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by Dina Rashed CHICAGO (Islam Online) - The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) concluded its 37th annual convention on Monday discussing the Arab and Islamic civil rights movement in North America.
Key figures representing main grass-root organizations and national Muslim activists spoke on the current situation of Muslims struggling against bias, prejudice and discrimination. "It is our civil rights fight whether you like or not," said Sami AlArian, a renowned Muslim activist in the U.S., addressing remaining attendees of the 35,000 who attended the four-day convention coming from all over the U.S., Canada, Europe and Muslim countries. Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), gave a historical background concerning how the secret evidence law was formulated after the Oklahoma bombing in 1995. From the beginning, some U.S. officials objected to linking Islam to terrorism, but the legislation was pushed, backed by some pro-Israeli groups, he said. "I believe the use of secret evidence has been designed to intimidate, scare people and discourage them from being outspoken and active in their societies," Awad said. He presented two solutions to the situation. In the short term, Islamic communities are to reach out to policy makers at the congressional level and ask them to sign bills revoking secret evidence legislation. But the empowerment of Muslims in the U.S. in the long term is the real solution, he added. This means people have to show up, participate, make their voices heard, and be active in their communities, making their presence felt. Faisal Kutty, General Counselor for the Canadian Muslim Civil Liberty Association, said that the situation is even worse in Canada because Canadian Security and Intelligence Service officials tend to follow their American counterparts when it comes to security measures, so-called terrorism, and possible national security threats. Meanwhile, the Muslim community in Canada is not yet aware of the dangers of such legislation and how it could be used against innocent people. AlArian said that some American officials have been labeling people as threatening to U.S. national security simply because they hold an opposing position to Israeli practices in the Occupied Territories in Palestine. Their justification was based on the fact that Israel is a close ally of the U.S. Some people have been detained without prosecution for as long as three years in some cases, simply because they were linked to organizations helping families of Palestinians imprisoned in the Occupied Territories and Israel. Aiding orphans and needy families of the Palestinian resistance was considered as involvement in acts of terrorism against Israel, and therefore a threat to the U.S. security. Panelists emphasized the importance of Muslims living within North America to get connected with active organizations in order to receive action alerts and information about how legislation may be used against them, and to be educated as to their rights as residents and citizens of the U.S. They also encouraged Muslims to hear actual stories about persons labeled as terrorists or possible threats to national security, and not be convinced by the images projected by a biased media concerning them and their activities. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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