Please read the first article and also the article about the book of Malkin about the right of discrimination against Arabs and Muslims.
Muhaideen -----Original Message----- From: CAIR [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 2004 7:15 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: CAIR-NET: NY Muslims Out on Bail - Lack of Evidence In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful AMERICAN MUSLIM NEWS BRIEFS - 8/24/04 BREAKING: ALBANY MUSLIMS OUT ON BAIL - LACK OF EVIDENCE * HADITH OF THE DAY: THE CRY OF THE OPPRESSED * QUOTE OF THE DAY: ELLIOT ABRAMS A 'LIKUDIK' * CAIR JOB OPENING: CIVIL RIGHTS COORDINATOR - CAIR Dinner Volunteer Meetings * 9/11 PANEL FAULTS PROBE OF MUSLIM CHARITIES (Chicago Trib) - IL: Sting of Mistrust Haunts Muslims (Chicago Trib) - NY: Muslims Angry Over FBI Sting (Reuters) * CANADIAN MOSQUE EVACUATED OVER THREAT - PA: Islamic Center Open House Sept. 11 (Post Gazette) * FOR ARABS, LAND OF OPPORTUNITY CAN'T GET LOWER (Wash Post) * MALKIN BOOK URGES DISCRIMINATION (Daily Star) * FOLLY IN THE WEST BANK (NY Times) - No Hospitals for Hunger Strikers (Reuters) * IRAQI TEENS ABUSED AT ABU GHRAIB (Wash Post) * 41st ANNUAL ISNA CONVENTION IN CHICAGO ----- BREAKING NEWS: ALBANY MUSLIMS OUT ON BAIL DUE TO LACK OF EVIDENCE Ellen Wulfhorst, Reuters, 8/24/04 ALBANY, N.Y., Aug 24 (Reuters) - Two Muslims accused of supporting terrorism after an FBI sting operation were released on home detention on Tuesday after a judge chided the government for building a case that lacked evidence. U.S. Magistrate David Homer said there was not enough evidence to hold Yassin Aref, 34, and Mohammed Hossain, 49, who were held without bail on Aug. 10 after pleading not guilty to money laundering, supporting a terrorist organization and conspiracy to assassinate a Pakistani diplomat. In the wake of the arrest of the men, other Muslims in Albany -- home to about 7,000 followers of Islam -- have called the case a tragic misunderstanding and many have shied away from attending mosques for fear of being labeled terrorists. Aref and Hossain were arrested in Albany after authorities said they agreed to help an FBI informant launder $50,000 from the sale of a shoulder-fired missile as part of a fake plan to assassinate Pakistan's ambassador to the United Nations. Homer released them on $250,000 bond each on Tuesday and ordered them to remain in home detention with electronic surveillance bracelets, but he was caustic in his remarks on the case the government built. "As compared to Aug. 10, there's no longer any presumption that Mr. Hossain would cause a risk of flight or danger to the community," Homer said. "There still is no evidence of Mr. Hossain's involvement with any terrorist organization. The judge added: "The strength of the case against Mr. Aref appears less strong than it did appear on Aug. 10. "There is no evidence ... to support claims that Mr Aref has any contact with any terrorist organization..." ----- HADITH OF THE DAY: THE CRY OF THE OPPRESSED The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) once told a newly-appointed government official: "Fear the cry of the oppressed, for there is no barrier between it and God." Fiqh-us-Sunnah, Volume 3, Number 1 ----- QUOTE OF THE DAY: ELLIOT ABRAMS A 'LIKUDNIK' http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/468508.html "He is not pro-Likud," corrected an American official friendly to Israel after meeting with Elliott Abrams, the U.S. National Security Council official responsible for the Middle East. "He's a Likudnik." ----- CAIR JOB OPENING: CIVIL RIGHTS COORDINATOR CAIR has an immediate opening for an experienced dynamic person to fill the position of Civil Rights Coordinator. The position involves handling of civil rights cases, doing research on issues pertaining to civil and religious rights in America, maintaining a civil rights data base system, and generating reports, charts and graphs. Candidates should have a Bachelor degree in a related field with general knowledge of the US Constitution and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. All those interested and eligible to work in US (Citizens or proper work visa holders) are encouraged to apply in confidence via email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED], or by fax 202 488 0833. When applying via email please ensure to write the position title "Civil Rights Coordinator" in the subject of the email. Please send your application with cover letter and complete resume and references by August 27th, 2004. Absolutely no phone calls please. ALSO SEE: CAIR DINNER VOLUNTEER MEETINGS CAIR will hold 30-minute volunteer meetings for our Annual Banquet and Convention this Wednesday and Thursday in various mosques. Please check the options below, grab a friend, and attend a meeting to help us make this event a success! Meeting 1. Dar us Salaam, Wednesday, Aug. 25, 8 pm (after maghrib prayer): 5301 Edgewood Rd., College Park MD, 20740 Meeting 2. Dar ul Hijrah (library), Thursday, Aug. 26, 8 pm (after maghrib prayer): 3159 Row Street, Falls Church, VA 22044 Meeting 3. ADAMS (Room # 303), Thursday, Aug. 26, 8 pm (after maghrib prayer): 46903 Sugarland