Social media, where good news trump bad news

Having always been accustomed to reading and hearing about corrupt politicians, abductions and killings in the daily newspaper and on daily television news reports, social media has become my source of sunshine.

Once I’m done learning about these horrific events I turn on my computer, connect to Wi-Fi and begin browsing the internet with hopes of getting away from all of the negativity.

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit and BuzzFeed have personally been my source of happiness. Scrolling down Facebook and reading about all of my friends’ accomplishments and aspirations lets me believe that there are so many great things going on around me. Tweeting at celebrities and looking up funny videos on YouTube isn’t my own personal guilty pleasure. Everyone does it!

Victoria Chiriboga, an Ecuadorian student at George Washington University, spends some time on social networks such as Facebook only to read about the good news her family and friends have to share.

“I enjoy reading my newsfeed on Facebook, it helps me stay connected with my family and friends who are still in Quito,” she said. “Facebook is definitely a place where most people in our generation, including myself, go to get ‘light’ news about day to day activities.”

The New York Times recently published an article about a new study that shows that social media is being used as a source of good news rather than bad news. The Times mentioned the following: ”Neuroscientists and psychologists have found that good news can spread faster and farther than disasters and sob stories.”

“People say more positive things when they’re talking to a bigger audience, rather than just one person.”

Social media as an outlet for everyone

All of these social media networks are meant to be used for people to express themselves, show admiration for their sports teams, share pictures of amazing trips and talk about great challenges they have conquered. Why would people go on Facebook and talk about unaccomplished goals and failures? It makes no sense. No one wants to log on to Facebook and see on their newsfeed, “Today was a terrible day.” People want to see “I got into college!” or “My favorite sports team just won the championship!” and “I’m going to be a parent!”

As it was clearly stated in the New York Times article, people feel like they have to share these amazing stories with their friends in order to show off the great things that are happening to them. They are encouraged to share more and more of their accomplishments once they start receiving likes, shares and retweets.

I personally believe that all social media networks are a great way of staying in contact with family and friends, but there are some people who disagree.

How do you feel social media has impacted our society? Do you depend on it as a source of good or bad news? Sound off in the comments!

Fasting Ramadan not linked to premature births

NEW YORK: In a small new study, pregnant women who fasted during the holy month of Ramazan were no more likely to give birth prematurely than women who didn’t observe the fast.

Lebanese researchers found no significant differences in the rate of births before the 37th week of pregnancy among 201 pregnant Beirut women who fasted during the daytime compared with 201 women who didn’t.

The babies of women who fasted were smaller, on average, however, which the researchers called “alarming.”

During Ramazan, the ninth lunar month of the Islamic calendar, Muslims abstain from eating and drinking from dawn to dusk.

While fasting is compulsory in Islam, the researchers write in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology that pregnancy may be “a relative exemption if reasons for maternal/fetal hardship are suspected.”

Nonetheless, many pregnant women ask whether it’s OK to fast during Ramazan the study’s lead author, Dr Anwar Nassar, told Reuters Health in an email.

Nassar, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the American University of Beirut Medical Center, added that other studies have looked at fasting during pregnancy – such as in cases of famine or in experiments with calorie restriction – but this is the first in the English literature to look at the effects of Ramazan fasting, specifically, on preterm delivery.

For their study, Nassar and his colleagues recruited pregnant women from four medical centers around Beirut in August 2008, matching the characteristics of those who planned on fasting with a comparison group of pregnant women who did not fast.

Each woman was followed for the month of Ramazan, whose timing changes each year. It occurred during September in 2008.

All the women were in their third trimester during the study period.

The researchers kept track of the women’s health, when they delivered their babies and how much the baby weighed.

Overall, 21 women in each group gave birth before their 37th week of pregnancy, which is considered “preterm.”

Three fasting women gave birth before the 32nd week of their pregnancy, compared with one in the non-fasting group, but the researchers say that small difference could have been due to chance.

The babies of fasting women also tended to be smaller than the babies of women who did not fast.

On average, fasting women’s babies weighed about 3kg (about 6.8 pounds), compared with the babies of non-fasting women, who averaged 3.2 kilos (7 pounds).

“Although results are reassuring as far as there is no increased risk of preterm delivery, the fact that the mean birth weight was significantly lower in Ramazan-fasted women is alarming,” said Nassar.

One possible explanation for the difference in babies’ birthweights could be the fact that fasting mothers tended to gain less weight during the Ramazan period – 1.6 kilos, versus 2.3 kilos among non-fasting women.

While the researchers cannot say what a low birth weight could mean for babies later on in life, Nassar noted that it has been linked to heart disease.

Other effects of fasting during pregnancy may not be immediate and there could be other consequences as the child grows, the report adds.

