A madrassa grows in Minnesota, at taxpayers' expense

The Muslim American Society is a front group for the Muslim Brotherhood, out of which the genocidal terrorist group Hamas emerged. The Minnesota chapter of the Muslim American Society has been the source of local controversies involving the purported observance of Sharia in public facilities such as taxis based at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

The Minnesota chapter of the Muslim American Society also houses a Minnesota charter school in the Twin Cities suburb Inver Grover Heights. The school is Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy -- named for the Muslim general who conquered medieval Spain. As a charter school, Minnesota taxpayers foot the bill for it.

TIZA is formally "sponsored" as a charter school by Islamic Relief USA. Islamic Relief is a problematic organization. Its parent has been identified by Israel as a supporter of Hamas. See Joe Kaufman's disturbing "American Islamic Hamas relief." Kaufman describes Islamic Relief USA as an extremist group.

Star Tribune metro columnist Katherine Kersten attended the MAS Minnesota convention in Minneapolis and discovered that it was essentially promoting the school as an Islamic institution. Kersten's two Star Tribune columns on TIZA have provided a window onto a local scandal hiding in plain sight. They also elicited a call for her firing from the Star Tribune by state Rep. Mindy Greiling, chair of the Minnesota House of Representatives K-12 Finance Division. I wrote about Greiling's contribution to the TIZA controversy here and here. (Greiling never responded to our message asking for her to specify what facts she disputed in Kersten's two Star Tribune columns on TIZA.)

In addition to Greiling, CAIR also entered the fray on behalf of TIZA. CAIR of course holds itself out as a civil rights organization representing Muslims in the United States, but it is in fact a front group serving the interests of Hamas and its friends among the offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood. Thus CAIR found itself named an unindicted co-conspirator in the government's prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation, another Hamas front group.

Working from its standard playbook, CAIR jumped in to raise alarms over the safety of the school's students when the school allegedly received threats in the wake Kersten's columns. CAIR Minnesota chapter coordinator Chris Schumacher said that prejudice could have prompted the alleged threats and "we wanted to bring that to light in case that wasn't already obvious to people."

Sensing a story here, the Wall Street Journal asked Kersten to bring its readers up to speed on it. Today's Wall Street Journal features Kersten's "Charter schools shouldn't promote Islam." It provides a good summary of the story to date.

Kersten demonstrates that Muslim activists have found a workable seam in the purported separation of church and state in Minnesota. One does not need to engage in much speculation to foresee the day when Minnesota's burgeoning Muslim population will be educated in separate charter schools like TIZA at taxpayers' expense, where they will receive religious instruction courtesy of the likes of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota. We can only hope that Kersten's work will inspire someone else who practices journalism for a living to to follow up with a look at the rest of the Twin Cities Muslim-oriented charter schools and on the constellation of Islamist forces at work in Minnesota.

Charter School? Muslims? Government Funding? Fraud?
(This sounds all so familiar..)

Jury Convicts Administrator in Charter School Trial
ABC 30 ^ | June 30, 2006

Posted on Sunday, July 02, 2006 7:09:12 AM by Clovis_Skeptic

June 30, 2006 - A former Valley school administrator will likely be going to prison.

Friday afternoon, a Fresno jury came back with a verdict in the trial of the administrators of a now defunct local charter school. They were accused of misusing taxpayer money. An Action News investigation revealed the Gateway Charter School operated with little oversight, sparking a probe by the State Department of Justice.

There were three defendants in the case, and the jury treated them all differently. Two of the former Gateway administrators probably won’t see any jail time at all, but jurors decided one woman was primarily responsible, and they found her guilty on a dozen serious felony charges.

The former superintendent of Gateway, Khadijah Ghafur, may have lost her freedom for a long time. A jury convicted her of misappropriation of public funds, grand theft and tax evasion.

Among many allegations, prosecutors argued Ghafur was the ringleader in a scheme to inflate attendance figures at Gateway to bring in more tax dollars.

“They really gave the charter school movement a bad name. Because of Gateway, the charter school laws changed,” said prosecutor Brian Alvarez.

The jury also convicted former Gateway administrator Nazeem Hamed on one count of grand theft, but it mostly cleared Gateway’s director of academic affairs and vice president Kehinde Solwazi. The Fresno City College professor only received a misdemeanor for filing a false tax return. Earlier this month, the judge threw out more serious charges against him.

“All those grand theft and all of that stuff, it was devastating to me personally, because I have lived in this community for 36 years and kept my reputation very clean. This whole trial was just a nightmare,” said Solwazi.

And despite accusations the charter school was involved in teaching religion at the Muslim village of Baladullah in Tulare County, Solwazi defended its mission. “The most devastating and most unjust thing I have ever seen in this community is the destruction and the blatant racism that destroyed Gateway. I will never forget this,” he said.

All three former administrators will be back in court next month for sentencing. The prosecutor says Ghafur could face a maximum of 15 years in prison.

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