Rd, Sterling, VA 20164 If, for any reason, you cannot make one of these meetings but would still like to volunteer, please contact Ibrahim Abusway, Community Affairs Coordinator at 202-646-6043 or email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- 9/11 PANEL FAULTS PROBE OF 2 CHARITIES Chicago groups' ties to terror unproven Laurie Cohen, Chicago Tribune, 8/24/04 http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0408240193aug24,1,6574018.story The government's shutdown of two Chicago-area Islamic charities after the Sept. 11 attacks has yet to produce a terrorism-related criminal conviction and "raises substantial civil liberty concerns," according to the staff of the independent commission that investigated the attacks. Authorities froze the assets of the charities--Global Relief Foundation of Bridgeview and Benevolence International Foundation of Palos Hills--before any official finding that they were aiding Al Qaeda or other terrorist organizations. The action put Global Relief and Benevolence International out of business. But since they were shuttered in December 2001, the government hasn't proven in court that they were guilty of any terrorism-related crimes. The commission staff examined the moves against the two charities as part of a report on U.S. efforts to combat terrorism funding. The study also reviewed in detail a case against the Al-Barakaat money-transmission network, which fell apart because of insufficient evidence. The report raises questions about the government's claims of success in its terrorism financing investigations. It also echoes concerns of civil liberty abuses raised for years by Chicago-area Muslims and other supporters of the closed charities. "I'm really grateful that they looked at it with a degree of information I never got and came up with the same conclusion I did," said Roger Simmons, an attorney for Global Relief. "There was no hard evidence that [Global Relief] spent any money in support of Al Qaeda or violent activity of any type." The 152-page study was posted to the commission's Web site on Saturday afternoon, just after intelligence officials finished reviewing it and shortly before the panel closed its doors. The commission didn't formally deliberate on the report because it had not been completed by the panel's last meeting on July 22, a commission spokesman said... ALSO SEE: STING OF MISTRUST HAUNTS MUSLIMS Deborah Horan, Chicago Tribune, 8/24/04 http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/southsouthwest/chi-0408240277aug24, 1,2888234.story The knock on his neighbor's door upset Niaz Hussain the most. More than the invasive questions about which mosque he attends and his level of religious observance, the FBI's accidental visit to the house next door left the Pakistani native feeling the sting of humiliation. "They look at me very, very funny any time I'm walking by," Hussain said of the family that lives next to him in Berwyn. "They look at me like, `Why is the FBI after me?' The whole neighborhood looks at me funny." In the spotlight again amid heightened terror alerts, revelations of government efforts to track them and high-profile arrests, Arabs and Muslims in the U.S. are feeling the pinch of negative publicity and wondering if they will ever stop feeling like they are under a microscope. In the last few weeks, police have arrested several Muslims in separate alleged terror-related incidents. The most recent high-profile arrest came Friday in Chicago, when Muhammad Salah, 51, of Bridgeview was charged, along with two other men, with helping to raise money for Hamas, a militant Islamist Palestinian group based in the Gaza Strip. And the FBI has intensified voluntary interviews of Arabs and Muslims in advance of the November elections. Even more troubling to activists, the U.S. Census Bureau twice gave demographic information about Arabs--including ZIP codes and nations of origin--to the Department of Homeland Security, officials acknowledged in July. The revelation sent shivers up spines in a community already fearful of being rounded up like Japanese-Americans were during World War II... --- MUSLIMS ANGRY OVER FBI TERRORISM STING IN ALBANY, NY Ellen Wulfhorst, Reuters, 8/24/04 ALBANY, N.Y. - Angry and saddened, members of a Muslim community in New York state's capital have been staying away from their mosque for fear of being labeled terrorists as they await a bail hearing on Tuesday for two men accused of supporting terrorism. The hearing is the second proceeding against the pair associated with an Albany mosque and arrested in an FBI sting operation. It was granted by U.S. Magistrate David Homer after a possible translation error turned up in key evidence against them. Yassin Aref, 34, and Mohammed Hossain, 49, were first ordered held without bail on Aug. 10 when they pleaded not guilty to charges of money laundering, supporting a terrorist organization and conspiracy. At the time, U.S. authorities said the evidence included an address book found in what they called a terrorist training camp in northern Iraq that referred to Aref as "the commander" in Arabic. The Justice Department says FBI translators now read the word as "brother" in