More study is needed on this question, according to Nassar. The fasting period during Ramazan can vary considerably, from 10 to 19 hours, depending on what time of year the holiday falls in, and what part of the globe a woman is in.

Moreover, different cultures in the Muslim world have different traditions regarding feasting at night to break the fast, so it’s hard to generalize about the calorie and nutrition intake of all fasting women during Ramazan.

In addition, though the new study included more women than previous research on fasting, a larger number of participants may be needed to detect smaller differences between groups.

Imams of New York hit the streets in protest against terrorism, Islamophobia

In a bid to rebut accusations by a Republican lawmaker of not cooperating in fighting terrorism, Muslim imams are planning to take to the streets of New York next week to make loud and clear their opposition to terror, Islamophobia and wars.

“We call upon all Muslims to come out with their families on Saturday, April 9, 2011 noon at Union Square in NYC,” reads a statement endorsed by 100 imams from New York and published by The American Muslim website.

The imams will march from Union Square in NYC at noon before moving south through the Broadway street at about 2:30 pm to Foley Square, where the rally will show their cause until 5 pm.

The march comes at an initiative from the Muslim Peace Coalition USA, a recently formed coalition of Muslim peace activists and organizations with members in 14 states.

In the statement, the imams voiced appreciation at Americans who sided with Muslims against a growing sentiment of Islamophobia in the United States.

“We, 100 Imams from the Muslim community in New York area, stand together to thank our neighbours who have defended the Muslim community against Islamophobia,” the statement reads.

Since 9/11, US Muslims, estimated between six to seven million, have become sensitized to an erosion of their civil rights, with a prevailing belief that America was stigmatizing their faith.

Anti-Muslim frenzy has grown recently over plans to build a mosque near the 9/11 site in New York, resulting in attacks on Muslims and property.

Representative Peter King, the chairman of the US House of Representatives’ Homeland Security Committee, has sparked further uproar by claiming that US Muslims are being radicalized by Al-Qaeda operatives.

The New York Republican has also accused Muslim leaders of not cooperating with law enforcement authorities in fighting terrorism, drawing fire from several Muslim and non-Muslim Americans.

“Our neighbours have stood in opposition to Congressman Peter King’s hearings and against the efforts of the extremists to criminalize the practice of Islam in America,” the imams said.

The April 9 march will aim to “stand in solidarity with our neighbours for justice at home and abroad; for peace and jobs; against wars and terrorism, and to bring our troops home.”

“We support the rights of all people to practice their beliefs in peace at home and abroad, as well as equal opportunity for all.”

American Rights

Reaching out to the larger community, the imams reiterated support for demands raised by American trade unions and for reforming the US justice system.

“We support the rights of unions to bargain and the rights of undocumented workers to due process of law,” the signatories said.

“We demand reform of our justice system to eliminate secret evidence and the consistent criminalization of inner-city communities.”

According to the Muslim Peace Coalition USA, 400 organizations from labour movement, peace movement and civil rights groups have endorsed the call for the rally.

The imams also called for hearings to investigate mounting hate-mongering in the United States.

“We ask Congress to conduct hearings against the rise of hate and hate groups in the United States.”

Last week, Dick Durbin, a Democrat House representative peer, held a hearing on anti-Muslim bigotry that threatens US Muslims’ civil rights, two weeks after King’s hearing.

Estimates show that 14 per cent of religious discrimination is reported against Muslims.

Ending wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is one more demand for the imams along with other the groups to partake.

“Together we urge that the untold billions of dollars now spent for wars instead be used for Americans’ needs at home,” the Muslim imams read.

What Muslims want in a new Pope

(RNS) Together, Islam and Catholicism represent about 40 percent of the world’s population, so the estimated 1.6 billion Muslims in the world have more than a passing interest in the new pope who will shepherd the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics.

Too often, relations between the two groups have been shaped by conflict — the Christian Crusades of 1,000 years ago are still a raw wound for many Muslims, and more recently, Muslim extremist attacks on Christian communities across Africa and the Middle East have left the Vatican deeply concerned.

“What the pope says or doesn’t say can have enormous consequences on such relations,” said Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, founder of the Cordoba Initiative, an organization dedicated to improving Muslim-Western relations, and the founder of the controversial so-called Ground Zero mosque in New York.

The selection of the 266th pope comes at a critical juncture in Muslim-Catholic relations, which have been marred by persecution of Christians in the Muslim world, Islamophobia in Western countries, Western military action in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq, and rioting between Muslims and Christians across Africa.

While many Muslims said they saw an improvement in Muslim-Catholic relations under Pope John Paul II, they say Pope Benedict XVI’s papacy was more problematic.

