Day: May 23, 2011

CHRGJ at NYU Law: Racial Profiling and Counter-Terrorism. CHRGJ announced the release of our latest report Targeted and Entrapped: Manufacturing the “Homegrown Threat” in the United States. The U.S. government must stop its discriminatory targeting of Muslim communities in counter-terrorism investigations said the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) at NYU School of Law today, as it released a report on the issue. The government’s use of intrusive surveillance, untrained paid informants, and manufactured terrorism plots raise serious human rights concerns that must immediately be addressed, said the group.

Nothing to Fear: Debunking the Mythical “Sharia Threat” to Our Judicial System | American Civil Liberties Union. There is no evidence that Islamic law is encroaching on our courts. On the contrary, the court cases cited by anti-Muslim groups as purportedly illustrative of this problem actually show the opposite: Courts treat lawsuits that are brought by Muslims or that address the Islamic faith in the same way that they deal with similar claims brought by people of other faiths or that involve no religion at all. These cases also show that sufficient protections already exist in our legal system to…

Tenn. bill criticized for targeting Muslims splits Tea Party – USATODAY.com. The Kingsport man is a conservative Christian who wants the government to keep its hands off his wallet and his personal life. And that’s why, he said, a bill in the Tennessee Legislature that originally targeted supporters of Islamic law is a bad idea for Tennessee. State officials could have used the bill to punish unpopular groups, he said.  Today, that’s Muslims, he said. Tomorrow, that could be the Tea Party. He pointed to a 2009 report by the Missouri Information Analysis Center, funded in part by the Department…

This is What Democracy Looks Like?Making Sense of the Pew Poll on Egypt « The Revealer. The latest Pew Research Center poll results on Egypt are in, as Egyptians continue to debate what form the country’s nascent democracy should take in the wake of the January 25th Revolution. I was one of the millions of Egyptians participating in the 18-day uprising that toppled the Mubarak regime last February. I’m also a graduate student conducting research in Egypt.  So for multiple reasons, I hoped the poll would provide concrete answers on what Egyptians think at this critical juncture of our country’s…