Video: Canadian TV Interviews CAIR-FL Rep on Growing Islamophobia in America

A portrayal of the anger in America on the cusp of the 2012 Presidential elections: where does it come from, what shapes it, who is leading it, and where will it take us all?

 Episode 1: The Fire Within 

On CBC-TV, October, 18th 9pm 

On CBC News Network Saturday October, 20th 11pm ET 

SEE: http://angerinamerica.cbc.ca/documentary.php

The GOP has a Muslim problem

By Dean Obeidallah | CNN | August 29, 2012 | [Original Article]

"(CNN) -- A Catholic priest, a rabbi, an evangelical minister, a Sikh, a Greek Orthodox archbishop and two Mormon leaders walk into the Republican National Convention.

It sounds like the beginning of a joke. But the Republican Party's decision to invite representatives from all of these faiths to speak at this week's convention, but to exclude a Muslim-American imam, is anything but funny.

The Republican Party has a problem with Muslims. Of course, American Muslims can take some solace in the fact that we are not the only minority group that the Republican Party hardly welcomes.

Let's be honest, if you don't like Muslims, blacks, gays, immigrants or other minorities, which political party would make you feel most comfortable? Sure, some Republican officials are minorities, but a recent Galllup survey found that 89% of the Republican Party is white..."

"... Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus still has time to correct this mistake. He could invite a Muslim-American imam to be a part of this week's convention. That would send a clear message that the Republican Party is truly welcoming of all major religions practiced in the U.S.

It also would send a message that there is no place for hate in the GOP against any American minority group. It's now up to Preibus to show whether the Republican Party stands for inclusiveness or division."

Spate of attacks near Ramadan trouble U.S. Muslims

By Yasmin Amer and Moni Basu | CNN | August 22, 2012 | [Original Article]

"(CNN) -- To mark the end of Islam's holiest month, Iftikhar Ali will head not to a mosque but to a convention center guarded by law enforcement officers.

That's because this month, during Ramadan, the mosque in Joplin, Missouri, burned to the ground. Its rubble smoldered for two days as a shocked Muslim community came to terms with what had happened.

"I think there are a few people who don't like anybody," Ali said. "They don't like a different color than their color or different religions."

Ali, who is the president of the Joplin mosque, said the congregation rented a convention center so people would have a place to pray and celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the feast that marks the end of fasting for Ramadan..." [Read More]

"... Hooper, the spokesman for the Islamic Council, said Muslims in the United States have been asked to exercise caution. The council released a tip sheet on security: know your emergency responders, post observers, report threats, install surveillance cameras.

Hooper said anti-Muslim rhetoric has been building for years, especially from groups formed specifically to fight against Islam in the United States.

"Anti-Muslim hate groups are a relatively new phenomenon in the United States, most of them appearing in the aftermath of the World Trade Center terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks such groups..."
 

"...He said all Muslims have a right to practice their faith without fear.
On this Eid, that may not happen in some houses of worship in America."

Jonathan Kay: North America is safe from Sharia

By Jonathan Kay | NationalPost | August 21, 2012 | [Original Article] 

"In a recent Daily Beast article, I criticized right-wing American activists who have become convinced that a network of influential Washington insiders is secretly conspiring to turn the United States into a Muslim theocracy governed by the laws of Shariah. The launching off point for my article was the recent letter-writing campaign by Michelle Bachmann, and four other GOP congressional representatives, aimed at sniffing out alleged Muslim Brotherhood operatives. But I also profiled American Center for Security Policy president Frank Gaffney, who served as an assistant defense secretary in the Reagan administration...

 ...In recent years, Gaffney has become an influential guru for Bachmann and other anti-shariah activists, and I held up his claims as an example of what I regard as paranoia. For example, his web site, muslimbrotherhoodinamerica, suggests that America is under attack from “a stealthy and pre-violent form of warfare aimed at destroying our constitutional form of democratic government and free society,” and that this secret force is the reason that America is “no closer to victory in the so-called ‘war on terror’ than we were on 9/11.” I wrote that Gaffney’s overall message, while well-intentioned, essentially amounts to a conspiracy theory — with the Muslim Brotherhood cast as arch-villain...

