writer Talented artists typically prosper in the U.S. and American audiences are fortunate to have access to world-class music of all genres. Most major cities have full-size orchestras, as do large universities. Some communities are so interested in promoting music education that their high schools have successful classical orchestras. Not counting colleges, … Continued
BY ORIE GIVENS
Advocate.com
Mirna Haidar sounds exhausted but determined. And she and her community of LGBT and allied Muslims are overwhelmed, both personally and as a group of people working to represent for themselves in the face of Islamophobia while in solidarity with fellow communities in grief. And it’s the holiest month on the Islamic calendar, Ramadan, a time for fasting, reflection, and study.
“So many things are frustrating about this,” Haidar, a board member for the Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity, tells The Advocate. “It’s taking a lot away from us and moving us backward instead of forward.”
She’s volunteered to be a spokeswoman for the organization, to ensure that the media narratives are fair concerning queer Muslims and the Muslim population in general. This is a job that, sadly, must be done each time someone of Arab origin commits a criminal act.
As an advocate for LGBT people and a gender-nonconforming Muslim, Haidar would rather be supporting the victims and the communities she feels are most vulnerable.
“I blame Islamophobia,” Haidar says as she bikes to another vigil across New York City. “It’s distracting us from the real problems we need to deal with … trans Latina lives, access to guns in the country, and lack of access to mental health for people of color.”
Islamophobia comes from a lot of places. At a rally, when she was trying to show solidarity and speak for her community, a heckler screamed at her. The commotion interrupted her speech, but the crowd shut the heckler down with chants of “No hate.”
Haidar wants to counter not only the media narrative that erases or others LGBT Muslims but also the mainstream’s resistance to respecting the intersectionality and existence of LGBT Muslim identities. The speeches, reports, memes and social media posts after the Orlando massacre have only intensified her effort to affirm that Muslim doesn’t equal terrorist.
“When the United States is dealing with this horrible thing, we’re focused on the language of extreme jihadism or extreme Islamism, rather than focusing on the root problem,” says Haidar, who works with the Arab American Association of New York as well as on MASGD’s steering committee. “That’s what Islamophobia is doing, it’s distracting us from the real problems we should be dealing with.”
National conversation about gun control is being detoured by Islamophobia. In one of his speeches on Orlando, for example, President Obama dedicated most of his time to touting the effectivness of his strategy to combat ISIS and railing against the anti-Muslim rhetoric of Donald Trump and his supporters.
“We want to be able to comfort people and say, ‘Oh, this is the problem — we identified it as this whole one body that is alien to us and we attack it,” says Haidar. She adds, “I hope we can really remember not to treat hate with more hate.”
Source: www.advocate.com
Press release: Giaba for Mayor 2017
Matthew Giaba, an Arab-American leads the way to living with all races and religion in peace and unity, as he runs for 2017 Los Angeles City Mayor Office. Though not a career politician, his perception changed dramatically after the 9/11 world trade center attacks. He was one of the many first responders in the and recovery of American lives. After the shocking event he went on to fight on the Frontline against terrorism in Iraq, showing his deepest love for America and her principles.
Every race and religion has been attacked in one way or the other, the holocaust, the mass genocide of the Armenians, the recent attacks initiated by Azerbaijan against Artsakh. There is a great need for this evil cycle to be put to a stop, and this starts with the right leadership because everything rises and fall with the leader.
“I saw a great giant- love for people, triggered in me during the 9/11 attacks. My deepest love for the American people and dreams, was brought to live then and till now. Helping people as a public is still like fighting to save lives like I did in the 9/11 attacks, you have got to have an unfailing love for people.” Says Matthew Giaba.
He commented further, “For us all to have a great city, with a better future for our children, we need to put someone with a large heart filled with love in public offices, and this is why I am asking you to get me elected. As I talk about this and think about this, we all have our battles in life, but when we stand together and stay untied, we all can battle this together, as the people of this great country, state, city. The only ones we should be fighting against is our fake, corrupt government system who pretends to know what is best for us”
Having passed through living and struggling from paycheck to paycheck, being judged and bullied because of his ethnic background and profession, Mr Giaba has grown developed a strong mentality and can use this same spirit to lead the city of Los Angeles to a better and greater future.
