“Mixed bag” for U.S. Muslims since 9/11

(CBS News)

It was a Tuesday evening in August 2010 when a 21-year-old art student from suburban New York hailed a taxi cab on a Manhattan street, carrying a couple of notebooks, an empty bottle of scotch and a folding knife. After asking the cabbie if he was a Muslim, the student, Michael Enright, muttered “consider this a checkpoint” before slashing at the driver’s neck and eventually fleeing through the car window.

The driver, Ahmed H. Sharif, survived with relatively minor injuries. Enright, who had actually visited Afghanistan earlier that year as part of a group aiming to promote interfaith dialogue, was arrested and charged with a hate crime.

The attack may well have been the most acute example of anti-Islamic sentiment last summer, but it was hardly the only one. For months, a debate raged over the plan to build an Islamic center within several blocks of the World Trade Center site – with critics weighing in from around the country, including some family members of 9/11 victims. In Florida, the Rev. Terry Jones threatened to burn a Quran if the proposed site wasn’t moved. (Efforts to block the center’s approval failed and Jones, though he backed away from his initial threat, went through with a Quran-burning in March after finding the Muslim holy book guilty of crimes against humanity in a televised “trial.”)

FULL ARTICLE FROM CBS NEWS

Controversial Florida Pastor Denied Protest at Michigan Mosque

A U.S. jury  has banned Pastor Terry Jones from staging a protest in front of the largest mosque in North America in the U. S. state of Michigan.  The jury in Dearborn, home  to one of the country’s largest Muslim communities, said such a protest would disturb the peace. Jones, pastor of a small evangelical church in the southern state of Florida, made international headlines last year when he threatened to burn the Quran, the Islamic holy book. Jones eventually did burn the Quran March 20 and posted video on his church’s website.  The move caused widespread violence in Afghanistan, and scores of people were killed including U.N. personnel.  The controversy that surrounds Terry Jones followed him into a courtroom Friday, when concerns about public safety intersected with Jones’s desire to stage the protest.  The jury’s decision puts an end, for now, to Jones’s plans.

FULL ARTICLE FROM VOA NEWS

Prosecutors Fear Riot at Good Friday Mosque Protest

Detroit —Wayne County prosecutors are arguing a Good Friday mosque protest by a controversial Florida pastor could incite a riot and are moving to require him to post a bond before his demonstration.

Judge Mark W. Somers of Dearborn’s 19th District Court on Friday ordered Terry Jones to appear Thursday to answer prosecutors’ claims that his planned protest of the Islamic Center of America on the Dearborn/Detroit border could spark violence. The hearing is set for 3 p.m.

Prosecutors want a “peace bond” from Jones to pay for additional police officers during his demonstration outside the mosque. The complaint doesn’t specify an amount, but Jones has said Dearborn police want him to pay $100,000 in overtime costs.

“The greatest threat is the likelihood of a riot ensuing, complete with the discharge of firearms, unless this proposed bond is granted,” according to the prosecutors’ complaint.

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE DETROIT NEWS

Burning the Myths About Islam: What Qur’an Burning Protests Don’t Say

The recent violent protests in Afghanistan - a reaction to the burning of the Quran by a small church in the United States last month - recalled an inescapable reality.

Extremists on all sides - whether in free, democratic America, or in corrupt, occupied Afghanistan - create havoc and chaos, demonstrating the danger brought about by a deadly cocktail of ignorance and idiocy. Ultimately, they cause the deaths of innocent people.

Some cite the difference between the two acts: one saw the burning of a book, while the other claimed human lives.

This is of course true, but what exactly did the mastermind of this foolish and hate-filled act expect, other than a reaction somewhere on the Muslim side?

FULL ARTICLE FROM AL JAZEERA (ENGLISH)

Muslim, Christian groups rally against US pastor

LAHORE: Several religious groups held protests on Wednesday against the reported burning of the Holy Quran by an American pastor in a Florida church in the United States.

Besides parties affiliated with the Deobandi and Wahabi schools, the protestors included a Christian organisation as well. The speakers at rallies organised by the former urged the people to prepare themselves for jihad against America. The Christians rally, however, also voiced opposition against the misuse of blasphemy laws in the country.

Addressing protesters in front of the US consulate, leaders of different religious parties vowed to struggle for strengthening the blasphemy laws, particularly Section 295-B (defiling of the Holy Quran) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

FULL ARTICLE FROM INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE