(AP) The U.S. House passed legislation Thursday that would give the Treasury Department unilateral authority to strip the tax-exempt status of nonprofits it claims support terrorism, alarming civil liberties groups about how a second Trump presidency could invoke it to punish political […]
(JTA) U.S. law prohibits nonprofits from providing support to terrorist organizations, but enforcing that prohibition requires the government to furnish proof of a violation, triggering a judicial process that can be lengthy and arduous. In the more than two decades since the […]
(NY Times) A military judge ruled on Wednesday that plea agreements in the Sept. 11 case were valid, reviving the possibility that the man accused of planning the attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and two accused accomplices could eventually be sentenced to life […]
(NBC) Charlotte Kates, a New Jersey native and Rutgers Law School graduate who co-founded the pro-Hamas organization Samidoun, has become the focus of an ongoing legal debate: When does free speech cross the line into breaking federal anti-terrorism laws? Over the last […]
(Jerusalem Post) The Harris 2024 campaign has appointed Nasrina Bargzie as a new outreach leader to engage Muslim and Arab voters, according to NBC News on Tuesday. This move has already sparked controversy due to her past statements about Israel and Jewish […]
(ABC) Three of the five 9/11 defendants at Guantanamo Bay — including alleged mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — have reached a plea agreement with prosecutors, the Department of Defense announced Wednesday. Gary B. Sowards, the lead attorney [for] Mohammed, confirmed to ABC […]
(CBS) The U.S. government’s terrorist watchlist has nearly doubled in size in just six years, a CBS Reports investigation has found. An extensive review of court records, government documents and interviews with more than a dozen current and former intelligence community leaders […]
(Detroit Free Press) Michael Flynn, a retired Army general who once served as former President Donald Trump’s national security advisor, is reaching out to Hamtramck Mayor Amer Ghalib and the Muslim community in metro Detroit to form a broad conservative coalition. Flynn, […]
(LA Times) Each time he escaped danger on the journey that would eventually bring him to California, Shamsuddin Shams made sure to video-chat with his mother. She liked it that way — to not only hear his voice but see his face, […]
(Shawnee Mission Post) The Kansas chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations is calling on the city of Roeland Park to reject a definition of antisemitism that has been adopted by other local governments in recent months. The Roeland Park City Council […]
(Washington Times) The Senate confirmed the first Muslim female judge Thursday, helping President Biden fulfill his promise to make the federal bench more diverse. Nusrat Choudhury was approved 50-49 to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Sen. […]
(Detroit Free Press) After 10 p.m. on a recent Saturday night in Dearborn, crowds started to form around the downtown area in the western part of the city near Michigan Avenue. Organized by city officials for the Islamic month of Ramadan, a […]
(AP) Islamic State gunmen killed American college student Nohemi Gonzalez as she sat with friends in a Paris bistro in 2015, one of several attacks on a Friday night in the French capital that left 130 people dead. Her family’s lawsuit claiming […]
(AFP) President Joe Biden promised to abolish capital punishment for federal crimes, but the US government is due to argue, beginning Monday, that an Uzbek man should get the death penalty for killing eight people in New York half a decade ago. […]
(Middle East Eye) US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and Senator Elizabeth Warren are leading an effort to urge American banking regulators to reassess policies that discriminate against Muslim Americans and immigrant communities. The two lawmakers, along with Senator Ed Markey and Congresswomen Rashida […]
(Middle East Eye) In 2006, then-Navy officer Ron DeSantis was an appointed attorney supporting the US military’s mission at Guantanamo Bay. Not much is officially known about his months-long stint at the prison, which at its peak held nearly 800 Muslim men […]
(Middle East Eye) A coalition of advocacy groups have called for the release of the Holy Land Five, a group of Palestinian-American men who were convicted of funding terrorism in a case civil liberties groups say highlights the disproportionate targeting of Muslim charities […]
(New Arab) The US state of Maryland has passed a law that will protect the rights of hijab-wearing female athletes and others with faith-related head coverings to play sports, without concerns of exclusion. The bill, called the Inclusive Attire Act, which took […]
(WBAL) The Council on American-Islamic Relations vowed on Thursday to sue America’s largest passenger rail network if Amtrak begins screening its travelers against the government’s terrorist watchlist — a program first revealed by the Hearst Television National Investigative Unit’s reporting. “If Amtrak […]
(WBAL) Khalid Turaani knows what it’s like to be on a secret government watchlist. He learned about his status on it, not from an official letter or communication, but when TSA officers stopped him from flying one day in 2017. “They told […]
(ABC) Already missing their flight to Canada, Zainab Merchant held her then-6-month-old baby inside a cold room in an airport in September of 2016 while she waited for her husband’s screening to be over after her family was detained for a random […]
(Courthouse News) In 2017, Imam Abdirahman Aden Kariye returned to the United States from Saudi Arabia after participating in the hajj — the sacred pilgrimage to Mecca. When he entered the United States at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Customs and Border Protection agents […]
(AP) The Supreme Court sided unanimously with the Biden administration Friday and reversed a lower court decision that had allowed a lawsuit to go forward by Muslim men claiming FBI religious bias. But the justices’ limited decision did not end the case, […]
(Middle East Eye) Muslims across the United States are celebrating President Joe Biden’s judicial nomination of Nusrat Choudhury, who, if confirmed by the Senate, will be the first Muslim woman to be appointed as a US federal judge. Choudhury, a Bangladeshi American among […]
(Algemeiner) Last Friday’s decision by District Court Judge Andrew Hanen of Texas has been lauded as a landmark victory by supporters of Israel boycotts — an irony, given the opinion actually upholds the constitutionality of state laws that deem such boycotts discriminatory and […]