...That 1991 memo exemplifies the truth that there always will be isolated extremists within Western societies — whether Islamists, or white supremicists (like the Milwaukee shooter) who spend their days dreaming of revolutions that are never going to happen. When we discover them, they should be investigated and prosecuted. But I’d urge Mr. Gaffney not to puff up their revolutionary delusions to such a point that they become fuel for witch hunts."

‘It’s Not Islamophobia, It‘s Islamorealism’: Anti-Islamic Ads Go Up in N.Y. Suburb

By Madeleine Morgenster | TheBlaze.com | August 17, 2012 | [Original Article]

"An anti-Islamic advertisement is causing a stir in suburban New York with its message of “Islamorealism.”

It reads: “19,250 deadly Islamic attacks since 9/11/01 (and counting). It’s not Islamophobia, it’s Islamorealism.”

Signs with the message have gone up at several Metro-North Railroad stations in Westchester County, N.Y., according to the Journal News. They’re paid for by the American Freedom Defense Initiative, led by activist Pamela Geller — the same group behind similar anti-jihad ads that recently appeared in San Francisco.

But not everyone agrees: Greenburgh Town Supervisor Paul Feiner told the New York Daily News he says the advertisements “encourage hatred.” He wants to see the profits from the ad campaign donated to help fight discrimination.

“There are many Muslims residing in Greenburgh and in our villages,” Feiner said. “They should not be discriminated against. The posters encourage hatred, discrimination and do not help the efforts to fight hate crimes.”..." [Read More] 

Who's Behind the Anti-Islam Ads on MTA and Muni?

By Adam Serwer | MotherJones.com | August 15, 2012 | [Original Article]

"They're popping up on public transit all over New York and San Francisco: Advertisements sponsored by anti-Muslim blogger Pamela Geller that imply Muslims are "savages," dismiss "Islamophobia" as "Islamorealism," and urge passengers to "support Israel" and "defeat jihad."

This isn't the first time Geller, who warned America about "stealth halal" turkeys last Thanksgiving, has used a public transit ad campaign to get her views out. In 2010, she sponsored ads attacking a proposed Islamic Community Center near Ground Zero as a "Mega Mosque" celebrating the 9/11 attacks. Another ad campaign Geller sponsored offered help to those who may have a "Fatwa on [their] head" and are considering "leaving Islam." This time, her ads, which are sponsored by the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI)—one of the many anti-Islam groups Geller is associated with, were so controversial that New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority initially rejected them.

One of Geller's ads features a paraphrase of an Ayn Rand quote, "in any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man." The text also urges people to "support Israel" and "defeat jihad." When the MTA rejected that ad on the grounds that it was defamatory towards a group on the basis of religion, Geller and her attorney David Yerushalmi (the man behind much of the anti-Shariah legislation being proposed in conservative states) sued..." [Read More] 

Muslim group: Republican ‘Islamophobia machine’ encouraging violent attacks

By Stephen C. Webster | TheRawStory | August 14, 2012 | [Original Article]

"Following an acid bomb being hurled at a Muslim school in the Chicago suburb of Lombard, a spokesperson for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) told Raw Story that the number of attacks on American Muslims has escalated recently due in part to the Republican Party’s “Islamophobia machine” encouraging a tiny minority of extremists toward increasingly violent behaviors.

About 50 people were inside the Lombard school building for Ramadan prayers when the acid bomb exploded, according to area media. The unknown attacker reportedly filled a 7-Up bottle with acid and other materials, then threw it at a window. Nobody was injured, but worshipers said they heard a loud explosion when the bomb went off. CAIR asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Tuesday morning to immediately begin searching for the individual responsible.