Kurdish. In the wake of the translation controversy, other Muslims in Albany call the case a tragic misunderstanding. About 7,000 Muslims live in Albany and nearby towns. "I'm upset. It's racial profiling," said Abdul Malik, who worships at the small Albany mosque where Aref serves as spiritual leader. "They are honest men, good family men." Faisal Ahmad, a teacher at the mosque, said attendance has been dwindling with many in fear of being labeled terrorists. "The saddest thing about this is it will further the whole misunderstanding about Islam," said Ahmad. "Muslims are not terrorist people. Muslims are not violent people." ----- WINDSOR MOSQUE EVACUATED Canoe, 8/23/04 http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/LondonFreePress/News/2004/08/23/597695.html WINDSOR -- Nearly 200 Muslims marking the death of a slain Iraqi leader were forced to evacuate their Windsor Mosque Sunday night after a bomb threat was phoned in to Windsor police. Visitors from as far away as London, Hamilton and Detroit were in the midst of a memorial service on the second floor of the building when Windsor police interrupted with news there might be an explosive device inside. Windsor police Sgt. John Severin said police received word of the bomb from a caller on a pay phone not far from the mosque. Although no bomb was found inside, the memorial service continued on the lawn out front of a brick recreational complex that operates as part of the Imam Hussain Foundation. The three-hour service, which featured readings from the Qur'an, prayers, a video and speeches, was held in honour of Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim. ALSO SEE: ISLAMIC CENTER OPEN HOUSE SEPT. 11 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 8/24/04 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04237/366686.stm The Islamic Center of Pittsburgh will hold an open house Sept. 11 from noon to 5 p.m. with the theme: "Planting Seeds of Understanding Together for a Better Tomorrow." Visitors will have a chance to meet members of the Muslim community and learn about Islam, its teachings and its followers. "The terrorist attack of September 11th, 2001, was a tragedy for all humankind. As a family does, the citizens of the United States came together to grieve and work through their fears. Our nation, comprised of peoples from different nations and creeds, rallied around the core ideals that we share as Americans: a commitment to democratic values, respect for diversity; hope for a better tomorrow and trust in God. These are also the embodiment of the Islamic belief," said Ahmed Abdelwahab, president of the Islamic Center. The event is free. The center is at 4100 Bigelow Blvd., Oakland. For more information, call 412-818-7719 or visit www.icp-pgh.org. ----- IN ARAB EYES, THE FORMER LAND OF OPPORTUNITY CAN'T GET MUCH LOWER Philip Kennicott, Washington Post, 8/24/04 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27436-2004Aug23.html CAIRO - Whether he's in his 18th-floor office in Cairo's World Trade Center, or at his villa near the Pyramids, lawyer and law professor A. Kamal Aboulmagd moves in very different circles than most Egyptians. In his long and distinguished career, he has held ministerial posts in the Egyptian government, served as an adviser to the crown prince of Kuwait, held innumerable positions on panels and advisory committees, and devoted himself to human rights issues. He has lived in America and waxes poetic about the color of the leaves in autumn. But his opinion of the United States today is not far removed from that of Egyptians of much more modest resources. "He deserves to be in the Guinness Book of World Records," Aboulmagd says of President Bush. "He has changed the minds of the most people, about America, in the shortest period of time. Five years ago, they would say they like America, that it is an open society." But not today, according to Aboulmagd, who bemoans the historically low esteem in which America is held in the Arab world. In Egypt, according to a highly regarded Pew Research Center poll two years ago, only 6 percent of people held a positive view of the United States. And if a Zogby International poll in June, commissioned by the Arab American Institute, is to be believed, in the past two years unfavorable views of America among Egyptians rose from 76 percent to a whopping 98 percent. That makes Egypt the most anti-American of the six Arab countries polled by Zogby (3,300 Arabs living in Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt were questioned). Perhaps most ominous is yet another Pew poll, released in March, which found that Osama bin Laden's numbers were far better than Bush's in several Muslim countries. Whether all of this represents momentary frustration and venting, or the settling in of a deeper loathing, cannot be determined now. But talk to people in this part of the world, and it's clear that they feel themselves part of a new and implacably anti-American worldview. It hasn't always been this way. Hani Shukrallah, the liberal editor of the English-language Al-Ahram weekly in Cairo, remembers that Richard Nixon was received as a hero, drawing crowds in the hundreds