Source: pressreleasejet.com
Press release: The National U.S. – Arab Chamber of Commerce (NUSACC)
The National U.S. – Arab Chamber of Commerce (NUSACC) this week hosted its fifth annual Ramadan Iftar celebration in honor of the Arab diplomatic community and the League of Arab States. Over 200 leaders of numerous faiths attended the high-profile gathering held at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel in downtown Washington DC. Attendees included business leaders and senior U.S. and Arab government officials, including Chiefs of Mission from Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon, Oman, Somalia, Yemen, and the League of Arab States.
Breaking the fast (Iftar) during Ramadan is a traditional event celebrated daily by more than 1.7 billion Muslims around the globe. Ramadan is a holy month of spiritual cleansing in which adherents of Islam rededicate themselves to God, worship, and reading the Quran, Islam’s holiest book. The month-long period is marked by fasting, personal sacrifice, self discipline, and increased generosity, especially toward the underprivileged.
“In the spirit of Ramadan, let us count our blessings,” said David Hamod, President & CEO of NUSACC. “The Holy Month gives us an opportunity to celebrate what is good in the world, but it also encourages us to tackle challenges in order to make the world a better place.”
Source: campaign.r20.constantcontact.com
Morocco World News
Hundreds of people of all faiths gathered on Saturday, June 18, at the Beachmont School Cafeteria to celebrate an interfaith Iftar organized by the Moroccan American community of Revere. The event was attended by religious leaders representing all faiths in the city of Revere to promote a culture of peace, tolerance, and coexistence.
Muslims do not eat or drink during the day for the month of Ramadan. At the end of the day an Iftar is held. An Iftar is a meal served at the sunset to break the day’s fast. The Iftar celebration varies from one cultural group to another. Therefore, people who attended this event were allowed to observe and experience an Iftar the Moroccan way. This includes trying some of the mouth-watering Moroccan dishes and enjoying some great music from Morocco, which was performed by the Noor Ensemble.
During this special Iftar, all the guests had an opportunity to speak, on a personal capacity, with officials who attended the event. Mayor Arrigo addressed the Moroccan community and thanked them for their generosity and hospitality. He added that the Moroccan community is carrying on the tradition of immigrants who chose to pursue their hopes and dreams in Revere. He continued by telling those in attendance that they have contributed to our collective story — a story of persistence, faith and family.”
The Moroccan-born city’s chief administrative officer (CAO), Omar Boukili, interacted with the Moroccan community to learn more about their concerns. “Events like this are very important so we can get to hear from the diverse community of Revere,” said Boukili.
Rachid Moukhabir, a proud Moroccan American community organizer and a longtime Revere resident, spoke to the audience on behalf of the Muslim community condemned the recent horrific attack against the LGBT community in Orlando, Florida. “Our entire community should not be held responsible for the actions of ISIS or any other terrorist group,” said Moukhabir. (but FBI has recently said that Omar Mateen was not affiliated with ISIS.)
The night started with a recital of some verses from the holy Quran by Imam Soufyan, which were translated to English by the 9-year-old Ninna Nafai. Then, all governmental and religious leaders were recognized. After Al-Adhan, the call to prayer, and right before the dinner started, Muslims prayed Salat Al-Maghreb, sunset prayers. Next, everyone got to enjoy the Iftar. While adults were enjoying the event, their kids were having a good time with John the balloon man.
This event was mainly sponsored by volunteers from the community as well as some Moroccan and Arab businesses: Casablanca House of Pastry, the Good Diner, Tibari Travels, Omar Financial Services, Abeer & Associates Investment Group, and HHH Financial Solution.
