Free Republic

I'm with a group of surprised camels, a 300lb chicken shwarma and a bemused comedy writer in a wintry, wet Toronto square. We're here for the launch of CBC's new sitcom Little Mosque on the Prairie, which depicts a Muslim community trying to assimilate in a small prairie town. It has little in common with the sugary, 1970s American pioneer family drama Little House On The Prairie, jokingly appropriated in the show's title. By contrast, Little Mosque addresses head-on post- 9/11 fears and prejudices. It's generating lots of publicity in Canada, with or without the camels, largely for breaking new...

ATHENS, Greece - Muslims across Europe are confronting a rise in "Islamophobia" ranging from violent attacks to discrimination in job and housing markets, a wide-ranging European Union report indicated Monday.

An Islamic civil rights group wants a columnist removed from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council for criticizing Rep.-elect Keith Ellison's decision to use the Quran during his ceremonial swearing-in next month. The Council on American-Islamic Relations said Monday that comments by Dennis Prager, a columnist and conservative talk radio host, displayed an intolerance toward Islam that makes him inappropriate to serve on the council, which oversees the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. President Bush appointed Prager in August to fill the remainder of a five-year term, which expires in January 2011. In his column last week, Prager wrote: "Insofar...

Muslims Seek Prayer Room At Twin Cities Airport (AP) Minneapolis The seven Muslim men drew a few stares as they laid down their prayer rugs and knelt on the hard rubber floor at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. They might draw less attention, they told airport officials Friday, if they had a separate room in which they could say one of their five daily prayers to Mecca. "When we pray, we don't want a problem. We don't want what happened last week," said Abdulrehman Hersi, an imam at Darul-Quba mosque in Minneapolis, referring to the group of six Muslim clerics...

The case of U.S. Airways flight 300 gets stranger by the minute. When six traveling Muslim clerics were asked to deplane last week, it looked like another civil rights controversy against post-9-11 airport security. Now new information is emerging that suggests it was all a stunt designed to weaken security…. Yesterday I spoke with a passenger on that flight, who asked that she be only identified as “Pauline.” A copy of airport police report, which I also obtained, supports Pauline’s account - and includes shocking revelations of its own. In addition, U.S. Airways spokeswoman Andrea Rader also confirmed much of...

Airport officials said Friday they will consider setting aside a private area for prayer and meditation at the request of imams concerned about the removal of six Muslim clerics from a US Airways flight last week. Steve Wareham, director of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, said other airports have "meditation rooms" used for prayers or by passengers who simply need quiet time. A group of Somali clerics met with airport officials Friday and said they would attract less attention if they had a private area for prayer. Devout Muslims pray five times daily, facing the holy city of Mecca. "When we...

Former Iran President Hashemi Rafsanjani on Friday urged the United States to exclude the Islamic country from its so-called "axis of evil" and warned Washington not to treat Iran the same way it has Iraq and Afghanistan. President Bush "made a strategic mistake. He should exclude Iran from the circle (axis of evil) that he has made," Rafsanjani told the crowd in Tehran during Friday's prayer ceremony.

A MUSLIM woman was prevented from getting on a bus in Greater Manchester because she would not remove her veil. The 22-year-old Manchester University student from Oldham says other passengers laughed when the driver refused to let her on because he could not check her identity with her bus pass. Now the driver's bosses at First Manchester are to meet with their trade association, the Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT), to seek advice on how to deal with the problem if other passengers with photo passes refuse to lift their veils. Advertisement your story continues below They say they have...

The mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, today said the row over whether Muslims should wear veils had parallels with the hounding of Jews in Nazi Germany. Speaking at the launch of the first ever report into Muslims living in London, Mr Livingstone said much of the ongoing debate about Muslim dress implied the community "was somehow at fault" for being at the centre of the storm.... It is quite clear that the problems we have in Britain are not because Muslims wish to be separate ... I think the entire debate has been totally lopsided as though Muslims were somehow...

· World body complains of rising intolerance in west · Video shows youth group ridiculing Muhammad The world's largest international Muslim body complained of shrinking tolerance in the west yesterday as a new row erupted over Danish cartoons mocking the prophet Muhammad. The 57-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference said in a statement: "Muslims have noted with concern that the values of tolerance are eroding and there is now shrinking space for others' religious, social and cultural values in the west." The statement followed the airing on Danish state television of amateur video footage showing members of the anti-immigrant Danish...

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - A car dealership's tongue-in-cheek radio advertisement declaring "a jihad on the automotive market," will not be changed, the company said, despite drawing sharp criticism that the ad's content is offensive to Muslims. Several stations rejected the spot from Dennis Mitsubishi, which boasts that sales representatives wearing "burqas" - the head-to-toe traditional dress for some Islamic women - will sell vehicles that can "comfortably seat 12 jihadists in the back." Jihad is a holy war waged by Muslims in defence of Islam. "We firmly believe the ad does not in any way disrespect any religion or culture,...

