1 In 4 hijabi women experienced shoving on NYC subway
June 22nd, 20182 NEW YORK — More than a quarter of hijabi Muslim or Arab-looking women were shoved on the subways as xenophobic attacks proliferated in New York City around and following the 2016 presidential election, a new report says. More than 27 percent of Muslim women who wear the hijab, a religious head covering, said they were...
ACLU sues over plans for citizenship question on 2020 Census
June 20th, 20181 NEW YORK —Civil rights lawyers sued the U.S. Commerce Department last week to try to stop plans to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, calling it an unconstitutional attempt to discriminate against immigrants. The Manhattan federal court lawsuit on behalf of immigrants' rights groups blames racial animus for the recent...
Tampa man goes to prison for ruining home sale to Muslim family
June 18th, 20180 TAMPA — Kaderbhai Ali Asgar choked up as he told the courtroom what Islam means to him. It is a religion of love and peace, he said. "Security for all," Asgar said. "That’s what I want." Just a feet away from him sat David H. Howard, the man who had threatened in November 2016 to burn a Davis Islands house down if Asgar and his...
Trump calls De Niro ‘very low IQ individual’ for Tony Awards outburst
June 12th, 20180 LOS ANGELES - President Trump on Tuesday hit back at Robert De Niro, calling him a “very low IQ individual,” after the Oscar-winning actor’s expletive-laden attack on the American president on live television. Two days after De Niro’s outburst on the stage of the Tony Awards ceremony in New York, Trump said he had watched the...
Survey: 1 in 5 Americans would deny Muslims the right to vote
June 10th, 20180 WASHINGTON - A minority of Americans believe that many Muslim Americans are not “American” enough, according to a new study by the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group. They also see little difference between Muslims from other countries and Muslim Americans, “suggesting that ‘Americanness’ alone does not lead to more positive...
Amazon lets Muslim workers put Ramadan before Prime Day
June 10th, 20180 MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota — The run-up to Amazon Prime Day, the e-commerce giant’s big July sales promotion, overlaps with Ramadan, 30 sacred days during which many observant Muslims fast and seek time off. That’s creating tension in Minnesota’s Twin Cities region, where activists say Amazon.com Inc. employs more than...
American Muslim investors to donate $5.6 million to charity during Ramadan
June 10th, 20181 FALLS CHURCH, Virginia — Azzad Asset Management, a socially responsible, faith-based registered investment advisor, announced on Thursday that its Muslim clients are expected to donate approximately $5.6 million to charity during the holy month of Ramadan. The figure is the highest since Azzad began providing this calculation in...
Congressman Dan Kildee and staff fast in solidarity with Muslim Americans
June 9th, 20180 FLINT, Michigan — U.S Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Flint), along with his congressional staff in Washington, D.C., fasted Wednesday June 6 in solidarity with Muslims in Michigan and around the world in observance of Ramadan. Ramadan is a holy month of fasting during which Muslims may not eat or drink from sunrise to sunset. This will be the...
Muslim students attacked at a Florida McDonald’s
June 8th, 20180 SAINT AUGUSTINE, Fla - A Florida man was arrested on Wednesday after he reportedly attacked two men he believed to be Muslims or Middle Easterners. He used a stun gun and told them they didn’t “deserve to eat American food". John Jay Smith, 60, got into a verbal altercation with the men before menacing them with a knife and...
Flint Congressman Kildee and staff to observe Ramadan for a day
June 5th, 20180 WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congressman Dan Kildee (D-Flint), along with his congressional staff in Washington, D.C., will fast in solidarity Wednesday with Muslims in Michigan and around the world in observance of Ramadan. Ramadan is a holy month of fasting during which Muslims may not eat or drink from sunrise to sunset. This will be the...
Another Islamophobe joins the Trump administration
June 4th, 20180 WASHINGTON - The National Security Council announced last week that Fred Fleitz, a former CIA analyst and a senior vice president at the Center for Security Policy, is the Council's new Chief of Staff and Executive Secretary and also Deputy Assistant to President Donald Trump. The Center for Security Policy, which the Southern...
Arab American group wins San Francisco school district contract, despite Jewish objections
June 4th, 20180 SAN FRANCISCO — Three years ago, the San Francisco Unified School District placed a hold on a proposal to grant the Arab Resource and Organizing Committee (AROC) a contract to teach “cultural competency training” and Arabic language classes in city public schools. At the May 22 district school board meeting and to the dismay of...