Most worrisome, Muslims say, was in 2006 when Benedict spoke at the University of Regensburg in Germany and quoted a 14th-century Byzantine emperor who said Islam’s Prophet Muhammad had only brought “evil and inhuman” things to the world, and that Islam was “spread by the sword.” Those remarks touched off a series of deadly riots in several Muslim countries.

Muslims were also concerned by the Vatican’s opposition to Turkey joining the European Union, and in replacing Archbishop Michael L. Fitzgerald, a British-born Islam expert who was seen as friendly with Muslims, as head of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue in 2006.

Since then, Benedict made several trips to Islamic countries, including Turkey, which repaired some of the damage, and many Muslims give Benedict high marks for his efforts to re-engage Muslims.

“Pope Benedict XVI made a significant effort to reconcile with Muslims after his Regensburg speech,” tweeted Ingrid Mattson, chair of Islamic studies at Huron University College in Ontario and a former president of the Islamic Society of North America.

Ebrahim Moosa, an Islamic studies professor at Duke University, said the Regensburg fiasco showed the need for improved ties. “The Vatican is invested in good relations with the Muslim world, and under a new pope there is no reason to believe that it would be any different,” he said.

While many Muslims acknowledge the interfaith efforts Benedict made, many also hope a successor will be more like John Paul II.

“This pope had not really been a bridge-builder and there will be hope that the next one will be someone who tries to heal wounds and build bridges,” said Adil Najam, vice chancellor at Pakistan’s Lahore University of Management Sciences, and former director of Boston University’s Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future.

Some Muslims believe that a pope from Africa or Asia, where Muslims and Christians live alongside each other in sometimes volatile conditions, would benefit Muslim-Christian relations.

“There could be a lot of opportunity. A young pope could be more in tune with the globalized world and all the interfaith activity that takes place,” said Qamar-ul Huda, an expert on religious conflict and reconciliation at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington. “They live in pluralistic societies, and have to have good relations with Muslims so their communities get along on a day-to-day basis.”

Chris van Gorder, an expert in Muslim-Christian relations at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, named three possible papal contenders with firsthand experience in Islam:

• Cardinal Angelo Scola of Milan, 71, founded an organization called “Oasis” designed to promote Muslim-Catholic dialogue and has spoken and written extensively on the need for Muslims and Christians to mutually confront secularism and social justice issues.
• Cardinal Francis Arinze of strife-torn Nigeria has been “a leading light in the Vatican about promoting respect for Muslims,” van Gorder said. “But he’s now 80, so it’s not likely he would become pope.”
• Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana, 64, had a paternal uncle who was Muslim. As president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, he has “supported Muslims and Christians working together to promote improved moral and civic society,” van Gorder said.

While many Catholic leaders acknowledged Benedict’s missteps and the need for greater dialogue, many also said Muslims could do more to address the persecution of Christians in Muslim countries.

In 2011, when Benedict condemned Muslim attacks against Christian communities in Egypt, Iraq and Nigeria, officials at the renowned Al-Azhar University in Cairo called off dialogue with the Vatican, citing the pope’s “insults.”

“A new pope will not just want to talk about love and peace. He will want to talk about the difficult subjects, too,” said the Rev. Patrick J. Ryan, a Jesuit priest and professor of religion and society at Fordham University in New York.

Rauf agreed that Muslims need to do more about the persecution of Christians in Muslim nations. “We can’t do enough to combat the militancy that you see in Muslim countries in various parts of the world against their fellow countrymen who are Christian,” said Rauf.

A key appointment will be who the new pope chooses to advise him on interfaith dialogue. Fitzgerald was replaced by French Cardinal Paul Poupard, who served until September 2007, when he was replaced by the current prefect, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran. Last July, Benedict named another Islam expert, the Rev. Miguel Ayuso Guixot, as the No. 2 official at the interfaith office.

“He’s a man of great capability,” said Ryan. “He’s a name to be watched. He will be very influential.”

Green Deen: what Islam teaches about protecting the planet

Fox News, Republican politicians and conservative pundits can deny global warming and the need for greener living all they want, but one thing is for certain: it’s not faith that’s causing the blindness, but wilful ignorance.  In the brand-new book Green Deen: What Islam Teaches About Protecting the Planet, written by a Muslim-born policy advisor in the New York City’s Mayor’s Office, the connection between faith and environmentalism is not only apparent, but also fundamental in understanding the relationship we have between the personal and environmental/communal.

Green Deen is not so much a book about Islam as it is a book about environmental living and policy from a Muslim perspective.  Its message and practical applications are really nothing new.  What sets it apart is its Islamic perspective, which gives a breath of fresh air to the portrayal of one of today’s most misunderstood religions.

