Promoting Religious Tolerance: Shehrbano Taseer receives human rights award...
Published: October 23, 2011 Pakistani journalist and daughter of former Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer, Shehrbano Taseer, received a Human Rights Award during an annual award dinner in New York City on Saturday. In the months since her father’s slaying, Shehrbano has continued to speak out publicly against discriminatory laws that target religious minorities and encourage extremism, said a press release issued by Human Rights First. Despite criticism and even death threats from militant groups, Shehrbano has worked unremittingly to shed light on the hundreds of victims of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws and to encourage the government to take necessary steps to promote religious tolerance, the press release added. Human Rights First will honour Shehrbano “for her courage in carrying...
Muslim, Arab-American Youths Emerge as Social Activists...
July 22, 2011 Lolla Mohammed Nur When you think of Arab or Muslim political activists, you likely imagine flag-waving, fist-pumping protesters demanding rapid political reform. However, in the United States, Muslim political activism seems to take on a different meaning. Glancing at Wiaam Yasin, you wouldn’t immediately assume she’s an activist with a passion for immigration reform. A petite 20-year-old who wears the Muslim headscarf, the Sudanese American native of Reston, Virginia, speaks Spanish, is passionate about immigration reform and hopes to volunteer abroad. Yasin is just one of many Muslim and Arab-American youths who are seeking social change in their local communities by focusing their efforts on minority rights, immigration reform and racial equality. Her interest in...
Seven Muslim Americans on Ballot in Suburban Chicago...
April 04, 2011 Kane Farabaugh | Chicago, Illinois When it started last year, the non-profit group Project Mobilize, or Project M, hoped to change the political landscape in suburban Chicago by promoting Muslim Americans as election candidates. So far, there are no Muslim Americans serving as elected officials in the Chicago area. But Project M hopes that will change in municipal elections April 5. In the countdown to election day, Maha Hasan is making a final push to get out the vote. She is running for a position as a trustee with the Justice Public Library. Justice is a Chicago suburb. “The demographics have significantly changed. You see a lot more Polish immigrants coming in. You see a...
USC Program Helps to Train Young Muslim Leaders...
Mike O’Sullivan | Los Angeles February 18, 2011 A new generation of Muslim American leaders is emerging in the United States. And a project at the University of Southern California called American Muslim Civic Leadership Institute is helping to train them. The American Muslim Civic Leadership Institute’s approach includes stretching exercises and heart-to-heart sharing of personal stories. One goal is to help young Muslim leaders counteract negative sentiments, like the anti-Muslim protests last year surrounding plans to build an Islamic center near the site of the terrorist attacks in New York in 2001. Khuram Zaman, who helps to run an Internet-based Islamic educational site, said, “I think the community in general feels like it is under attack, but...
US Group Launches Campaign to Promote Peaceful Image of Islam...
December 21, 2010 Peter Fedynsky | New York Many Muslims are concerned that terrorist attacks carried out in the name of Islam are creating a false impression that the faith is violent by its very nature. A group of American Muslims has launched a campaign at Times Square in New York City to defend Islam against that impression. Amid the blaze of lights at Times Square in New York City are signs advertising a range of goods and services — from restaurants to theaters, from pharmaceuticals to the New York Yankees baseball team. This holiday season, there is also a 15-second video sponsored by Muslims for Peace, a group that follows the pacifist tradition within Islam. It promotes a...
Get to know a Muslim, rather than hate one...
Updated 9/26/2010 6:17 PM By Tom Krattenmaker And then you’d know that the situation was bound to play out on a whole different frequency. At flashpoints from Temecula, Calif., to Gainesville, Fla., to New York, N.Y., and all along the low road in between, mongers of fear and haters of the “other” are sounding the alarm about Islam with a new level of intensity. To hear it from conservative spokesman Newt Gingrich and those of a similar persuasion, the Muslims between our shores are bent on taking over the country and imposing their “un-American” values. This demonizing and demagoguery is beneath us. My plea to those tempted to fall for the beware-of-all-Muslims hype: Get to know someone before you decide to fear...
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