Assalamu alaikum,
Are there any Republicans who are reasonable?
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., just appointed Dr. Zuhdi Jasser Jasser to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.
Will they appoint an anti-Semitic Jew to this commission next? If not, then why appoint a Muslim-bashing Muslim to this position.
The appointment of Dr. Zuhdi Jasser by Republicans is a huge insult to the American Muslims and it will have consequences in terms of demonizing Muslims abroad. As a USCIR commissioner, Jasser will advise the US President and Congress on how to deal with Muslim countries around religious liberties. This is a guy who has made a living advocating to curb religious liberties for Muslims RIGHT HERE in the US. The contradiction and hypocrisy of this action could not be more underscored.
Jasser is a well known Islamophobia puppet who receives lots of funding from entities as extreme as the Clarion Fund (which funded the anti-Muslim movies like Obsession and Third Jihad). He also received $100,000 from the same donor who supports Santorum and who considers both Jasser and Santorum to be crusaders who are fighting to save the West from Islam.
The decision was a political one by Republican lawmakers (many of whom buy into the anti-Muslim industry), but we will let them know that we are watching, we won't sit idly by, and we will let our strong objections be heard.
ACT NOW:
- Call Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
Washington DC office: (202) 224-2541
Kantucky office: (502) 582-6304
Eemail him through web here. - Although it is not a president Obama appointment, ask White House to publicly distance itself from this appointment. Email here. Call: 202-456-1111
- Take FIVE seconds to sign this petition
- Send it to everyone on your organizational and personal lists with the reasons why they should
Why is this Important?
The appointment of Dr. Zuhdi Jasser to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom is a contradiction to the goals of the USCIRF for the following reasons:
1) Most problematically, Jasser allies himself with and receives funding from anti-Muslim organizations and personalities who work tirelessly to curb the religious and civil liberties of Muslims in the USA.
Jasser's organization has received funding, to the tune of $100,000 from a major backer of Rick Santorum, Foster Friess. Friess was featured as one of the major backers of Islamophobic organizations in the Center for American Progress's groundbreaking report, Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America.
According to the Washington Post,
"Jasser received a $100,000 donation from Christian conservative financier Foster Friess, who is now bankrolling the super-PAC supporting Rick Santorum's presidential bid. Jasser declined to elaborate on exactly how much Friess had given AIFD, though he said the financier contributed $70,000 to his organization in 2010 for a Muslim youth retreat hosted by the group. (Friess told MSNBC that he was backing Santorum because he is 'incredibly versed in one of the number one issues of our time—and that is violent Islamic extremism.')"
Jasser told Mother Jones that the AIFD had accepted $5,000 from the Center for Security Policy:
"The center published a report in 2010 warning that American Muslims are seeking to replace the Constitution with a strict interpretation of Islamic law. The "expert" in Islamic religious law cited in the report, an attorney named David Yerushalmi, is responsible for authoring draft anti-Shariah legislation that has served as a blueprint for anti-Shariah laws across the US. Yerushalmi has suggested that "acting in furtherance of Islam" should be a felony."
Mother Jones also reports that,
"Jasser said his group has also received a one-time, unsolicited donation of $10,000 from the Clarion Fund, which is associated with Aish HaTorah, a right-wing Israeli group described by Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic as 'just about the most fundamentalist movement in Judaism today'. "
The Clarion Fund has released several films that warn of Muslim conspiracies to reestablish a global caliphate. Jasser is a Clarion board member and in 2008 narrated a documentary bankrolled by the group called The Third Jihad, which darkly warns that Muslim extremists are attempting to "infiltrate and dominate America," a conspiracy implicating most prominent American Muslim organizations. The New York Times reported that the film was shown to thousands of NYPD officers as part of their counterterrorism training, which the police department later apologized for."
How can an individual who supports the curbing of Muslim civil and religious liberties at home be trusted as a "commissioner" to review and analyze violations of religious freedoms abroad?
2) In another blow to the religious liberties and freedoms of American Muslims, Jasser's organization the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) supports state wide legislative bans on Muslim personal religious practice relating to: marriage, prayer, wills, etc. Jasser's organization has published press releases "applauding" such legislation, which many, including US Courts have considered unconstitutional infringements on the religious liberties of Muslims.