Source: www.moroccoworldnews.com
By Sheila Pursglove
Legal News
Born and raised during Lebanon’s 15-year civil war, Rabih Hamawi saw first-hand the pain of injustice.
“I’ve always viewed law as an equalizer – a power that forces everyone to play by the same rules, and have the same rights and responsibilities,” says Hamawi, now an attorney with Fabian, Sklar, & King in Farmington Hills. “But in Lebanon, you may only go ahead in life if you come from a political family, have deep roots within a religious sector, are ready to be a mercenary for a foreign country, or are willing to carry arms to fight your neighbors or even siblings as a method to move ahead.”
Setting his sights on becoming an attorney and advocating for the less fortunate, Hamawi attended law school in Lebanon for four years, graduating in the top 2 percent of his class. Immigrating to the United States in search of a brighter future, he worked as an insurance agent for the UNITRIN family of companies before launching his own insurance and financial services agency in 2005, which he owned until this year. He holds licenses in Property, Casualty, Life, Accident, and Health insurance, is a Licensed multiple lines Property and Casualty, Life, Accident, and Health Insurance Counselor (LIC), and earned the Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriter (CPCU), Certified Insurance Consultant (CIC), and Certified Risk Manager (CRM) designations.
“Running the agency opened my eyes to the practices that insurance companies utilize to try to avoid or delay payments of legitimate claims,” he says. “To insurance companies, an insured is a good customer so long as he or she is paying the hefty premium, but as soon as the insured tries to obtain benefits under the policy, insurers often look for a way to try to deny or delay payment.”
The same year he opened the agency he started graduate school at Walsh College and earned a master’s degree in finance with a concentration in financial planning. He then spent six years working and saving money to attend law school.
The long struggle was well worth it. Hamawi earned his Juris Doctor, magna cum laude, from Western Michigan University Cooley Law School, where he was honored with the Law Review Board Award and Student Leadership Achievement Award. He served as a student attorney for the Immigrant Rights and Civil Advocacy Clinic, served on the moot court and mock trial executive boards, was a member of the national trial team and the first year moot court team, and was a symposium editor on the Cooley Law Review.
Selecting Hamawi for a federal court internship through the Wolverine Bar Association program for minority students, U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts placed him with Judge John Corbett O’Meara of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.
“The experience was amazing – I met lots of great people I still keep in touch with,” Hamawi says. “Judge O’Meara is a great person who taught me a lot through this experience. He was always open to talking and discussing various topics, which I didn’t expect to receive as an intern. I still remember the citizenship ceremony for new United States citizens that he conducted and invited me to attend. His staff was also very supportive and made me feel like one of their family members.”
During an internship for the U.S. Department of Justice in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit, Hamawi worked on cases involving one of his favorite classes: Criminal Procedure, and represented the United States in front of federal magistrates in federal misdemeanor cases.
“I enjoyed doing the duty-ticket calls because you’re trying to send a message that there are consequences for a person’s actions,” he says. “I also learned from a couple of assistant U.S. attorneys the value of rehabilitative justice by trying to give violators a second chance and encourage them to become better citizens.”
When he owned the insurance agency, he dealt with a marketing representative who was a cousin of Michael Fabian – and after passing the bar exam, Hamawi was able to get an introduction that ultimately led to him joining Fabian, Sklar, and King PC, a law firm that specializes in handling insurance disputes.
“I’m excited about the opportunities I now have working with a group of attorneys who have been so successful in achieving the same goals I’ve always strived to achieve,” he says. “I now get to utilize all of my knowledge and skills to fight for others who have lost their homes, businesses, and their most precious personal items due to disasters, and who now must persevere against an insurance company to get their lives back together. This has been a great and fulfilling journey and I know it is only the beginning.”
In his leisure time, Hamawi enjoys travel, with California, Canada, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Germany, and France as favorites. He also enjoys working out, kickboxing, chess, ping pong, and boating and other outdoor activities. He attends the Islamic Center of Detroit, participating in events and volunteering in community-outreach programs.
