Posted on 05/20/2008 10:17:40 AM PDT by mojito
In an attempt to report about the new findings from the Department of Education Monday, 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS went to Tarik ibn Zayad Academy in Inver Grove Heights.
While on school grounds, our crew was confronted by school officials. Our photographer was injured while wrestling with the two men over the camera.
Our photographer was examined by paramedics and suffered minor shoulder and back injuries.
The state education department on Monday directed the charter school to "correct" two areas related to religion at the school on Monday.
Tarik ibn Zayad Academy, which focuses on Middle Eastern culture and shares a mosque with the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, came under fire after a teacher alleged that the school was offering religious instruction in Islam to its students.
"The Minnesota Department of Education goes to great lengths to make clear to charter schools and their sponsors that, while schools should appropriately accomodate students' religious beliefs, they must be 'nonsectarian' under the state's charter school law," said the state's education Deputy Commissioner Chas Anderson.
The allegations first surfaced after an article by a columnist for the Star Tribune. The Education Department subsequently began a review of the south metro school and released its findings Monday.
The agency said it was concerned about the school, with about 300 students, accommodating communal prayer and providing transportation to an after-school religious program.
"We have directed the school to take appropriate corrective actions regarding these matters and will continue to provide oversight to ensure that the school is in compliance with state and federal law," Anderson said.
The Muslim American Society is a Muslim Brotherhood front organization.
I wonder if assault charges will be filed? They should be and pursued with vigor.
Ping me when the societal house cleaning is set to start. I’m anxious to begin as soon as possible.
Dear RaceBannon,
There have been a number of studies of materials sold or distributed in mosques in America. These studies have uncovered materials containing information that include calls to jihad (holy war), incitement of terror and violence, and the abolition of our constitutional form of government to be replaced by strict Islamic sharia law. One such study of 100 American mosques found that 75% of these mosques contained such material.
Additionally, video and audio recordings of Islamic leaders in America reveal repeated incitements to jihad, terror, violence, and the replacement of our government with sharia law.
Because there is sufficient evidence to indicate that the information in some of these materials rises to the level of a genuine threat to our nation’s security and liberty, ACT for America has launched a petition calling for a Congressional review of extremist materials distributed in American mosques. I have just signed their petition, and I thought you would like to sign it as well. Please use the link below to read the petition and add your signature!
http://tool.donation-net.net/ACT4America/ReviewMosques.cfm?dn=1097&refer=2008
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=9EFA2C4F-3893-4998-9D1D-B313EC2FCEFC
Has CAIR Violated Its Non-Profit Tax Status?
By Joe Kaufman
FrontPage Magazine | May 19, 2008
The Islamist group’s advocacy for and denunciation of political candidates.
Has CAIR Violated Its Non-Profit Tax Status?
By Joe Kaufman
FrontPageMagazine.com | Monday, May 19, 2008
CAIR or the Council on American-Islamic Relations was founded, in June of 1994, as part of a Hamas-related quad of groups known as the Palestine Committee. Since then, CAIR has lost a number of its representatives due to terrorist activity, and it has been named by the U.S. government as a co-conspirator for a Hamas financing trial. Yet, of the four groups in the committee, CAIR is the only one that still remains in existence, leading to the question: If terrorism won’t bring down CAIR, what will? The answer may very well be in its status as an American organization – its non-profit tax status.
United States Representative and co-founder of the Congressional Anti-Terrorism Caucus, Sue Myrick, is one of a growing number of lawmakers to speak out against CAIR. As reported in World Net Daily, in December 2007, she stated, “Groups like CAIR have a proven record of senior officials being indicted and either imprisoned or deported from the United States.”
Recently, Representative Myrick released a personal ten-point agenda, entitled ‘Wake Up America,’ put out, according to her office, “to alert and educate Americans to terrorist threats here at home posed by radical Islamic extremists.” Point number four in the agenda states, “Will call for the Internal Revenue Service to investigate the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ (CAIR) 501(c)(3) non-profit status which restricts ‘lobbying on behalf of a foreign government.’”
