11361: Million Muslim March Misstep.

From FOX News…

Muslim group blasted for planning mass demonstration on Sept. 11

Critics say a Muslim group picked the wrong day – Sept. 11 - to march on Washington to complain about religious profiling and President Obama’s handling of an investigation into the terror attacks that rocked America 12 years ago.

The mass demonstration, called the “Million Muslim March,” was changed to a more mainstream-sounding event, “Million American March Against Fear,” but the name did not seem to gain much traction and has apparently reverted back to its original title.

American Muslim Political Action Committee (AMPAC), which is organizing the march, claims Muslims nationwide have been the victims of anti-Islamic bigotry in the years following the Sept. 11, 2001, Al Qaeda terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people on American soil.

“On 9.11.01 our country was forever changed by the horrific events in New York. The entire country was victimized by the acts done on that day,” the group said in a statement. “Muslim and Non Muslim alike were traumatized but we as Muslims continue 12 years later to be victimized by being made the villains. To this day every media outlet and anti Islamic organization has committed slanderous and libel statements against us as Muslims and our religion of Islam.”

“Yet our Government either sits idly by and does nothing to protect our freedoms or it exacerbates the problem with its constant war on terrorism in Islamic countries, congressional hearings on Islam in America, and its changes to the NDAA law,” the statement says.

In an interview Thursday with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, M.D. Rabbi Alam, one of the march’s main organizers, defended the movement, claiming demonstrators will stand on that day to “show America that we Muslims denounce terrorism.”

“We Muslims have become villainized and victimized” following the attacks, Alam said. He added that 12 years after 9/11, he feels that he “is looked at” as one of the 19 Al Qaeda hijackers who committed the attacks.

But critics say the U.S. has gone to great lengths to differentiate between Islam and Islamic extremists since the 2001 attacks—and that claims Muslims have been victimized by the government are unfounded. Critics also say the date chosen for the march on the nation’s capitol—Sept. 11—is insensitive to the victims and their family members.

“They’re basically a bunch of ‘truthers’ who think that America’s to blame for everything,” Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the Islamic Forum for Democracy, told Fox News on Friday. The Anti-Defamation League, Jasser said, has identified some of the leaders of the march as “being virulent, anti-Semites who think 9/11 was a conspiracy theory.”

“These guys are problematic and they’re trying to exploit 9/11,” Jasser said. “If they were truly patriotic Americans and moderates, they’d be marching on the courthouse steps of the Fort Hood trial that’s happening this week to tell Americans that we want the death penalty for Nidal Hissan rather than this circus that they’re doing in exploiting the murders and horrific acts of 9/11.”

“America has gone on to liberate Muslims,” he continued. “They gave our families freedom that we could not have in any so-called Muslim countries.”

10403: Post-9/11 Discrimination Must End.

From USA TODAY…

Column: Post-9/11 discrimination must end

By Deepa Iyer

Eleven years ago, on the first Saturday after the Sept. 11 attacks, a Sikh man was shot and killed in Mesa, Ariz. Flash forward to this past Sunday, when a gunman attacked a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis., leaving six people dead. When will this end?

I have been asking myself this question over the past few days. Though Wade Michael Page, an apparent white supremacist, committed this massacre, each of us is responsible for what happens next. Our elected leaders, though, have a duty to take concrete actions to prevent another Oak Creek tragedy.

For many of us in the Sikh, Muslim, Arab-American or South-Asian communities, the recent tragedy is part of a history of bias and discrimination since 9/11. There has been a tendency to view the post-9/11 backlash only in the distant past. In the year after 9/11, anti-Muslim hate crimes rose by nearly 1,600%. Although these numbers have not been as high over the past 11 years, bias incidents continue to be reported and the climate of prejudice has arguably become worse.

It manifests itself in different ways: a mosque blocked for the past two years from being developed in Tennessee; a Bangladeshi cab driver brutally assaulted in New York because his passenger thought he was Muslim; and a mosque in Missouri destroyed by a suspected arson a day after the Oak Creek tragedy. It extends to politicians, such as Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., holding anti-Muslim hearings and Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., making unsubstantiated claims that disloyal Muslims are infiltrating our government.

While these sentiments have been described as racism, Islamophobia or xenophobia, they are all related. Our nation was founded on the values of pluralism and religious freedom. A murderous attack like this, targeting a single faith, is an assault on our American ideals, whether those targeted are Muslims, or Sikhs, or Jews, or Christians.

We must not treat this crime as an isolated incident, or the result of a person with an extreme view on race. In our increasingly diverse country, we have a responsibility to include individuals of different backgrounds and faiths in our society. For our elected officials, this means denouncing bigoted statements and actions, affirming our ideals of inclusion, and ending practices of profiling.

The list of names of people who have lost their lives for simply being of a different color or faith grew by six this past week. Let us commit as a nation to putting an end to this growing list, once and for all.

Deepa Iyer is executive director of South Asian Americans Leading Together.