How can an individual who supports the curbing of Muslim civil and religious liberties at home be trusted as a "commissioner" to review and analyze violations of religious freedoms abroad?
3) Jasser was outspoken in his opposition to an interfaith and Islamic Center in Manhattan, supporting efforts to block it from being built, remarking that, "This center is trying to change the narrative of 9/11 -- to diminish what happened at Ground Zero."
How can an individual who supports the curbing of Muslim civil and religious liberties at home be trusted as a "commissioner" to review and analyze violations of religious freedoms abroad?
4) Jasser's advocacy and support for the NYPD's illegal profiling and secret surveillance program targeting Muslims for monitoring at their houses of worship, businesses and universities is not only unconscionable but contradicts the USCIRF's purported goals of reviewing "the facts and circumstances of violations of religious freedom internationally and to make policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State and Congress."
Once again, how can an individual who supports the curbing of Muslim civil and religious liberties at home be trusted as a "commissioner" to review and analyze violations of religious freedoms abroad?
ACT NOW:
- Take FIVE seconds to sign this petition
- Send it to everyone on your organizational and personal lists with the reasons why they should
- Call Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
Washington DC office: (202) 224-2541
Kantucky office: (502) 582-6304
Email him through web here.
M. Zuhdi Jasser appointed to the United State Commission on International Religious Freedom.
http://muslimbertaqwa.blogspot.com/p/link.html
March 26, 2012 | by USCIRF
The U.S. Congress has appointed two individuals, Dr. Robert P. George and Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, to serve as Commissioners on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).
Comprised of nine commissioners, USCIRF monitors and advocates for religious freedom abroad wherever that right is being abused. USCIRF also offers policy solutions to improve conditions at the critical juncture of foreign policy, national security, and international religious freedom standards. On March 20, the Commission issued its 2012 annual report which recommended to the Secretary of State that the Obama administration designate 16 nations as countries of particular concern under the International Religious Freedom Act.
Dr. George was appointed by The Speaker of the House John Boehner. Dr. Jasser was appointed by the Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
"USCIRF welcomes the appointments of Dr. George and Dr. Jasser," said Leonard Leo, USCIRF chair. "Along with my fellow Commissioners, Azizah al-Hibri, Rev. William Shaw, and Theodore Van Der Meid, we look forward to the many contributions they will make to the Commission's work. USCIRF has accomplished much, but much is left to be done. The Commission will continue to work with Congress and the Executive Branch to ensure that religious freedom is upheld as a universal human right, and that policies advancing its protection are fully integrated components of U.S. foreign and national security policy."
Dr. Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He has served on the President's Council on Bioethics and as a presidential appointee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights. He is a former Judicial Fellow at the Supreme Court of the United States, where he received the Justice Tom C. Clark Award. A graduate of Swarthmore College and Harvard Law School, Professor George earned a doctorate in philosophy of law from Oxford University. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa at Swarthmore, and received a Knox Fellowship from Harvard for graduate study in law and philosophy at Oxford. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and is a recipient of the United States Presidential Citizens Medal and the Honorific Medal for the Defense of Human Rights of the Republic of Poland.
M. Zuhdi Jasser is president and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy which advocates for the preservation of the founding principles of the U.S. Constitution, liberty and freedom, through the separation of mosque and state. He is also a founding member of the American Islamic Leadership Coalition which represents a diverse group of reform minded American Muslim leaders. The son of Syrian immigrants, Dr. Jasser is a former Lieutenant Commander in the United States Navy where he served 11 years. Dr. Jasser is a nationally recognized expert who is widely published and has spoken at hundreds of national and international events and given testimony to Congress on the value of the centrality of religious liberty in the contest of ideas within Islam. Dr. Jasser is an author and a physician currently in private practice in Phoenix Arizona specializing in internal medicine and nuclear cardiology.
To interview a USCIRF Commissioner, contact Paul Liben at pliben@uscirf.gov or (703) 870-6041.
USCIRF is an independent, bipartisan U.S. federal government commission. USCIRF Commissioners are appointed by the President and the leadership of both political parties in the Senate and the House of Representatives. USCIRF's principal responsibilities are to review the facts and circumstances of violations of religious freedom internationally and to make policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State and Congress.
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