“It’s nice living close to Detroit and being able to spend my free time downtown, by the river, or watching any of the Detroit sports teams,” he says. “Living in Michigan also provides the opportunity to experience all four seasons which is especially nice during the warm summer months when I travel up north to enjoy the lakes.”
The oldest of six, in 2005 the Dearborn resident was able to bring three of his siblings and his parents to the United States, where they live close to Hamawi and his wife Amy.
“Although two of my siblings still reside in Lebanon, I’m very fortunate to have the majority of my immediate family in close proximity,” he says.
Source: legalnews.com
By LIZ ROBBINS
THE NEW YORK TIMES
For Muhammad Hannan and other Muslim high school students in New York City, this has been a Ramadan of contrasts and conflicting emotions.
The joy of breaking a 16-hour fast with the first bite of a sweet date. The horror of hearing about the attack on a gay nightclub in Florida that left 49 dead. The drudgery of reviewing a year’s worth of earth sciences and trigonometry notes. The frustration of defending Islam — and the right to be in this country — after another terrorist attack carried out in the name of the Islamic State.
“I just don’t get it,” said Muhammad, a 17-year-old junior at Abraham Lincoln High School in Coney Island, Brooklyn, who immigrated from Pakistan with his family in 2014. “Islam is all about peace. In Ramadan, we don’t even curse. You’re not supposed to do anything bad.”
Ramadan is usually Muhammad’s favorite time. This year, though, the holiday, which encompasses a month of fasting from dawn to dusk, has not offered its usual refuge. Already, Ramadan coincided with the Regents, the series of state tests that most high school students in New York take.
Then on Sunday, a Muslim man born in New York, Omar Mateen, called 911 to proclaim his allegiance to ISIS and opened fire in the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.
Within a day, Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, was renewing his call to ban Muslims from entering the United States.
And the day after that, another student in Muhammad’s English class started echoing Mr. Trump’s call.
“He was talking a lot of bad things, with no proof,” Muhammad said of the classmate. Muhammad replied that there were differences between Muslims like Muhammad Ali and those like Omar Mateen.
“If you can tell the difference between white people and K.K.K., you can at least differentiate between Muslims and ISIS,” Muhammad recalled arguing in class.
How did that student respond? “He said, ‘Because Donald Trump said so,’” Muhammad said. “Everybody in the class was laughing.”
Salwa Mozzeb, 15, who is finishing her freshman year at Millennium Brooklyn High School in Park Slope soundly dismissed Mr. Trump’s proposal. “That’s messed up,” she said on Tuesday, wearing a hijab and speaking in a brassy Brooklyn accent. A naturalized United States citizen, she came with her mother from Syria when she was 9 months old. “I was raised here,” she said. “America is my home.”
Salwa lives in a Bay Ridge apartment with her parents, grandmother and four younger siblings; she has uncles and cousins who live in the same building and on the same block. She volunteers at the Arab American Association of New York, whose headquarters are in Bay Ridge. Her mother, who is from Syria, has a brother who escaped the civil war there and made his way to Sweden. Another relative has been waiting 10 years for a visa to enter the United States.
Once populated largely by Scandinavian immigrants, as well as those of Italian and Irish heritage, Bay Ridge has been transformed like so much of New York. There are nine mosques in the area now, according to Tony Carnes, a sociologist who publishes an online journal, “A Journey Through N.Y.C. Religions.” Many of the store signs on the avenues are written in Arabic.
After the killings in Orlando, Salwa’s father, Abdulnoor Mozzeb, 39, a naturalized American citizen originally from Yemen, warned his daughter to be especially careful on the subway, and to sit near the conductor. The idea annoyed her. “I’m just like any other 15-year-old here,” she said. “I want to hang out and chill. I don’t want to stress about feeling like I’m different because I’m Muslim.”
Mr. Mozzeb approved of her convictions. “She’s strong,” he said. “When it comes to your identity, somebody is going to disrespect you, you got to stand up.”