Florida’s Muslim free clinic a ‘blessing’ to uninsured, low-income patients of all faiths
June 3rd, 20180 David Gagner was having seizures. But he did not have nor can afford health insurance, so he sought care at a Baptist Health emergency room. There he was told he had another option in the future, the volunteer-run Muslim American Social Services, or MASS, clinic that provides free health care to uninsured, low-income adults of all...
Survey: 80 percent of American Muslims observe Ramadan by fasting
June 2nd, 20180 The Pew Research Center has found that 80 percent of U.S. Muslims say they observe Ramadan by fasting during daylight hours. More of the U.S.’s 2.15 million Muslim adults say they do this than say that they pray five times a day (42 percent) or attend mosque weekly (43 percent). More Muslim women say they observe Ramadan in this way...
New Texas law requires state contractors to pledge not to boycott Israel
June 1st, 20180 By Lindsay Ellis HOUSTON, TX — In February, Vanessa Angélica Villarreal gave a workshop and reading at the University of Houston's Spanish program in creative writing. The University of Southern California Ph.D. candidate met students and promoted her first book at the event. But she was surprised in April to hear......
ABC’s cancels ‘Roseanne’ following star’s Islamophobic, racist tweet
May 29th, 20181 "It's as joke." That's how TV star Roseanne Barr characterized her Tweet that said former aid to President Obama Valerie Jarrett looked like if "muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby." But that so called joke got her hit TV show, ABC's "Roseanne", canceled. In a statement, Channing Dungey denouncing Barr's...
Party City first national retailer to offer Ramadan decorations
May 25th, 20180 Party City said it's become the first national retailer to offer a dedicated line of decorations for Ramadan, after numerous requests from customers. Ramadan began on May 16 and ends at on June 14, kicking off the start of the day-long Eid al-Fitr celebration. The chain, which has more than 900 stores in the United States and......
Arab American activist set to take reins at Massachusetts Teachers Association
May 25th, 20180 BOSTON — Merrie Najimy, the president-elect of the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA), was inspired to become an educator and later a unionist after experiencing in her own youth that the curricula taught in the Massachusetts public schools she attended felt exclusionary to Arab American students. Growing up in the Lebanese...
Workers hit McDonald’s with multiple sexual harassment claims
May 25th, 20180 LOS ANGELES/NEW YORK — Ten women who work at McDonald’s restaurants in Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles and six other cities have filed sexual harassment complaints in the past few days with the federal government against the company and its franchisees, which they said ignored or retaliated against them for such complaints. The...
U.S. ends practice that gave some immigrants reprieves from deportation
May 25th, 20180 NEW YORK — On Thursday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions barred immigration judges from a once-common practice of shelving deportation cases involving some immigrants with deep ties to the United States. The practice known as administrative closure allowed judges to clear low-priority cases off their dockets, effectively letting some...
Pastor’s parting gift to Bay Ridge’s Arab Americans, a new political club
May 25th, 20180 By Paula Katinas BAY RIDGE, NY — The Reverend Khader El-Yateem, a Palestinian-born cleric who founded the Salam Arabic Lutheran Church 20 years ago and became a political force in Bay Ridge when he ran for City Council last year, announced that he is forming a new political club to carry on his work after he leaves......
Georgia activists march for Palestinian rights, denounce Israel
May 18th, 20181 By Alaa Elassar “It’s important to recognize that we are here out of extreme heartbreak and outrage, but also to remember that this outrage is not just as a result of the recent killings in Gaza, but through the everyday experiences in Palestine." - Rozina Gilani, a Jewish Voice for Peace organizer ATLANTA — It began...
Arab Americans rally in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn against U.S. embassy move, Israeli brutality in Gaza
May 18th, 20180 By Brandon Sapienza NEW YORK — On Monday, May 14, the NY4Palestine Coalition and community leaders held a march from 72nd Street to 82nd Street along Fifth Avenue in the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn in protest of President Trump’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. The move has been met with outrage......
France says Middle East is ‘explosive,’ criticizes U.S. policy and unjustified Israeli violence
May 15th, 20180 PARIS - French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian on Tuesday described the situation in the Middle East as “explosive” and criticized the United States for unilateral acts in the region and Israel for what he said was an unjustified level of violence. Thousands of Gaza residents turned out on Tuesday for the funerals of...
Pro-Trump pastor who claims Islam is a “cult” picked to lead prayer at opening of U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem
May 14th, 20180 WASHINGTON - An anti-gay, pro-Trump pastor from Dallas will give the opening prayer Monday night at the introduction ceremony of the new US embassy in Jerusalem. Pastor Robert Jeffress, a Fox News contributor and supporter of President Donald Trump, will add to the controversy surrounding the diplomatically awkward event. Jeffress,......