of thousands, when he visited Cairo in 1974. "To see the shift in 30 years, it is really quite amazing," says Shukrallah, who traces the beginnings of the current, more strident anti-Americanism to 2000, when Palestinians rose up against Israel in the second intifada. "It isn't just a matter of intensity. Before the second intifada and all that followed, there was an ambivalence in people's sense of the U.S. It's arrogant, yes, and it's imperial, but it's a democracy. Now, anything from the U.S. is seen as part of a design to bring us down, to humiliate us..." ----- BOOK URGES DISCRIMINATION IN US AGAINST ARABS, MUSLIMS, DEFENDS Hussein Ibish, Daily Star, 8/24/04 http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id= 7654 WASHINGTON: A new book by right-wing columnist Michelle Malkin, "In Defense of Internment," argues in favor of extensive discrimination and racial profiling against Arab-Americans and Muslims in the United States, and passionately defends the imprisonment of tens of thousands of Japanese Americans during World War II. A rising star on the US extreme right, Malkin specifically denies advocating the mass imprisonment of Arabs and Muslims, but the logic of her book strongly contradicts these apparently pro forma disavowals. "Make no mistake: I am not advocating rounding up all Arabs or Muslims and tossing them into camps, but when we are under attack, 'Racial profiling' - or more precisely, threat profiling - is justified," she argues. However, given her full-throated defense of the wartime imprisonment of tens of thousands of Japanese-American men, women and children on the supposition that their ethnicity made them a security threat, her book does seem to constitute the brief for the potential internment of Arab- and Muslim-Americans. The daughter of Filipino immigrants, Malkin has made a career out of being among the strongest critics of immigration and immigrants' rights. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks she has been one of the most hostile commentators toward the Arab- and Muslim-American communities, consistently arguing in favor of discrimination and profiling, and describing the backlash of hate crimes and discrimination against the communities as a "myth." Whatever reservations Malkin may have about a mass incarceration of Arab- and Muslim-Americans are confined to a single sentence: "In part because of the geographical dispersion of the current threat of Islamofascism, it is hard to imagine parallel circumstances under which America would be compelled to replicate something on the scale of the West Coast evacuation and relocation during World War II." Her only apparent concerns, therefore, have to do with practicality and scale, not any consideration of the legal and constitutional rights of Arab- and Muslim-Americans, or the moral implications of locking up large numbers of people based solely on their identity - a situation she repeatedly characterizes as an "inconvenience." Even without another mass internment, she insists, "there is much else we can learn from the past if it is viewed without a knee-jerk impulse to cry 'racism' at every turn." Malkin calls for extensive, systematized discrimination, arguing that "it is of questionable wisdom to continue allowing Muslims to serve in the US military in combat roles in the Mideast and to have access to classified information, except under extraordinary circumstances and after thorough background checks." She calls for "the strictest scrutiny" for "Muslim chaplains in the military and prisons," and urges across-the-board profiling on the basis of "race, ethnicity, religion and nationality�" ----- FOLLY IN THE WEST BANK New York Times, 8/24/04 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/24/opinion/24tue2.html The Bush administration is driving American credibility as a Middle East peacemaker to a new low with its support for a major expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. While designed to provide a short-term boost to Israel's embattled prime minister, Ariel Sharon, this cynical change in administration policy will have important long-term costs. It will further demoralize Israeli and Palestinian moderates, frustrate Washington's closest European and Middle Eastern allies, and undermine the American-backed road map peace plan, which, though a long shot, is the only current peaceful political alternative. Last week Mr. Sharon issued tenders for the first 1,001 of a planned 1,634 heavily subsidized new apartments in existing West Bank settlements. Israel has long contended that expanding existing settlements, which it calls "natural growth," somehow does not violate the road map's call for a freeze on all settlement activity, even though the road map specifically excludes this form of expansion. "Natural growth" has accounted for most of the nearly 100,000 additional West Bank settlers since 1992, a near doubling of the settler population there. Most of these, including the latest group, have been attracted by huge government subsidies. Yesterday Israel announced it was rezoning land for a further 533 new settler homes on the outskirts of Jerusalem. Settlements are such a sensitive matter