Salwa’s mother, Manar Al Ahamar, said that in April, outside a pharmacy in Bay Ridge, an older woman had confronted her, telling her to go back to her country and cursing her in front of her 10-year-old son, Ahmed.
Ms. Al Ahamar, 32, said she had just walked away, but had gotten so upset later that her blood pressure soared and she began to have severe chest pains. Salwa had helped her mother into in an ambulance. It was not until Wednesday that her mother revealed what had caused the emergency.
Salwa did not understand how a woman could verbally attack her mother, especially in what she considers her own neighborhood. “If she doesn’t want to be surrounded by Muslims,” Salwa said, “why is she in this community?’”
As for Muhammad, he spends his days in two Brooklyn neighborhoods dotted with mosques. He and his family live in Brighton Beach, and he volunteers at the Council of Peoples Organization, a group in Midwood that serves Muslims, Arabs and South Asians.
In Brighton Beach, he and his older brother, Hassan, often attend a Turkish mosque up the block from their house, or one of three smaller mosques in the area. Though from the outside, Ramadan might seem to be a hardship — rising before dawn to eat, then going back to sleep before getting up again for school — Muhammad and his friends say it is more like a sweet respite.
“We get to fast, we get to stay close to Allah, we pray five times a day,” Muhammad said. “And after, when we pray at night, we go out with our friends and stay out till 1.”
Muhammad described the communal outdoor prayers in his hometown, Karachi, and how, with the streets closed, he and his friends would play cricket late into the night.
He said he missed the Ramadan of his childhood, but understood why his family moved to the United States.
“My parents wanted us to have a good education,” he said. He and Hassan, 21, who attends the Borough of Manhattan Community College, are permanent residents.
Salwa’s parents want the same for their children. “If you have education, you are a different person,” said Salwa’s father, who works as a doorman at a hotel in Midtown Manhattan.
The family lives half a block from their mosque at the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge, decorated on the outside this month with strings of colored lights. At 10 p.m. every night, Salwa and her friends go through the women’s entrance and, bypassing the hot, crowded third floor, climb to the roof.
They stay there in the soft breeze as the last embers of sunset fade and the lights of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge twinkle in the background. Like most high school girls, they check their phones, compliment one another on their outfits and discuss their exam schedules, while younger children turn cartwheels nearby.
When the prayers begin, the girls go into the stairwell so they can hear through the speakers, kneeling on the cold linoleum to be closer, spiritually, to Allah.
Muhammad and his family usually pray at home before going to the mosque for evening prayers. Then, often until early morning, he and Hassan engage in philosophical debates in the room they share, discussions about American values versus their Pakistani upbringing.
“Usually,” Muhammad said, “it’s about sneakers.”
He wants to add to his Air Jordan collection, even at $250 a pair. His brother counters: “You can feed four to five homeless people with that.”
Because of Ramadan, the brothers were awake before dawn on Sunday when the first reports of the massacre in Orlando began to appear on their phones. “I was literally praying, ‘Don’t be a Muslim,’” Hassan said.
Just the week before, the brothers had watched as America mourned one of its most famous Muslims, Muhammad Ali. They were proud. Now, they are hurt and angry.
“It takes people like Muhammad Ali to do good things for Islam,” Muhammad said, “and then it takes seconds for people like Omar Mateen to destroy everything.”
Source: www.nytimes.com
By Kristina Cooke and Joseph Ax
Religion News/Reuters
A man holds up a sign saying Arab Muslims condemn the attack as he takes part in a candlelight memorial service on June 13, 2016, the day after the mass shooting at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla. Photo courtesy of REUTERS/Carlo Allegri
Muslim-Americans have repeatedly informed authorities of fellow Muslims they fear might be turning to extremism, law enforcement officials say, contrary to a claim by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump this week.
“They don’t report them,” Trump said in a CNN interview on Monday (June 13), in the wake of the mass shooting at an Orlando nightclub of 49 people by an American Muslim who claimed allegiance to the Islamic State group. “For some reason, the Muslim community does not report people like this.”