For Illinois Muslims, Monday night’s acid bombing marks the second attack on a Muslim-affiliated installation in less than a week. Police arrested 51-year-old David Conrad last weekend after he allegedly opened fire on a mosque in Morton Grove, Illinois, narrowly missing a security guard as worshipers prayed inside. The FBI said it would leave the investigation of the mosque shooting to local law enforcement..." [Read More]

Did Islamophobia Fuel the Oak Creek Massacre?

By Moustafa Bayoumi | The Nation | August 10, 2012 | [Original Article]

"The tragedy of the shooting in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, is enormous. Six innocent people were gunned down in a Sikh temple by a white supremacist—but they weren’t innocent because they were Sikh, they were innocent because, well, they were innocent! Had Wade Michael Page walked into a mosque and begun shooting Muslims, the victims of his rampage would have been no more deserving of death.

It’s true that we don’t yet know Page’s precise motivations, but in all likelihood it wasn’t Sikhophobia, a term barely known in the United States. It was Islamophobia. That’s why to say that Page made a “mistake” in targeting Sikhs, as many have reported, or that Sikhs are “unfairly” targeted as Muslims, as CNN stated, is to imply that it would be “correct” to attack Muslims. Well, it’s not, and even if this is an error embedded in the routine carelessness of cable news, we need to be attentive to the implications..."

"...But Islamophobia is real. Not only does it exist but it’s an increasingly toxic part of the political discourse of this country. To think that the compulsive hatred and fear of Muslims is reserved for the extreme right is to wall oneself off from how mainstream conservative discourse participates in this paranoid obsession that the old America is being nefariously and surreptitiously taken away from them. At bottom, this is an anxiety about the loss of privileges and power, quite likely related though not exclusively driven by downward economic mobility. (The New York Times offered the suggestive detail that property Page owned in North Carolina was foreclosed on in January.) Whatever the causes, the form that this hatred takes is cultural, and Muslims, Mexicans, non-white immigrants, really anyone who isn’t “American” by the most conservative definition becomes suspect..." [Read More]

FBI: New York Police Violate Muslims’ Rights

By Ronald Kessler | NewsMax.com | August 1, 2012 | [Original Article]

"Ronald Kessler reporting from Washington, D.C. — The New York City Police Department’s surveillance of Muslims violates their rights and produces no intelligence of any value, the FBI has found.

The disclosure comes in an epilogue to the paperback edition of my book “The Secrets of the FBI,” to be published Aug. 7.

Under Director J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI not only trampled on Americans’ rights but often failed to focus effectively on real threats such as spies and terrorists. That was because Hoover did not distinguish between criminal conduct and constitutionally guaranteed expression of free speech.

New laws and rigid oversight and guidelines put an end to these practices. But FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and other top FBI officials have been shocked to find that since 9/11, the New York City Police Department has been engaging in practices reminiscent of FBI abuses under Hoover.

In early 2012, the Associated Press began disclosing the NYPD Intelligence Division’s tactics. They include indiscriminate surveillance of mosques and businesses owned by Moslems and reporting on left-wing meetings throughout the country..." [Read More]

Temple Attack Shows Jihadis Aren’t the Only Terrorists

By Spencer Ackermam| Wired.com | August 6, 2012 | [Original Article]

"The FBI is treating Sunday’s attack on a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, as a “possible act of domestic terrorism” — raising the possibility that the face of domestic terrorism in the United States looks different than the homegrown jihadism many have forecasted...

...While counterterrorism analysts have long predicted a rise in domestic terrorism from American jihadis, there haven’t been any successful attacks pulled off by homegrown Islamic militants — with the prominent exception of the 2010 Fort Hood attack committed by Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan. (Others, like would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad, tried and failed in their attack attempts.) But there have been non-jihadist terrorist attacks committed by people who were extremists, but definitely not Muslims: the white supremacist attack on the U.S. Holocaust Museum in 2009, for instance, and the 2010 airplane attack on an Internal Revenue Service building in Austin...