In a time when many associate Islam with terrorism and oil, not many understand the long history of environmentalism that is inherent in the Qur’an and Islamic teachings.  Practicing Muslims are taught to look at themselves as stewards of the Earth.  As Green Deen’s author, Ibrahim Abdul-Matin wrote, “The Earth is a mosque.”  He starts the book by defining the word Deen not as a religion, but as a “way of life” in Arabic, a system of living and interpreting the world as a way to arrive at peace with it.  Add the colour green to it, and Green Deen was written as a practical approach to merge personal faith with the common cause of environmentalism:

“Green Deen means understanding that God created us directly from the Earth and that we must do all that we can to take care of it, protect it, and manage all of its bounty in a sustainable way.”

From his perspective, everyone, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, can create a green Deen because everyone can contribute to how we take care of the Earth in our public and private lives.

Green Deen is organized into four parts: Waste, Watts, Water, and Food.  As Abdul-Matin explains, these are four components central to defining how well societies function:

“Waste management and energy delivery is essential to the every-day functioning of a city or society.  Water and food is vital to the survival of humanity.”

Abdul-Matin argues “over-consumption and [targeted] corporate abuse as the problem.  Both capitalism and socialism define your value as a human being on what you can make or create or destroy or waste or consume.”  Inherent in each section- Waste, Watts, Water, and Food- are six Islamic teachings that are central to living a Green Deen:

Tawhid (Oneness): the understanding that everything comes from Allah / God / Supreme Being.  To those who don’t believe in God, this can be less about religion or spirituality and more about the idea that “everything emanates from the same source… the universe is aglow with continuity” and of interconnectedness and continuity among all living things and their systems / environments.

Ayat (Sign): the ability to see everything in the natural world as a sign of Allah / God / Supreme Being / interconnectedness.

Khalifah (Steward): the responsibility we have to protecting the natural world and managing it in a sustainable way.

Amana (Trust): the duty we have to acting as stewards of the natural world.  Just like we can destruct the Earth more than any other creatures, we can also take care of it with a certain diligence that doesn’t exist in the animal kingdom.

Adl (Justice): simply, treating the world with justice, first by recognizing that humans have a negative impact on Earth, and then by reducing that impact as much as possible.

Mizan (Balance): understanding that the world exists in a natural balance, which thrown off by pollution, consumption, exploitation, etc., needs to be restored.

While some of quotations that Abdul-Matin sources from the Qur’an can be a little far-reaching, the great strength of this book is not so much that, but the practical application and examples he brings up as to how anyone, regardless of faith, can incorporate environmental balance into their daily lives.  The arguments can easily be applied to other faiths, and each one asks people to assess their own relationship with environmentalism with questions such as “How do you relate to trash, to waste, to consumption?”  With regards to energy consumption, Abdul-Matin creatively divides it between sustainable resources- solar and wind- as “Energy from Heaven” and traditional sources- gas, coal, oil- as “Energy from Hell.”  He also uses the Prophetic tradition of eating from the plate closest to you to support his argument for buying and eating local produce.

Of particular note is that Abdul-Matin’s examples of actively green Muslims all take place on the American continent, which speaks volumes to show that Islam can be an American and Western lifestyle, separate from political discourses and struggles in the Middle East.  When asked about the book’s lack of focus on American reliance on the Middle East for fossil fuels, he replied, “That’s a deep part of our Muslim tradition that we need to move away from.  But I’m not from Saudi Arabia.  I’m American, and I wanted to speak to my own people.”  Abdul-Matin describes it as the first “post-9/11″ book about Muslims, meaning it doesn’t mention that day, the War on Terror, and what it all means for American Muslims today.  Rather, he wanted to write a book that looks at practicing Muslims past 9/11 and working to contribute to a common American cause.

The book’s writing reads easily, and it offers something to readers on all levels of Islamic and environmental knowledge, be it a discussion of the basics or insights and advice for looking at the two in new ways.  It doesn’t offer all the answers; instead it “was designed to be the first step in this conversation, and my hope is that much more qualified scholars will join in and take this further.  To see if we can be a force for good- an example to ourselves first and foremost.”

No excuses for spying on law-abiding Muslims

Nearly 30 years ago, the federal courts had to place limits on New York City police surveillance to protect law-abiding citizens who happened to be politically engaged on civil rights and other issues. Based on new court filings in a longstanding suit challenging police surveillance techniques, the courts may need to intervene to stop the New York Police Department from spying on law-abiding citizens once again, this time Muslims.

The city’s police came under court scrutiny starting in 1971 for what civil rights lawyers described as illegal surveillance by the department’s infamous Red Squad, including its surveillance of Black Panthers who were acquitted on charges of conspiring to blow up police stations and department stores. The case, named for a plaintiff, Barbara Handschu, became a class action, spreading to other politically active groups, and was settled in 1985. The city agreed to follow court-ordered investigation guidelines that were loosened after Sept. 11 to ensure that the police had ample flexibility to ferret out terrorist threats.