Complaints of anti-Muslim harassment, violence and discriminatory treatment registered with a national Muslim civil rights group jumped 30 percent in 2005 from the previous year, the group said today in releasing its annual report . The 1,972 complaints made to the Council on American-Islamic Relations are the most the group has received since it began the annual reports following anti-Muslim incidents after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. The group said it actually received 2,300 reports but deemed some of them illegitimate. The number of complaints has continually risen since 1995, but began spiking significantly in 2003, the report said....

LAS CRUCES, N.M. -- Three former New Mexico State University football players -- all Muslims -- sued the university and coach Hal Mumme on Monday, saying they were dismissed from the team because of their religious beliefs. The American Civil Liberties Union filed the federal lawsuit on behalf of Mu'Ammar Ali and brothers Anthony and Vincent Thompson. "Universities are supposed to be places of evolved thinking and reason, not of base intolerance and bigotry" said Peter Simonson, executive director of ACLU New Mexico. "In this case, the university failed its purpose, and a coach indulged in those prejudices to assert...

American Muslim News Briefs Thursday, May 25, 2006 KY: High School Prayer Axed After Muslim Complaint Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS SHELBYVILLE - The principal of Shelby County High School said the school will not have formal prayer at graduation exercises next month after receiving a complaint from a student and the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky. Principal Gary Kidwell met Monday with the Board of Education and a lawyer as residents held a prayer vigil outside. Tuesday, Kidwell said the school will break from the tradition of student-led invocations and benedictions at graduation June 2. The school "will be compliant...

To Arabs, port-deal backlash looks like bias DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – To many in this booming financial center, the American backlash over Dubai running U.S. ports boils down to something simple — and ugly: "This is Arab-phobia," says one Arab security analyst. "I can see no other reason behind it." As the U.S. secretary of state heads here for talks, many Arabs go further, saying the very basis of American policy toward the Middle East may be at stake: If the United States can't work with a moderate, friendly and socially liberal Arab ally like Dubai, it may not...

U.S. lawmakers' strident opposition to a Dubai company controlling major seaports reflects a Western phobia of Arabs which could scare off other Middle East investors, Arab analysts said. Several congressmen have vowed to block the sale of British port operator P&O to Dubai Ports World of the United Arab Emirates, a staunch U.S. Gulf ally, citing security concerns even though the deal was approved by the Bush administration. Mustafa Alani, security expert at the UAE's Gulf Research Center, said the furor over the impending sale was driven by politicians trying to thwart the U.S. government's drive to mend ties with...

Saudis Bemoan Poor Image in U.S. By JIM KRANE ASSOCIATED PRESS JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia (AP) - On Sept. 11, 2001, Sonia Puopolo, an American Airlines flight attendant, lost her life when terrorists, four of them Saudis, hijacked her plane and slammed it into the World Trade Center in New York. Last week, Puopolo's daughter Tita Puopolo spoke to a conference packed with Saudi business leaders and asked them to try and repair something else that died in the attacks: the U.S.-Saudi friendship. "Many people ask me, 'Why would you visit Saudi Arabia after what happened to your mother?'" said Puopolo,...

Some members of Congress, exhibiting post-9/11 jingoism and paranoia, are pressuring the Bush administration to reconsider its decision to allow Dubai Ports World, an Arab company, to take over operations at six U.S. ports. The approval should stand. Congressman Peter T. King (R-NY), Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee and, more importantly, a Congressman from an area near two of the ports that will be operated by Dubai Ports World, expressed this xenophobic view about Dubai’s acquisition of the British company that is currently operating the ports: “In the post-9/11 world, there should have been a presumption against this...

Arab-Americans have contended that bias and bigotry, not security concerns, lie behind the uproar over a deal that would place commercial operations at six US ports in the hands of an Arab company. The furore centres around the $6.8 billion acquisition by UAE state-owned Dubai Ports World of London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co. P&O which had been running operations at shipping terminals in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami, and Philadelphia. James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, said on Tuesday that politicians were exploiting fears left over from the September 11 attacks to gain...

WASHINGTON, Feb 21 (Reuters) - Arab-Americans contended on Tuesday that bias and bigotry, not security concerns, lay behind the uproar over a deal that would place commercial operations at six U.S. ports in the hands of an Arab company. The furor centers around the $6.8 billion acquisition by Dubai Ports World, owned by one of the United Arab Emirates, of London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co. P&O had been running operations at shipping terminals in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami, and Philadelphia. Citing what they say are fears of lax security, politicians from both parties called...