...The fact that a white non-Muslim man pulled off a prospective act of terrorism is a reminder that terrorism is not limited to any race, color, religion or creed. Counterterrorism experts have long warned against racial, ethnic or religious profiling, since terror organizations recruit from non-Arab communities (British-Jamaican would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid; Nigerian would-be underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab); and because terrorists can be non-Muslims who have not attracted the suspicions of law enforcement. Carlson said that Page had “contact with law enforcement in the past” but not enough to warrant an investigation..." [Read More]

FBI: NYPD Muslim surveillance program 'a waste of money'

By Jane C. Timm | Metro.us | August 1, 2012 | [Original Article]

"...A new book hitting shelves next week finds that some of the first responders to that apartment three years ago, the FBI, find the NYPD's program to be a "waste of money" and has barred agents from dealing with the department's intelligence division, the New York Daily News reported this morning…

But FBI sources reportedly told book author Ronald Kessler, " We will not be party to it."..."

A pointless pledge on guest speakers

Times Editorial | TampaBayTimes | August 1, 2012 | [Original Article]

"The made-up controversy over guest speakers in the public schools shows how far some Hillsborough County tea party activists will go to throw the entire school system in reverse. This campaign is aimed not solely at censoring the voices of Muslims in this community. It stands as a warning shot to the board that a vocal minority not entirely sold on public education in the first place wants to micromanage the eighth-largest school district in the country.

Activists are bullying School Board candidates to sign a pledge obligating them to block the appearance of speakers from the local Council on American-Islamic Relations. Candidates would do "everything" in their power to enable parents to make the final decision on whether a child attended a presentation by CAIR or another "controversial" organization... [Read More]

...The pledge fans the myth that parents are somehow unable to take part in their child's education, when nothing could be further from the truth."

Bachmann's paranoia strikes deep

By Daniel Ruth | TampaBayTimes | July 24, 2012 | [Original Article]

"It would be too easy, too convenient to dismiss the ramblings of Rep. Michele Bachmann as the rants of a cravenly ambitious politician all too willing to cater to the paranoid lemmings of her tea party followers.

But it still doesn't diminish the harm Bachmann's latest paroxysm of fearmongering has caused to loyal Americans whose only crime has been the vagaries of birth and/or the choice of religion.

...Bachmann — unburdened by fairness, or truth or reality — decided to impugn the patriotism of Huma Abedin, a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and fellow Rep. Keith Ellison.

Abedin and Ellison are Muslim, evidence enough for Bachmann and fellow members of her unhinged Tailgunner Caucus, which also includes Florida's Rep. Tom Rooney... [Read More]

...he notion that evildoers are trying to infiltrate the State Department was all the rage 60 years when McCarthy attempted the same, unsubstantiated witch hunt...

...What Murrow had to say about McCarthy in 1954 applies just as pointedly to Bachmann's bigotry and racism"

"We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and doctrine and remember that we are not descended from fearful men — not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular"

Why isn’t the Colorado shooter considered a Terrorist?

By Dean Obeidallah | TheDeansReport | July 22, 2012 | [Original Article]

"James Holmes is a terrorist.

You would think this would be undisputed. But it’s not. Why? Two reasons keep coming up: 1. He had no overt political agenda for his attack and/or; 2. He is not a Muslim.

I’m sure some are saying: Why does his religion matter? Let us be honest: If James Holmes had instead been named Jalal and was Muslim, the response by the media and most Americans would be different. The presumption would be that he’s a terrorist. The political reason for the attack many say is currently missing would be a given simply because of his Muslim faith

There would be calls to increase police surveillance of American-Muslims and justifications offered for racial profiling. People like Representative Michelle Bachmann would likely claim that the attack was part of the Muslim Brotherhood’s campaign to destroy America. After all, just last week Bachmann claimed that the Muslim Brotherhood was infiltrating the US government. (I personally wish that Bachmann’s brain would be infiltrated by intelligence.)... [Read More]

...While it’s painful for some, we must as a nation come to the realization that terrorism does not come from just one religion, race or ethnicity. Terrorism knows no such bounds.