The United Arab Emirates (UAE), which owns CAIR’s Washington, D.C. headquarters, in May 2006, approved a multi-million dollar endowment to CAIR. This was just months after the U.S. Congress, worried about a potential terrorist threat from UAE, acted to stop a deal that would allow a UAE company to run American seaports. As reported by investigative journalist Paul Sperry, the endowment to CAIR was worth nearly $75 million, two-thirds of which allotted towards a “public-relations campaign aimed at repairing Islam’s – and the UAE’s – image in America.”
An investigation, such as the one Representative Myrick suggests, could prove that CAIR’s financial dealings with UAE have been more than just goodwill gestures and could potentially do harm to CAIR’s designation as a 501(c)(3). However, there is another avenue with regard to CAIR’s tax status that needs to be looked into, and that is the possible violation of how both it and its subsidiary, CAIR-Chicago, have used their 501(c)(3)s to advocate for and speak out against political candidates.
In January of this year, CAIR National launched a political-based website for the 2008 elections that would, according to CAIR, provide its web viewers “the latest news and opinions relating to Muslims and election races nationwide.” Some of the opinions posted to this site have put into question CAIR’s status as a non-profit institution.
Within the op-ed section of CAIR’s political site, there are a number of articles written by leaders of the group. One of the pieces, titled ‘Troubling extremists plague America,’ written by CAIR National board member Sarwat Husain, states the following: “We have two candidates of two different parties whose moral conscience is so different from each other. On one hand is Obama, who rightfully repudiated the remarks of his pastor. On the other hand we have McCain, who accepts the endorsement of men who cash in big time by teaching bigotry and misguiding their followers.”
In another of the site’s articles, ‘Smear Campaign Speaks Volumes About Society,’ authored by CAIR National Director of Communications Strategy and Executive Director of CAIR-Chicago, Ahmed Rehab, the following is written: “I was recently asked on Fox News Radio which candidate impressed me most. ‘Obama,’ I answered... I am not drawn to Obama for any other reason but his political outlook, one that brings me hope that we can move beyond divisiveness and polarization and toward a new unity for the common good... I am [not] offended as a Muslim that Obama would not want to be one [a Muslim]; I couldn’t care less. I am casting a vote for the next president of the United States, not the next imam of my mosque.”
These statements showing favoritism towards a particular candidate, including one denouncing that candidate’s opponent, flies in the face of the 501(c)(3) rules, as put forward by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of the United States Department of Treasury.
According to the IRS, under its ‘Ban on Political Campaign Intervention,’ “For an organization to be tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) it cannot “participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements) any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.”
One of CAIR’s local chapters, CAIR-Chicago, has its own politics-based website, The Mobilizer. The group’s political bent can easily be seen on it, with descriptions of the U.S. President as being the “war mongering, Muslim hating Bush” and White House activities as being the “crimes of this rogue administration.”
However, President Bush isn’t running for office. Senator John McCain is. And like CAIR National, CAIR-Chicago has denounced Senator McCain, even going so far as to say that Muslims will not be voting for him in November.
This month, on May 9, CAIR-Chicago posted on The Mobilizer a short video of Senator McCain. Above it, was written, “Muslims voting for McCain? Not after this!!”
The post, like CAIR National’s piece about Senator McCain, was a blatant violation of the group’s 501(c)(3). And as stated by the IRS, “Violating this ban [Ban on Political Campaign Intervention] may result in denial or revocation of the organization’s tax-exempt status...”
While CAIR may elect to use the excuse that it “didn’t know,” it will be difficult to do so, as the group’s Government Affairs Coordinator for its Chicago office and the administrator of The Mobilizer, Sadiya Ahmed, admitted that CAIR is not allowed to post opinions about political candidates. On February 1, on The Mobilizer, Ahmed stated, “I’ve been asking myself who I want to vote for this Tuesday and I can’t decide. Of course I won’t get into personal politics right now, given that CAIR-Chicago is a 501(C)3 and I’m speaking in my capacity as the Government Affairs Coordinator...”
Evidentally, Ahmed let other people’s “personal politics” get past her.
It would be ironic if the downfall of CAIR would begin over its biased stance on political candidates and not from its long-term involvement with the world’s most notorious terrorist organizations. But given the bizarre fact that CAIR has lasted this long without the government taking any real action against it, it would seem to be appropriate.
I guess really they’re just lucky they weren’t beheaded on the spot while being filmed with their own TV cameras.
mark for later
Ping.
