New moderate Muslim group aims anti-extremism message at youth

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Kathryn Blaze Carlson, National Post, September 11, 2012

A Muslim Canadian activist has founded a new group that will promote moderate Islam, saying there are too few progressive Muslim voices countering extremism in Canada. Raheel Raza, the Pakistan-born author of Their Jihad, Not My Jihad: A Muslim Canadian Woman Speaks Out, was once a member of the progressive Muslim Canadian Congress, but this month is formally launching Muslims Facing Tomorrow. The National Post’s Kathryn Blaze Carlson spoke with Ms. Raza to find out why.

Q: The Muslim Canadian Congress already speaks for moderate, socially progressive Muslims. Why launch Muslims Facing Tomorrow?
A: There was no fragmentation or infighting — the president of the MCC actually called this week and congratulated me. We just felt there are so many extremist voices and organizations perpetuating the whole ‘hate against others’ message. The moderate Muslim voice is very few in number and we felt that the more organizations out there doing this kind of work, the better. We have a very similar mandate to the MCC, and our goal is the same, but we at Muslims Facing Tomorrow plan to go about it in a different way.

Q: What do you mean?
A: We want to be very proactive. We want to provide an alternative for Muslim youth. It’s not just a question of slamming the extremists; it’s also about providing a different voice. We want to hold workshops and conferences — one thing that’s never been done, as far as I know, is a conference of moderate Muslims in Canada. The extremists hold a lot of conferences, so we want to host one for progressive Muslim voices. We want to be not just an organization, but more like a movement. We want to connect with like-minded people across the globe. We’ve already connected with the Center for Islamic Pluralism and the American Islamic Forum for Democracy in the U.S. We’ve made connections with people in Europe, England, Pakistan. We want to link up with individuals who are working toward defining Islam in a more modern way — working toward reform or women’s rights.

Q: You have quite the diverse advisory board — anti-terrorism expert David Harris, for example, and Reuben Bromstein, a retired judge and president of Canadians Against Suicide Bombing. What’s that about?
A: We made a very conscious effort to have an advisory board of people from different faiths, who are not just in Canada and who are experts in different fields. Our mandate is not just to work with Muslims, but to work with anyone from any faith community who is interested in the safety and security of Canada, in liberty, democracy and the equality of women. We’ve always felt that our battle is not one that we can fight alone. We have to work together because the end result of standing up against extremists is in everyone’s interests.

Q: Who is Muslims Facing Tomorrow really trying to reach?
A: The youth are our main interest because they’re the future of Canada. In fact, if you were to ask me what my personal interest in this organization is, it’s the future of my children and grandchildren. What we want to do is set up workshops, panels, conferences — that sort of thing. To the best of my knowledge, the Muslim Canadian Congress hasn’t really done this. The MCC does wonderful work, don’t get me wrong. What [congress founder] Tarek Fatah has done to set the foundation of this voice against the extremists is absolutely phenomenal, and that’s why I was among the people who helped him set it up. But there comes a time when you feel it’s important to have more voices. When people ask ‘where are the voices of the moderate Muslims?’ we want to be able to say there is more than one organization working toward the safety and well-being of Canada.

Q: Do you support the Harper government’s toughened stance on immigration and public safety?
A: Yes. Islamic radicalism in Canada is not something that happened overnight. When we don’t face a problem head on and take care of it, we end up with something like 9/11 — it’s actually ironic that we’re speaking about this on September 11. [My husband and I] left Pakistan [24 years ago] to escape radicalism, and then we came to Canada to find that same ideology being promoted here.

Q: How do you think this new “voice,” as you call it, will be heard?
A: As Muslims, we’re in a better position to speak out against Islamic extremism than [others] would be because [they’d] be called racist. The word ‘Islamaphobia’ is always hanging in the air. I feel it’s our ethical and moral responsibility to expose those people whose interests are not in favour of loyalty to Canada, for example.

Q: Do you fear Muslims Facing Tomorrow will itself be labeled anti-Islam?
A: Any time anyone criticizes Muslims or Islam, they’re always looked upon negatively. We’re expecting hostility, but that doesn’t deter us. We came into this knowing full-well that not everybody would love us. But our goal is not to be popular. It’s to tell the truth.

National Post

Liberal political movements call for protest Friday

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Egypt Independent

10/14/12

Read at Egyprt Independent

Mohamed ElBaradei’s Constitution Party and the Popular Current movement, a coalition of several civilian parties, called for peaceful marches on Friday, 19 October to protest last Friday’s violence in Tahrir Square.

The protest, labeled, “Egypt is for all Egyptians,” would call for immediate investigations into the violence so that the perpetrators may be punished.

Several political parties had organized a protest on Friday, 12 October to condemn President Mohamed Morsy’s failure to address critical issues during the first 100 days of his term, while the Muslim Brotherhood called for a protest against the Battle of the Camel acquittals. Morsy supporters and opponents clashed during the rally and more than 100 people were injured, according to news reports.

The Constitution Party and the Popular Current issued a joint statement on Sunday saying that they hold the president responsible for obtaining information about the violence and sending those responsible to trial.

The statement added that the clashes Friday occurred because “some of the members of the ruling party could not recognize the opposition’s right to express its opinion peacefully” and added that the Brotherhood tried to disrupt their protest and change its name.

The statement accused the ruling party of repeating the mistakes of the former regime rather than working to achieve national consensus, and held Morsy and the Muslim Brotherhood responsible for violence during the clashes.

The Friday protest will also demand social justice, a minimum wage tied to the price of goods and the restructuring of the Constituent Assembly to better represent all Egyptians.