However, there is, of course, still a chance that Holmes is insane. Most undoubtedly would prefer to give Holmes the benefit of the doubt on that issue. However, I doubt most would apply that same standard if Holmes were Muslim.

Michele Bachmann’s anti-Muslim paranoia

By Juliette Kayyem | Articles.Boston | July 19, 2012 | [Original Article]

...It is simply not enough to mock the Bachmann crusade against the “civilizational jihad” festering in federal government. Much more than the recent and desperate accusations that President Obama needs to be “more American,” the charges against those in government — appointees, civil servants, and advisers — are far more dangerous. They are intended not so much to root out the enemy in our midst, but to raise suspicions against Americans simply by demanding the hunt.

In five separate letters to the Departments of State, Justice, Homeland Security, and Defense, as well as the director of National Intelligence, Bachmann’s congressional allies detail their objections about Islam’s influence on America’s policy. These policies include the relatively benign outreach efforts with Muslim organizations and apologies for the Koran burnings in Afghanistan. But it really isn’t policies that the Bachmann cabal is worried about. It’s the people...

In government, such a request for the kind of information the letters demand — Joe McCarthy would be proud — will require each agency to track the strange claims and interview personnel. It will distract from a focus on the nation’s security. But that’s the point. It is the search that matters.

Expert Gives Florida Police Anti-Muslim Training, Claims Civil Rights Group

By Claire Gordon | AOL | July 13, 2012 | [Original Article]

"Counterterrorism in the U.S. is traditionally the job of the FBI. But since 9/11, increasing numbers of state and local police have undergone training in spotting and catching terrorists, often funded by federal grants. Muslim groups are now concerned that some of the counterterrorism experts instructing our nation's police are unqualified and bigoted, spreading stereotypes about Muslims that ultimately make our country less safe.

One of those experts is Sam Kharoba, president of the Florida-based Counter Terrorism Operations Center. Through an open information request, the Council on American-Islam Relations, a Muslim civil rights organization, found that Kharoba had conducted at least 21 separate trainings in Florida between 2005 and 2011, many of them sponsored and advertised by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

A letter sent Wednesday, co-signed by 18 other Muslim organizations and a half-dozen Florida mosques, as well as non-Muslim advocacy groups, asked FDLE Commissioner Gerald Bailey to sever the department's ties with Kharoba; to hire "someone with appropriate credentials and accurate subject matter content" to re-educate the officers who received his training; and to adopt a vetting procedure for counterterrorism experts who train police...

...Kharoba is a Christian, but was born in majority Muslim Jordan. "That's like saying any American who lives in America is qualified to teach about Christianity," says Hassan Shibly, the executive director of CAIR's Florida chapter.

Shibly believes that Kharoba's teachings result in more police profiling of Muslims. "We've had so many complaints from local Muslims who've been praying, and stopped and questioned," he says. "and asked what hand he wears his watch on. This guy teaches that if you wear a watch on your right hand you're a jihadist."...

...Critics of the training fear that it will discourage American Muslims from coming to police officers and agents with valuable leads, and cooperating with investigations.

FBI Director Robert Mueller has said on record that the cooperation of Muslim communities is "tremendously important" and that revelations, such as the one about offensive training materials, "set us back.""

CAIR Condemns Anti-Terrorism Police Training as ‘Biased’

By Alexa Robinson | Toonaripost.com | July 12, 2012 | [Original Article]

"The Florida branches of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) held a press conference on July 11 to condemn anti-terrorism training conducted and the anti-terrorism training manual, A Law Enforcement Guide to Understanding Islamist Terrorism, by Sam Khabora, as “factually erroneous and biased.”