The revised agreement allowed police officers to attend political and religious events, but barred them from retaining information unless it was related to potential terrorist acts or other unlawful activity. The restrictions had two purposes: to prevent the department from unfairly targeting entire political or religious groups, and to make sure that records were kept only when the police found “reasonable indications” of potential law breaking, not as an intrusion into the private affairs of innocent citizens.

A motion filed in federal court last week by the lawyers in the Handschu case makes a strong case that the city has simply ignored those guidelines in its antiterrorism fight and is targeting Muslim groups because of their religious affiliation, not because they present any risk.

In a particularly striking declaration, a Queens man who said the Police Department paid him to spy on Muslims last year also said he was assigned to spy on a lecture at the Muslim Student Association at John Jay College of Criminal Justice even though the police did not think the group was “doing anything wrong.” He said his handler told him that the department considered “being a religious Muslim a terrorism indicator.”

The man said he took pictures of those in the John Jay group and recorded their license plate numbers. While visiting mosques, he photographed worshipers and recorded cellphone numbers of people who attended Islamic instruction classes, forwarding all of it to his handler. At no point did his handler say he was going too far.

The Police Department’s agent said he used what the police called the “create and capture” method. He pretended “to be a devout Muslim and start an inflammatory conversation about jihad or terrorism and then capture the response to send to the N.Y.P.D.”

According to court documents, the New York City police routinely selected Muslim groups for surveillance and infiltration, even when they did not sponsor unlawful or terrorist acts and were not accused of contributing to them. Rather, the motion says, “they were all under investigation by undercovers or other infiltrators based on their theological views, status and association.”

Despite deploying an army of spies, the plaintiffs say, the Police Department never uncovered one of the so-called “incubators” of radicalism they set out to find. The lawyers also say that commanding officers criticized a detective for returning from spying expeditions without inflammatory information on the people he had been watching. If true, that could easily lead officers to hype their findings so they remain in good standing with their superiors.

The motion charges the city with violating the Handschu agreement by systematically retaining records of conversations in public places that do not pertain to “potential unlawful activity.”

Plaintiffs lawyers say they found scores of cases in which innocuous conversations recorded in public places were maintained in police records. One such conversation involved two Bengali speakers, one of whom spoke favorably of the United States government, discussing the president’s State of the Union address.

The court documents offer more than ample reason to be concerned about possible overreach and unconstitutional activity by the Police Department investigators. If the assertions by the Handschu lawyers are borne out in court, the judge should consider appointing an independent monitor to review department investigations.

Spying on New York Muslims yields no leads

NEW YORK — A senior New York Police Department official says that spying on the city’s Muslim community has not yielded a single criminal lead. Some Muslim targets of surveillance feel vindicated.

Surveillance of the Muslim community by the NYPD’s secret Demographics Unit for at least the past six years has not yielded a single lead or launched any terror investigation.  That statement, part of a decades-old civil rights case, came in a recent deposition by Assistant Chief and commanding officer of the NYPD Intelligence Division, Thomas Galati.

Muslim groups have long demanded the resignation of New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly over the surveillance issue.  But he enjoys the support of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and has defended surveillance as necessary to defend the city against terrorism. “We see ourselves as very conscious and aware of civil liberties and we know that there’s always going to be…there’s always going to be tension between the police department and so-called civil liberties groups,” he said.

Palestinian immigrant Mousa Ahmad says he had to close a coffee shop that he owned because police surveillance frightened away his customers. He still owns a barber shop next door.

“Maybe five outside, ten police inside, you know. I told him ‘what happened?’ He’s told me like just ‘this is routine.’ I said ‘routine for what? This is a barbershop.’ He go to the basement, he checked every single bag, every single drawer,” he said.

Cyrus McGoldrick represents the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.  He says Galati’s deposition confirms admonitions by Muslim targets of surveillance about the dangers of trading liberty for security. “You can see for yourself that this is not about keeping us safe, that this is, unfortunately, about control, about intelligence gathering for its own sake, and it has no practical purpose and is a tremendous waste of taxpayer dollars,” he said.

The NYPD did not respond to a VOA request for a comment about the deposition of Assistant Chief Galati.

Cyrus McGoldrick says law enforcement should look for crimes in human behavior, not religious or ethnic profiles of American citizens who happen to be Muslims.

Ad in New York subways arouses sharp debate

NEW YORK — Political ads posted in 10 New York City subway stations that equate criticism of Israel with Islamic terrorism have aroused little response from busy commuters, but a war of words between the group that paid for the ads and activist Muslim and other faith groups.

Depending on your point of view, the message is either provocative or inflammatory. It says, “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel, defeat Jihad.”