because they cut directly to the core of the Israeli-Palestinian issue - the ultimate division of the land of Palestine. To be just, workable and sustainable, any peace plan will have to divide that land into two coherent territories that are defensible and economically viable. The presence of more than 250,000 Israeli settlers scattered across the occupied West Bank, Gaza Strip and Golan Heights, leaving aside the added complications of East Jerusalem, make that division immeasurably harder. Every new increase, "natural" or otherwise, adds to the challenge. No one step by Israel would be likely to do more to restart peace talks and isolate Palestinian terrorists than announcing a genuine freeze on all settlement construction. No recent administration has been less engaged in the pursuit of Middle East peace than the Bush administration. Now it seems to be sliding from dangerous passivity to outright obstruction. ALSO SEE: NO HOSPITALS FOR PALESTINIAN HUNGER STRIKE -ISRAEL Dan Williams, Reuters, 8/24/04 JERUSALEM - Israel declared its hospitals off-limits Tuesday to the 2,800 Palestinians on hunger strike in Israeli prisons, saying they could be treated in makeshift facilities behind bars if they need medical care. "I am not prepared for there to be a situation where the lives of patients and medical teams are endangered in our hospitals as a result of us having to admit these murderers," Health Minister Danny Naveh told Army Radio. "If a field hospital has to be set up at a Prisons Service installation, then that is what should be done," Naveh said. Israeli Public Security Minister Tzahi Hanegbi, like Naveh a member of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's right-wing Likud party, said last week he didn't care if the prisoners starved to death. Seen by Palestinians as symbols of resistance to Israeli occupation, the inmates at 10 jails are refusing food to force wardens to stop strip searches, allow more frequent family visits, improve sanitation and install public telephones. Israeli officials call the liquids-only fast that began on Aug. 15 a ploy by prisoners to secure easier communication with militant groups waging a four-year-old Palestinian revolt. About 7,000 Palestinians taken into custody in security sweeps are held by Israel. Among the inmates are those who openly identify with Islamic groups sworn to its destruction, and thus elicit little sympathy among the Israeli public. Hisham Abdel-Razek, the Palestinian minister for prisoners affairs, called Naveh's comments "inhuman and arrogant." "Israel is behaving like a state above the law and Israeli ministers are acting as if they are above Israeli law," Abdel-Razek told Reuters. A Prisons Service spokesman said Israel had warned the prisoners in a leaflet they could be force-fed if critically ill, but that daily examinations found no serious health problems yet. "None of the prisoners has required anything more than basic health care," the spokesman, Ofer Leffler, said. "In fact, at least 124 of the prisoners have already broken the strike." Businesses and government offices across the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which Palestinians want for a state, closed Tuesday in a show of solidarity with the prisoners. Many of their relatives are also fasting... ----- IRAQI TEENS ABUSED AT ABU GHRAIB, REPORT FINDS Josh White and Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post, 8/24/04 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27048-2004Aug23.html An Army investigation into the Abu Ghraib prison scandal has found that military police dogs were used to frighten detained Iraqi teenagers as part of a sadistic game, one of many details in the forthcoming report that were provoking expressions of concern and disgust among Army officers briefed on the findings. Earlier reports and photographs from the prison have indicated that unmuzzled military police dogs were used to intimidate detainees at Abu Ghraib, something the dog handlers have told investigators was sanctioned by top military intelligence officers there. But the new report, according to Pentagon sources, will show that MPs were using their animals to make juveniles -- as young as 15 years old -- urinate on themselves as part of a competition. "There were two MP dog handlers who did use dogs to threaten kids detained at Abu Ghraib," said an Army officer familiar with the report, one of two investigations on detainee abuse scheduled for release this week. "It has nothing to do with interrogation. It was just them on their own being weird." Speaking on the condition of anonymity because the report has not been released, other officials at the Pentagon said the investigation also acknowledges that military intelligence soldiers kept multiple detainees off the record books and hid them from international humanitarian organizations. The report also mentions substantiated claims that at least one male detainee was sodomized by one of his captors at Abu Ghraib, sources said. "The report will show that these actions were bad, illegal, unauthorized, and some of it was sadistic," said one Defense Department official. "But it will show that they were the actions of