The Tampa CAIR’s press conference – presented by Director Hassan Shibly- not only announced its rejection of Khabora’s statements and training but also stated that it has sent its concerns in aletter to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE)...

...CAIR’s first concern was that Kharoba is not qualified to speak on the topic of Islam. Kharoba ‘s certifcation in the area of Islamic culture comes from an “Advanced Level General Certificate of Education in Arabic Culture” in the United Kingdom, which CAIR claims is the equivalent of an AP course in high school.

Additionally, CAIR pointed out at their press conference that much of the Islamic community in the United States is not of Arab descent. In fact, according to the US Department of State statistics in 2010 the majority of Arab Americans (two thirds) are Christian and the majority (up to one third) of Muslims in the United States are African-Americans.

Kharoba’s other claim to authority is that he lived in the Middle East for seventeen years. Shibly stated that letting Kharoba teach police based on this argument is like claiming that “any person who lives in America is qualified to talk about American history and Christianity in America.” In the letter to the FDLE, CAIR states, “Kharoba has neither the academic nor the operational background to qualify as a subject matter expert on either Islam or countering violent extremism.”

CAIR also cites other organizations, news agencies, and government officials who have rejected Kharoba’s training as biased and incorrect. The Washington Monthly March/April 2011 edition reported on Kharoba’s training in an article entitled “How We Train Our Cops to Fear Islam... [Read More]

...Also speaking at the press conference was Bishop of the Apostolic Church and President of the Florida Council of Churches Chuck Leigh. Bishop Leigh castigated the training as “spending money on bigotry” that Kharoba’s alleged misrepresentations of Islam “offends the very heart of Christianity.” The Bishop went on to state, “I think God is offended by it.”..."

CAIR: Fla. Law Enforcement Asked to Drop Anti-Muslim Trainer

CAIR Florida | July 11, 2012

(TAMPA, FL, 7/11/2012) -- The Florida Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-FL) today held news conferences in Tampa and Pembroke Pines to ask the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) to stop using a notorious anti-Muslim bigot as a counterterrorism trainer.

At the news conferences, CAIR-FL released a letter sent to the FDLE by a 30-member coalition of Muslim organizations and individuals requesting that the department no longer use Sam Kharoba of the Counter Terrorism Operations Center (CTOC) as a trainer on issues related to Islam and Muslims.

The coalition's letter to FDLE Commissioner Gerald M. Bailey asserts that Kharoba's training materials on Islam are riddled with inaccuracies, sweeping generalizations and stereotypes, that he is unqualified as a subject matter expert on either Islam or countering violent extremism and that his training has elicited disturbingly prejudiced responses from trainees.

It states in part:

"Sam Kharoba's training undermines the Building Communities of Trust (BCOT) initiative released by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of Homeland Security and International Association of Chiefs of Police. It also directly contradicts the Line Training provided by the DOJ for our Law Enforcement Officers regarding SARS."

SEE: Muslim Coalition's Letter to FDLE

That letter also asks that officers who received Kharoba's biased training be given accurate and unbiased retraining by credible experts and that the FDLE adopt a policy ensuring that those offering counterterrorism training be vetted for their academic credentials, operational experience and accuracy of course content.

For more Background on Sam Kharoba, see:

Critics say Broward College teaches police to profile, discriminate against Muslims
FDLE and Broward College disagree on who is responsible for controversial police training

Documents obtained by CAIR-FL reveal at least 21 separate trainings conducted by Kharoba in Florida from 2005-2012. In many cases, these trainings were sanctioned by the FDLE.

The documents were obtained through a nationwide effort in which CAIR chapters filed 87 separate public records requests about possible Islamophobic training of local, state and national law enforcement personnel.

SEE: CAIR Files Multi-State Records Requests on Anti-Muslim Law Enforcement Trainings

Kharoba's main training manual, "A Law Enforcement Guide to Understanding Islamist Terrorism," combines vile accusations against Islam, sweeping generalizations targeting all Muslims and factual inaccuracies.