The signs were paid for by the American Freedom Defense Initiative, a group that decries what it views as the growing threat of Islamic fundamentalism. The group’s head, Pamela Geller, said the ads are a response to what she called anti-Jewish political signs that appeared in New York transit stations last year and last month.

“One of the ads called for the end of U.S. aid to Israel, implying that U.S. aid to Israel was an impediment to peace, when in fact, U.S. aid to Israel is an impediment to the annihilation of Israel,” Geller said. “Another anti-Israel campaign, 100 kiosks on New York City metro transit, was this fake, false map of this aggressive Israel quote unquote, ‘eating up’ all of Palestinian land.”

Geller said her ads are not anti-Islamic, and she insists the word “jihad” means to wage war for Islam, even though many modern Muslims use it to refer to an internal struggle for spiritual growth. “The fact of the matter is that close to 20,000 deadly Islamic attacks since 9/11 have all called it jihad, have all called it holy war, have all cited Quranic chapter and verse, and jihadic doctrine. And we have to be able to talk about this,” Geller said.

But to Muslims and members of other established religions, including prominent Jewish groups, such as the Anti-Defamation League, the ads are hate speech, even if constitutionally protected.

“We are civil rights advocates, so we absolutely defend Pamela Geller’s right to be a racist and a bigot,” said Cyrus McGoldrick, an official with the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “I think, though, that it’s our American duty to repudiate such disgusting language, such racist language as this opposition between the civilized and the savage.”

Subway travelers who saw the signs had varying reactions, both principled and pragmatic. “I think it’s terrible to use such horrible offensive language to tell lies about other people,” said one woman.

A male commuter was concerned the signs would provoke violence. “I think just sensitivities around the subways, considering that was one of the targets considered by other terror groups in the past here, in the city it’s probably a bad idea,” he said. But another commuter disagreed, saying, “I don’t think it’s hurtful. It’s just a matter of opinion and it is freedom of speech. If they want to take [offense], then they can start a riot, for no reason at all,” she said.

McGoldrick said that most subway travelers he observed did not even notice the signs, and that troubling as they are to him, the issue ranks low among the other serious concerns of American Muslims.

“However, we need to be conscious that this is propaganda,” he said, “and that this propaganda feeds war, that war depends on Islamophobia.  When it’s so easy to demonize Muslims here, to dehumanize Muslims here, it’s much easier to justify wars abroad.”

For her part, Pamela Geller says the ads have succeeded in increasing awareness and opening up a dialogue about an anti-Israeli bias that she feels is suppressed in most news reports. She is pressing a court case now to force the Washington, D.C. transit system to run the same ads.

Grassroots campaign launched to counter Islamophobic New York Subway ads

A grassroots campaign aimed at countering hateful anti-Muslim ads in New York’s subway system has gone live, placing posters in ten locations across New York City.

Called Talk Back to Hate, the campaign first launched its crowdfunding appeal in January in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, seeking to raise the money necessary to post advertisements in major subway stations from among the citizens of New York.

“I started the project because, like many people I’ve spoken to, these ads feel like an attack on our most basic communal values,” Akiva Freidlin, the creator of the project, said in an interview with ThinkProgress at the time. “They’re doubly offensive, for both attempting to demonize and intimidate individual members of a particular religious group, and trying to exploit the city’s grief and anger.”

Talk Back to Hate’s poster message was chosen from various suggestions submitted by contributors to the campaign. The image depicts a pair of arms wrapped around the Big Apple that is New York and the winning words “Hatred is easy. It is love that requires true strength.” The poster also features the names of those who donated to make the poster a reality. The ad is currently running at some of the New York subway’s most-trafficked stops, including Times Square and Rockefeller Center, as well as eight other locations throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn. Fundraising for a second round of ads is already on-going.

A digital version of the ad posted on the Talk Back to Hate website cycles through messages submitted by the campaign’s contributors. In a press release sent out by the campaign, Friedlin highlighted the several of those messages from New York City residents who donated to the project:

Campaign donor Omar Gaya is an American Muslim who moved to NYC about 2 years ago from California to work at a bio-pharmaceutical company. He calls TalkBackToHate.org “the voice of a formerly ‘silent’ majority.”

“We must raise our voices,” Gaya notes, “or else we risk letting the hatred of a few well-resourced individuals dominate the discourse and hijack the values of freedom and tolerance that we hold dear.”

Jessica Nepomiachi, a public policy & community outreach consultant, said that she gave in appreciation for the complexity and diversity of New York. “The NYC transit system carries millions of people a day through one of the most diverse cities in the world,” Nepomiachi says. “Our transit system should be a place of pride, a place to encourage thoughtful and peaceful dialogue, not hatred.”