a few, actions that went unnoticed because of leadership failures." The investigative report by Maj. Gen. George R. Fay focuses on the role of military intelligence soldiers in the prison abuse. It will expand the circle of soldiers considered responsible for abuse beyond the seven military police soldiers already facing charges, officials said, to include more than a dozen others -- low-ranking soldiers, civilian contractors and medics. Sources have said that the report also criticizes military leadership, from the prison and up through the highest levels of the U.S. chain of command in Iraq at the time. One Pentagon official said yesterday that Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, then the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is named in the report for leadership deficiencies and failing to deal with rising problems at the prison as he tried to manage 150,000 troops countering an unexpected insurgency. Sanchez, however, will not be recommended for any punitive action or even a letter of reprimand, the source said. About 300 pages of the 9,000-page report will be released publicly, according to Army officials... ----- 41ST ANNUAL ISNA CONVENTION BRINGS THOUSANDS OF FAITHFUL MUSLIMS TO CHICAGO http://www.isna.net The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), a preeminent international Islamic organization, and its co-host for the ISNA Annual Convention, the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago (CIO), an umbrella organization representing over 400,000 Muslims throughout Chicagoland, are pleased to announce the 41st Annual ISNA Convention. The theme of this year's convention is "Islam: Dialogue, Devotion and Development". The convention will be held at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, Rosemont, Illinois. From Friday, September 3, 2004 to Monday, September 6, 2004 Muslims will immerse themselves in the pursuit of Islamic knowledge through seminars presented by international Islamic experts and scholars. Over 25,000 attendees are expected at this important annual event. Every year during the Labor Day weekend thousands of North American Muslims come to the ISNA Annual Convention to enrich their faith, celebrate the diversity of Islam, take advantage of the wealth of knowledge at seminars, enjoy ethnic delicacies and browse through the colorful bazaar. The ISNA Annual Convention is recognized for providing an avenue for constructive dialogue involving social, religious, political and business leaders. A notable group of Islamic scholars and prominent figures from a range of disciplines are scheduled to speak at the convention. The speakers include: Sheikh Muhammed Nur Abdullah, ISNA President and Director of the Islamic Foundation of Greater Missouri; Dr. Ingrid Mattson, ISNA Vice-President and professor of Islamic Studies at Hartford Seminary, Hartford, Connecticut; Hamza Yusuf, founder of the Zaytuna Institute in Hayward, California; Jamal Badawi, a professor at St. Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia and Abdul Hakim Jackson, professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. A press conference featuring ISNA leadership will be held on Friday, September 3, 2004 at the Convention Center. The time and room location will be announced shortly. This will be the best opportunity for the press to speak directly with the leaders of one of North America's preeminent Muslim organizations. One of the major events of the convention will be the Unity Banquet, scheduled for Friday, September 3, 2004 at 6:00 p.m. The banquet will be an opportunity for leaders of diverse religions, including the Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim communities, to come together, renew their bonds and forge a path of unity for the future. We invite you to attend and cover this pre-eminent Islamic gathering, scheduled news conferences and interfaith events. Please note members of the media must register at the Media Registration Booth located in the Convention Center lobby to enter the convention and attend events. Advance media inquiries are suggested to facilitate press passes, pre-planning for coverage of news events and interviews at the Convention. Please contact: Farhan Younus at (630) 926-5566. ----- To SUBSCRIBE to or UNSUBSCRIBE from this list, go to: http://cair.biglist.com/cair-net/ To reach the list moderator, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- CAIR Council on American-Islamic Relations 453 New Jersey Avenue, S.E. Washington, D.C. 20003 Tel: 202-488-8787, 202-744-7726 Fax: 202-488-0833 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] URL: http://www.cair-net.org ----- --------------------------------------------------------------------- You are subscribed as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe, e-mail: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or go to: http://cair.biglist.com/unsub.php/cair-net/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> $9.95 domain names from Yahoo!. Register anything. http://us.click.yahoo.com/J8kdrA/y20IAA/yQLSAA/MknplB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! 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