About the manual, the coalition letter states: "Objective readers of this material will walk away with a clear impression that Al-Qaeda and its ideological allies are representative of mainstream Islam and that all Muslims lie as a matter of routine."

The first chapter of Kharoba's training manual attacks the entire religion of Islam and attempts to prove, through selective evidence, that it is inherently violent. He writes: "Most of us have heard statements similar to 'Islam is a religion of peace' and that 'Muslim radicals hijacked, twisted and altered Islam to justify their Jihad against non-Muslims.' This book will provide definitive proof contradicting these statements and allegations."

In its 2011 investigative report, "How We Train Our Cops to Fear Islam," Washington Monthly quoted Kharoba: "'When I look at the life of Muhammad, I get a very nasty image,' said Kharoba. . .'And that is just to start off with. Anyone who says that Islam is a religion of peace,' he continued, 'is either ignorant or flat out lying.'"

SEE: How We Train Our Cops to Fear Islam

CAIR also recently called on the Department of Defense to dismiss an instructor at the Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Va., who taught fellow officers that only a "total war" on Islam would protect America, that they should use "Hiroshima" tactics, target civilian populations, and abandon the Geneva Conventions. The instructor of that course was later relieved of his teaching duties.

SEE: U.S. Military Instructor Suspended Over Islam Course

The Washington-based Muslim civil rights organization has also called on the Obama administration, the Department of Homeland Security and Congress to provide oversight for apparently widespread anti-Muslim bias in the training of law enforcement, security and military personnel nationwide.

SEE: CAIR Asks Sec. Napolitano to Probe Use of Islamophobic Trainers
Obama Orders Clean Up of Islamophobic Terror Training

An 80-page report by Political Research Associates (PRA), titled "Manufacturing the Muslim Menace: Private Firms, Public Servants, & the Threat to Rights and Security," details a systemic failure to regulate content in counterterrorism training.

SEE: Manufacturing the Muslim Menace

CAIR is America's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.

Muslim advocates say police workshops malign their faith, call for end to training by group

By Matt Sedensky | TheRepublic.com | July 11, 2012 | [Original Article]

"WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Muslim advocates say workshops held for police around the state are denigrating their faith.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations and a number of smaller groups say training led by Sam Kharoba of the Cape Coral-based Counter Terrorism Operations Center maligns the Prophet Muhammad, spreads mistruths about Islam and makes sweeping generalizations about the religion.

They're calling on the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to end trainings led by Kharoba. FDLE says it will review the Muslim groups' concerns.

Kharoba says the claims are "manufactured distractions" and that his training "is based on historical facts found in the most respected and authentic Islamic religious texts."

He says he's trained about 20,000 law enforcement officers around the country in the last decade and that the vast majority gave positive feedback."
(Story distributed by The Associated Press)

UPS employee alleges anti-Muslim workplace environment

By Anika Palm | The Orlando Sentinel | July 10, 2012 | [Original Article]

"ORLANDO, Fla. - An engineer for UPS in Orlando filed a federal complaint Tuesday, alleging that the company allowed workers to spy on him in a restroom and otherwise harass him because of his Arab background and Muslim faith.

Ashraf Sarandah, a Palestinian-American, claimed he was called derogatory names and denied promotions at UPS because of his faith and ethnicity, though he was not specific. He filed discrimination charges against the parcel delivery company with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission..." [Read More]

"...Sarandah said he complained to the human-resources department at UPS, but Hanna declined to explain the company’s response. If the EEOC certifies the complaint after investigating, Sarandah will be able to file a federal lawsuit against the company in about 180 days, Hanna said.

"This conduct is un-American," said Hassan Shibly, executive director of the Tampa chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Shibly said other former UPS employees with Arab heritage have come forward with similar complaints, though he did not provide specifics.

In a separate incident last year, a Muslim subcontractor alleged that UPS in Sweden discriminated against him because supervisors told him to shave his beard, which he said he had for religious reasons."