The spark that launched the campaign was a series of Islamophobic subway ads funded by Pamela Geller’sAmerican Freedom Defense Initiative that ran in New York City and Washington, DC last year. Much as in the case of the ads that inspired Talk Back to Hate, the original series of ads from Geller — which referred to Muslims as “savages” — were likewise countered by various religious and civil groups.

Muslims from abroad are thriving in Catholic colleges

DAYTON, Ohio — Arriving from Kuwait to attend college here, Mai Alhamad wondered how Americans would receive a Muslim, especially one whose head scarf broadcasts her religious identity.

At any of the countless secular universities she might have chosen, religion — at least in theory — would be beside the point. But she picked one that would seem to underline her status as a member of a religious minority. She enrolled at the University of Dayton, a Roman Catholic school, and she says it suits her well.

“Here, people are more religious, even if they’re not Muslim, and I am comfortable with that,” said Ms. Alhamad, an undergraduate in civil engineering, as several other Muslim women gathered in the student center nodded in agreement. “I’m more comfortable talking to a Christian than an atheist.”

Read the entire article at the New York Times.

Muslim fashion designer Nailah Lymus encourages modesty

Among the hundreds of shows during New York’s Fashion Week, tonight’s presentation for the Ann Nahari label may be the only one in which the models are draped to conceal rather than reveal.

“You can be modest and still be fashion-forward and stay true to your faith,” said Nailah Lymus.

Lymus, 29, is a practicing Muslim and a fashion designer who has found her own way to merge two seemingly incongruous worlds. She designs a line for secular women who desire a little more modesty in their clothing.

Though she is not showing her own creations during Fashion Week, she is producing Saturday’s show for fellow designer Sumiyyah Rasheed, who is showing her upscale plus-size fashion. Lymus incorporated her own modest sensibilities into the entire show, from models wearing artful headwraps to layers of flowing fabric.

But Lymus is not only a designer. She has an agency for which she specifically recruits Muslim women as models.

“These girls have everything — the height, the look. And it’s like a dream deferred because they dress a certain way,” said Lymus. “Muslim women are fashion-forward. We embrace everything that other women do, but we just have certain stipulations.”

That means no tight clothing or exposed cleavage. In fact, no skin can be shown at all except for hands, feet and face. The models’ hair must also be covered. But even the hijabs can be fashion-forward.

Lymus works her design aesthetic into the headcoverings and said they can be styled with as much versatility as hair can.

Her modeling company, UnderWraps Agency, has booked runway and print jobs for its three Muslim models, one of whom walking in Saturday’s show.

Before starting the year-old agency, Lymus was careful to check with a few imams and elders in her community, who all agreed that it was an opportunity for fashion to be relatable to Muslims.

She is very selective in which models she signs.

“The models have to be very strong in themselves, confident and strong in conviction,” she said. “It can be tough to mix the secular and faith-based worlds. I don’t want to bring in anyone who’s not strong enough to handle this industry.”

One of those models is Hajer Naili, who was born and raised in Toulouse, France, and now lives in New York City. After Lymus saw her photo on a friend’s Facebook page, she reached out to the 27-year-old.

“I have always been into fashion, but from what I’ve seen so far, as a model you have to show your body,” said Naili. “I’m just not comfortable with that. I follow certain Islamic guidelines and stick with that as much as I can.”

Naili is a full-time journalist who also works as a print model on the side. Naili has done several photo shoots and even appeared in a rap music video wearing a black leather jacket over a long shirt, black jeans and boots. Her hair was wrapped in a turban. Rap singer Tableek wanted to present an image of women that wasn’t sexualized.

Breaking down stereotypes is also partly why Lymus began the modeling agency.

“There’s a thought that Muslim women can’t work or go to school or dress fashionably,” she said. “I want to get rid of that misunderstanding in an inviting forum. This is a positive religion.

“Women can be covered and confident,” she said, “secure and beautiful.”

Police chief angers New York’s Muslims

The appearance by the New York police department commissioner, Ray Kelly, in a film depicting an “Islami” flag over the White House and Muslims shooting Christians has angered the city’s Muslim population.

The Muslim community sees the screening of the film to 1,500 trainees and Kelly’s participation in it – which he at first denied but later admitted to after his appearance became public knowledge – as part of a pattern of discrimination against their community.

Spying on New York Muslims yields no leads

NEW YORK — A senior New York Police Department official says that spying on the city’s Muslim community has not yielded a single criminal lead. Some Muslim targets of surveillance feel vindicated.

Surveillance of the Muslim community by the NYPD’s secret Demographics Unit for at least the past six years has not yielded a single lead or launched any terror investigation.  That statement, part of a decades-old civil rights case, came in a recent deposition by Assistant Chief and commanding officer of the NYPD Intelligence Division, Thomas Galati.