(Al-Jazeera) US President Joe Biden has nominated the first Muslim-American woman to be a judge on a federal court in the United States, the White House said on Wednesday, as it announced a list of diverse judicial nominees. If confirmed by the […]
(AP) A new federal court order says a Mississippi city must allow construction of a mosque, two months after the American Civil Liberties Union filed a discrimination lawsuit against the city on behalf of two Muslim men who want to develop the […]
(Al-Jazeera) First, the major Muslim-American advocacy group reported that a “mole” had infiltrated the leadership of one of its state branches. Then, only days later, the organisation said a “spy” at a US mosque had passed information on to an “anti-Muslim” group. […]
(VOA) The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing arguments Monday whether the U.S. government can invoke the protection of “state secrets” to withhold information about its surveillance of Muslims at mosques in California. The dispute began a decade ago when three Muslim men […]
Since 9/11, the FBI has frequently used “sting” operations to capture would-be terrorists before they commit violence. Some of these efforts have been successful from the FBI’s point of view, meaning that the FBI was able to lure suspects into criminal activity […]
(Commercial Appeal) The American Civil Liberties Union is suing the City of Horn Lake in federal court, alleging that the city and its board of aldermen discriminated against two Muslim men on the basis of religion in denying approval of a mosque […]
(AP) The newly drawn legislative district maps in Ohio were contested for the third time Monday, when state and national civic groups filed suit alleging the Republican-controlled redistricting process violated voters’ rights. The newest lawsuit, filed in the Ohio Supreme Court by […]
(Fox) A group of four Democratic congresswomen on Friday introduced a resolution condemning racism in the U.S. government and outlining relief for victims of racism 20 years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Democratic Reps. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, Ilhan Omar [of] […]
(JTA) Dozens of progressive Jewish leaders have signed a letter condemning the Israel lobby AIPAC for social media ads targeting Reps. Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other members of the group of progressive Congress members known as “the Squad.” J Street, a […]
(Courthouse News) Wading into a decade-old class action, the Supreme Court agreed Monday to look at the FBI’s use of an informant to collect information from several Los Angeles and Orange County mosques for more than a year. The FBI petitioned the […]
(Fresno Bee) Arabic speakers in Fresno County could soon have access to ballots and voting materials in their language, if California’s Secretary of State Shirley Weber acts promptly on a new resolution. The Language Accessibility Advisory Committee — an 18-member advisory body […]
(Bergen Record) Feras Awwad dreamed of entering politics and government one day to help his community and change the negative narratives about Muslims he heard growing up after the 9/11 attacks. Last year, at age 26, he seized the opportunity, winning election to the Clifton […]
(AP) Mohammed Al Zabidi celebrated in 2017 when he learned he had been selected in the U.S. green card lottery, which picks people at random from a large pool of applicants. It was a chance to escape his war-torn homeland of Yemen […]
(Courthouse News) Several justices with the U.S. Supreme Court hinted Tuesday that a law protecting religious freedoms includes a subtext that would allow individuals to sue government agents for money damages. In the underlying 2013 suit, Muhammad Tanvir accused FBI agents of violating […]
(Denver Post) A man who conspired with the 9/11 hijackers has filed lawsuits from his Colorado prison cell against President Donald Trump, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, U.S. Attorney General William Barr and more than a dozen other people in […]
(Journal Sentinel) The Waukesha County Jail has made religious texts more accessible, and contracted a new food service to meet constitutional standards that protect religious freedom, following a Muslim inmate’s report of religious discrimination, said an attorney with the American Civil Liberties […]
(Democrat and Chronicle) The upper echelons of the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security paint Adham Amin Hassoun as a terrorist so dangerous he should not be set free on American soil. That said, federal officials have a dilemma with Hassoun, […]
(Democrat and Chronicle) A federal courtroom in Rochester next week will be the battleground for a constitutional tug-of-war as authorities try to keep jailed a man once imprisoned for terrorism crimes and who is now facing deportation. The hearing will test the […]
(Middle East Eye) Ahmed Mohamed made headlines five years ago when he brought a homemade clock to his US public high school. A robotics enthusiast, Mohamed loved engineering and had dreams of studying at the world-renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Still, when […]
(AP) The only man ever convicted in a U.S. court for a role in the Sept. 11 attacks now says he is renouncing terrorism, al-Qaida and the Islamic State. Zacarias Moussaoui is serving a life sentence at a federal prison in Colorado […]
(Courthouse News) In litigation challenging a Texas law blocking state agencies from hiring companies boycotting Israel, the Fifth Circuit ordered dismissal of the case Monday but declined to decide if the law is constitutional. Bahia Amawi, a Palestinian U.S. citizen, had worked […]
(Middle East Eye) Muslim rights groups have accused US President Donald Trump of stoking Islamophobia after he said there “could be a difference” in how local authorities and politicians enforce coronavirus lockdown measures during the month of Ramadan. During his daily coronavirus news conference on Saturday, Trump referred […]
(AP) President Donald Trump’s administration has agreed to speed up the cases of some former interpreters for the U.S. military in Iraq and hundreds of other refugees whose efforts to move to the United States have been in limbo since he announced […]
(Yahoo News) Despite a federal judge’s ruling last September that the U.S. government’s terror watch list violates constitutional rights, an FBI report obtained by Yahoo News shows local and state law enforcement agencies are being used to gather intelligence on individuals to […]
(Politico) President Donald Trump will expand his contentious travel ban, placing new restrictions on six additional countries, just as he embarks on a tough reelection campaign where he will tout his hard-line stance on immigration. Immigrant visas will be suspended for citizens […]
Thank you for reading Eye on Islamism.