Shut this so-called school down and kick the “faculty” out of the country. There used to be consequences for plots to overthrow the US government, which is exactly what the Muzzies plan to do.
“The two columns by Star Tribune metro columnist Katherine Kersten on the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy public charter school in suburban St. Paul triggered an investigation of TIZA by the Minnesota Department of Education. They also triggered a demand for Kersten’s resignation from the Star Tribune by Minnesota state Rep. Mindy Greiling, chair of the House of Representatives K-12 Finance Division. Greiling assured Minnesotans that everything at the school was A-OK based on her Potemkin Village tour of the school provided by principal Asad Zaman. We are still waiting for Greiling to respond to our request that she identify any alleged error of fact in Kersten’s column; we are also still waiting for Greiling to respond to our call for her to resign.
Yesterday the department issued its findings in the investigation prompted by Kersten’s columns. The Star Tribune reports on the findings in “State orders charter school to correct 2 areas tied to Islam.” The findings vindicate Kersten’s reportage, ordering the school to reform its practices concerning its weekly Friday prayer service and its extension of the school day. The department found that both of these practices crossed the line. (The department also found that the school's Monday-Thursday prayer services were student-led and therefore permissible. The department does not understand applicable constitutional law in this area.)
The department discussed the “after-school” Muslim Studies program run by the Muslim American Society/Minnesota, the state chapter of the national offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. MAS/Minnesota owns the building in which TIZA operates, runs a mosque in the building, and provides religious instruction at the end of the day. The department asserts that the Muslim Studies program is fee-based and voluntary. Zaman purports to be unable to provide statistics concerning enrollment in the Muslim Studies program. Zaman is not only the TIZA principal, however, he is also an officer of MAS/Minnesota. Who is kidding whom?
The Minnesota Department of Education's investigation is of the kind perfected by Inspector Clouseau. The department notes that Zaman requested department investigators not to interview witnesses in his absence from the school. It is a request that at the least speaks poorly of Zaman’s approach to the investigation. Moreover, it is not clear from the report to what extent the department complied with Zaman’s request.
KSTP Eyewitness News sent a reporter and crew out to TIZA to get a reaction to the Minnesota Department of Education findings from Zaman. KSTP reports that its crew was attacked by Zaman and another school official. Its cameraman was injured while wrestling with Zaman and his sidekick over the camera. In the video of the KSTP report, Zaman goes right for the cameraman's camera. Where is Clouseau’s servant Kato when you need him? And what is it that Zaman does not want Minnesotans to see?
We called Greiling a thug when the Star Tribune posted her letter to the editor calling on the Star Tribune to fire her. In Greiling’s case, the use of the term was metaphorical. Zaman is the real deal.”
The news crew will probably be charged with trespassing.
ACLU to the rescue! (Of the Islamists, of course)
I live in Inver Grove Heights, MN. I attended the first open School Board meeting after the article came out in the paper. There were a LOT of unhappy citizens, including myself, in attendance. The Board members were white lipped and stammering. They had been caught flat footed on this. The room was packed with very upset people demanding that there be immediate remedy to this situation. Now the State Board of Education is involved and there is a rumor that the Feds are looking into it as well.
One very vocal mother flew into the board members saying that if her children can't pray to their God in schools then these people shouldn't be able to either. She quoted the equal protection clause several times. There was loud applause. Kind of reminded me of Dr. Frankenstein facing the villagers. They finally had to adjourn the meeting and clear the hall.
Further updates as they become available.
CAIR, Assault and Videotape?
By Patrick Poole
FrontPageMagazine.com | Tuesday, August 08, 2006
An attendee of the “Stop the Terror Rally” sponsored by the Council for America-Islamic Relations – Ohio held at the Federal Courthouse in downtown Columbus, Ohio, on Friday July 28 says she was twice assaulted by CAIR’s National Vice-Chairman, Dr. Ahmad Al-Akhras, when she asked too many questions about the organization’s apparent support for Hezbollah terrorists. Fortunately, she caught it all on tape and has put the video online so the public can see the reaction of one of CAIR’s top officials.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=B2E2C91A-EEEC-4C1F-97F8-D81055E8CF96
Ping, several interesting articles in comments.
Sometimes it is important just to know where one can find one’s enemies if and when the need should arise.
Where’s the ACLU, etal?
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