Turkish professor given prison sentence over headscarf ban

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13 September 2012 / TODAYSZAMAN.COM,

An İzmir court has handed down a prison sentence to a Turkish professor from Ege University after he repeatedly blocked headscarved women from entering the faculty building where he worked.
The court accused the professor of infringing on citizens’ constitutional right of access to education and sentenced him to over two years in prison.

The professor, Esat Rennan Pekünlü, from the university’s department of astronomy and space sciences, was caught on camera in May taking photographs of headscarved students and preventing them from entering the building.

The Higher Education Board (YÖK) lifted a ban on the wearing of the Muslim headscarf on university campuses in 2010. However, some universities continue to impose the notorious ban. Opponents of the ban, including conservatives and many liberal intellectuals, think that such a ban contravenes fundamental rights as it deprives some citizens of their right to education.

Pekünlü was captured by cameramen of the Cihan news agency while he was standing at the door of his faculty building and taking photos of headscarved students. Cameramen had arrived at the faculty after some students tipped them off that the professor was violating the rights of women wearing headscarves at their university.

Pekünlü repeatedly blocked those students from entering the building when they tried to attend their classes. He would, however, pay no attention to male students or female students who were not wearing headscarves.

The Ege University administration had earlier announced that an investigation had been launched into the professor’s actions. In October 2010, YÖK sent a circular to university administrations, asking them not to send students away from class or campus for wearing the headscarf.

The İzmir 4th Criminal Court of First Instance charged the professor with violating the privacy of the Fatma Nur Gidal — one of the women he prevented from entering the building and the plaintiff in the case — as well as violating her right to access to education.

Gidal’s lawyer demanded the maximum prison sentence for the professor and asked the court not to postpone the punishment, as he had previously been charged with similar crimes.

Pekünlü’s lawyer cited a 2008 decision by Turkey’s Constitutional Court upholding headscarf bans in universities, as well as a 2004 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) that said such bans do not violate freedom of religion.

Speaking following the decision, Gidal said she was not able to enter the building, let alone the classrooms. She said she had no choice but to file the complaint against her professor.

Rise of Islamists in Middle East increases Middle East Threat

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Statement

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Rise of Islamists in Middle East increases Middle East Threat

Attack on NY Federal Reserve and killings by Al Qaeda in Libya reveal what’s to come with empowered Islamist ideologues in control

 

PHOENIX (October 18, 2012) – Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a devout Muslim and author of “A Battle for the Soul of Islam: An American Muslim Patriot’s Fight to Save His Faith” issued the following statement on behalf of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy on the current threat from the Middle East:

“Americans were shocked to hear of the latest attempted attack against the United States yesterday at the NY Federal Reserve Building. It came just a little over one month after elements of Al Qaeda successfully attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya killing four Americans and mobs of inflamed Muslims throughout the Middle East attacked American embassies in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen. The mob successfully put a salafi flag over the U.S. Embassy in Cairo.

These attacks come in the wake of the Obama Administration presumptively claiming for weeks in campaign speeches that Al Qaeda “is on the run” and “on its heels.”  This clearly is not the case and in fact the Islamist regimes that have come to power, and that the administration has embraced, are fueling extremist ideologues in the region.

All of this points again to the failure of this administration to connect the dots of extremism.  Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis attack at the Federal Reserve was not done in a vacuum.  The mobs that attacked our embassies were not spontaneous actions in response to a movie.

It begins with the ideology of Islamism that breeds the supremacist mindset by its adherence that they are divinely inspired.  Islamism is the fertile ground for fascists to control the masses.  The administration has finally admitted that the attacks in Libya had nothing to do with the film. In Egypt the mobs were not spontaneous, but rather fueled by Islamists state run TV which increased its coverage of the English language Innocence of Muslims that ultimately drove the protests. Those small Islamist mobs were not the millions of the Egyptian “Arab Spring” of 2011. The Islamist establishment of Egypt from the Muslim Brotherhood to al-Azhar University seized on the film to push an anti-western narrative against freedom of speech and liberty domestically and abroad. The direct link to militant Islamists was revealed Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, a former member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood praised the protestors in Cairo as “honest and zealous.”

The Simon Wiesenthal Center reported last week that Supreme Guide Mohammed Badie had made anti-Semitic statements in the Egyptian state run al Ahram newspaper, calling for a “Holy Jihad” against Israel and stating Jews spread “corruption on earth, spilled the blood of believers and in their actions profane holy places, including their own.” Badie is the spiritual leader of The Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist party in power.

In a written letter taking responsibility for his attack, Nafis, like the Times Square bomber and so many others before him, stated he wanted to “destroy America.” This mindset is fed by comments like Badie’s.  It is nurtured in a narrative that America is at war with Muslims and Islam.

By empowering Islamist regimes and movements, the administration has at best appeared weak and at worst facilitated movements that espouse a virulent hatred of America. Unless we change our policy, our natural allies of secular liberals in the region will turn far away from American influence and our real enemies the Islamists will only gain in strength as they invoke more acts of irrational violence and direct attacks on our home soil.”

 

About the American Islamic Forum for Democracy

The American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) charitable organization. AIFD’s mission advocates for the preservation of the founding principles of the United States Constitution, liberty and freedom, through the separation of mosque and state. For more information on AIFD, please visit our website at http://www.aifdemocracy.org/.

 

MEDIA CONTACTS:        Gregg Edgar

Gordon C. James Public Relations

gedgar@gcjpr.com

602-690-7977