Muslim groups have long demanded the resignation of New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly over the surveillance issue.  But he enjoys the support of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and has defended surveillance as necessary to defend the city against terrorism. “We see ourselves as very conscious and aware of civil liberties and we know that there’s always going to be…there’s always going to be tension between the police department and so-called civil liberties groups,” he said.

Palestinian immigrant Mousa Ahmad says he had to close a coffee shop that he owned because police surveillance frightened away his customers. He still owns a barber shop next door.

“Maybe five outside, ten police inside, you know. I told him ‘what happened?’ He’s told me like just ‘this is routine.’ I said ‘routine for what? This is a barbershop.’ He go to the basement, he checked every single bag, every single drawer,” he said.

Cyrus McGoldrick represents the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.  He says Galati’s deposition confirms admonitions by Muslim targets of surveillance about the dangers of trading liberty for security. “You can see for yourself that this is not about keeping us safe, that this is, unfortunately, about control, about intelligence gathering for its own sake, and it has no practical purpose and is a tremendous waste of taxpayer dollars,” he said.

The NYPD did not respond to a VOA request for a comment about the deposition of Assistant Chief Galati.

Cyrus McGoldrick says law enforcement should look for crimes in human behavior, not religious or ethnic profiles of American citizens who happen to be Muslims.

No excuses for spying on law-abiding Muslims

Nearly 30 years ago, the federal courts had to place limits on New York City police surveillance to protect law-abiding citizens who happened to be politically engaged on civil rights and other issues. Based on new court filings in a longstanding suit challenging police surveillance techniques, the courts may need to intervene to stop the New York Police Department from spying on law-abiding citizens once again, this time Muslims.

The city’s police came under court scrutiny starting in 1971 for what civil rights lawyers described as illegal surveillance by the department’s infamous Red Squad, including its surveillance of Black Panthers who were acquitted on charges of conspiring to blow up police stations and department stores. The case, named for a plaintiff, Barbara Handschu, became a class action, spreading to other politically active groups, and was settled in 1985. The city agreed to follow court-ordered investigation guidelines that were loosened after Sept. 11 to ensure that the police had ample flexibility to ferret out terrorist threats.

The revised agreement allowed police officers to attend political and religious events, but barred them from retaining information unless it was related to potential terrorist acts or other unlawful activity. The restrictions had two purposes: to prevent the department from unfairly targeting entire political or religious groups, and to make sure that records were kept only when the police found “reasonable indications” of potential law breaking, not as an intrusion into the private affairs of innocent citizens.

A motion filed in federal court last week by the lawyers in the Handschu case makes a strong case that the city has simply ignored those guidelines in its antiterrorism fight and is targeting Muslim groups because of their religious affiliation, not because they present any risk.

In a particularly striking declaration, a Queens man who said the Police Department paid him to spy on Muslims last year also said he was assigned to spy on a lecture at the Muslim Student Association at John Jay College of Criminal Justice even though the police did not think the group was “doing anything wrong.” He said his handler told him that the department considered “being a religious Muslim a terrorism indicator.”

The man said he took pictures of those in the John Jay group and recorded their license plate numbers. While visiting mosques, he photographed worshipers and recorded cellphone numbers of people who attended Islamic instruction classes, forwarding all of it to his handler. At no point did his handler say he was going too far.

The Police Department’s agent said he used what the police called the “create and capture” method. He pretended “to be a devout Muslim and start an inflammatory conversation about jihad or terrorism and then capture the response to send to the N.Y.P.D.”

According to court documents, the New York City police routinely selected Muslim groups for surveillance and infiltration, even when they did not sponsor unlawful or terrorist acts and were not accused of contributing to them. Rather, the motion says, “they were all under investigation by undercovers or other infiltrators based on their theological views, status and association.”

Despite deploying an army of spies, the plaintiffs say, the Police Department never uncovered one of the so-called “incubators” of radicalism they set out to find. The lawyers also say that commanding officers criticized a detective for returning from spying expeditions without inflammatory information on the people he had been watching. If true, that could easily lead officers to hype their findings so they remain in good standing with their superiors.

The motion charges the city with violating the Handschu agreement by systematically retaining records of conversations in public places that do not pertain to “potential unlawful activity.”

Plaintiffs lawyers say they found scores of cases in which innocuous conversations recorded in public places were maintained in police records. One such conversation involved two Bengali speakers, one of whom spoke favorably of the United States government, discussing the president’s State of the Union address.

The court documents offer more than ample reason to be concerned about possible overreach and unconstitutional activity by the Police Department investigators. If the assertions by the Handschu lawyers are borne out in court, the judge should consider appointing an independent monitor to review department investigations.