But FBI Director James Comey said: “They do not want people committing violence, either in their community or in the name of their faith, and so some of our most productive relationships are with people who see things and tell us things who happen to be Muslim.
“It’s at the heart of the FBI’s effectiveness to have good relationships with these folks,” Comey said at a press conference after the Orlando shootings.
Andrew Ames, a spokesman for the FBI’s Washington field office, told Reuters on Wednesday that the agency has a “robust” relationship with the local Muslim community. FBI agents operating in the area have received reports about suspicious activity and other issues from community members.
Michael Downing, deputy chief of the Los Angeles Police Department and head of its Counterterrorism and Special Operations Bureau, said the city’s Muslim community has been cooperative in reporting “red flags.”
“I personally have been called by community members about several things, very significant things,” Downing told Reuters. “What we say to communities is that we don’t want you to profile humans, we want you to profile behavior.”
Charles Kurzman, a professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, who has conducted several studies on Muslim-Americans and terrorism, disputed Trump’s criticism.
“To claim there is no cooperation is false and defamatory to the Muslim-American community,” Kurzman said.
Kurzman said a January 2016 study by him and colleagues at Duke University’s Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security found that many law enforcement agencies had made progress in establishing trust with local Muslim-American communities.
But the study also found some tensions. In one focus group described in the study, Muslim-American participants debated when to report activity when they were unsure how to detect imminent violence.
“The group participants expressed concern that police would be more likely to encourage a plot in order to make an arrest,” the authors wrote, “rather than to divert people onto a nonviolent path that community members and family members would prefer.”
One imam interviewed for the project told researchers he felt that his “trust is not being reciprocated” by U.S. government officials.
The imam told the researchers that after he attended a meeting with federal law enforcement officials designed to increase cooperation, he went to the local airport, was held for hours at security and missed his flight, the study said.
A Reuters review of court records also produced examples of Muslim-Americans informing law enforcement of possible radicalization within their families.
Suspecting that her then 17-year-old son, Ali Amin, was radicalizing, Amani Ibrahim followed the advice of a local imam and reported her fears to law enforcement officials, according to court records. In August 2015, Amin was sentenced to 11 years in prison for conspiring to provide material support to Islamic State after he helped a schoolmate travel to join the extremist group.
In 2014, the sister of Abdi Nur contacted Minneapolis police to report her younger brother missing. She later showed federal agents messages she received, in which he said he had “gone to join the brothers” and promised to see her in the afterlife. Nur has been charged with conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist group but is still at large.
And in 2014, Adam Shafi’s father, Sal Shafi, told officials in the U.S. Embassy in Cairo that he was worried his son was radicalizing after Adam went missing during a family trip in Egypt.
Adam Shafi soon rejoined his family but was arrested in July 2015 after trying to board a flight to Turkey from San Francisco airport. He was charged with attempting to provide material support to al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaida-linked group in Syria.
Source: religionnews.com
BY: Julia Kassem/Contributing Writer Overnight, 49 people in downtown Orlando were killed in a shooting that leveraged dual damage against two minority groups often marginalized and ostracized in the mainstream media. In America’s worst mass shooting in history, it is not accurate, perhaps, to lament that no one could have prevented the tragedy in a … Continued
(Left to right): Mariam C. Noland, President of the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan and James B. Nicholson, Board Chair, with Hassan Jabber, Executive Director and Rasha Demashkieh, Board President, of ACCESS. ACCESS is the 2016 winner of the Richard F. Huegli Award for Program Excellence. DETROIT – ACCESS (the Arab Community Center for Economic … Continued
By Bill Chambers The Chicago Monitor On Monday morning, over 100 of Rasmea Odeh’s supporters gathered from five states at the Federal Courthouse in Detroit to hear the results of her hearing on whether she would be allowed to present her full story and potentially be granted a new trial. In February, the Sixth Circuit … Continued
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