June 15th 2012 - June 28th 2012
12 |COMMUNITY NEWS
Ethiopian-American Muslims Stage DC Protest Against Zenawi Government On May 31st, 2012, Ethiopian Muslims in different parts of the World staged coordinated and successful demonstrations in support of the peaceful struggle of Muslims in Ethiopia. Close to 5,000 Ethiopian Muslims in South Africa demonstrated in front of the Ethiopian Embassy in Pretoria while hundredth gathered in Geneva Switzerland demanding the Ethiopian government respect the constitution and the human right of its citizens. In Washington, DC over a thousand showed up to support their Muslim brethren’s peaceful struggle against the government’s interference in the religious affairs of its people. In Toronto Canada, similar protest took place demanding that the Ethiopian government respect the constitutional right of the Muslims while in Norway similar protest took place the next day. There are other Ethiopian Muslim communities that are planning to protest as well.
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Former USCIRF Staffer Charges Muslim Bias By Adelle M. Banks
worked for the Muslim Public Affairs Council.
WASHINGTON — A former staffer of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has filed suit against the watchdog agency, saying that it rescinded a job offer because she is Muslim and had worked for a Muslim advocacy group.
According to the suit, Ghori-Ahmad was told after her initial hire that she could “limit the negative impression her beliefs and her background would create with members of the Commission” by calling in sick on days commissioners were expected to be in the office and by downplaying her religious affiliation.
Religion News Service, June 11, 2012
In the suit filed Thursday (June 7) in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Safiya Ghori-Ahmad charges that USCIRF staffers recommended her to be a South Asia policy analyst in 2009, but some commissioners pushed to retract the job offer after learning she
....
Ghori-Ahmad, whose suit claims USCIRF had no other Muslim staff at the time she was rejected, said her experience “is part of a pattern of bias against Muslims” who have applied for jobs at
USCIRF. She also claimed that some commissioners resisted criticizing European countries that considered banning minarets on mosques or headscarves worn by Muslim women. USCIRF referred a request for comment to the Department of Justice, which declined to comment. Nina Shea, a former USCIRF commissioner who the suit says questioned Ghori-Ahmad’s hire, said Monday that she wrote at the time that Ghori-Ahmad’s “writings reflect MPAC activism and bias, not scholarship, which would not serve us well on the research staff.”
An email cited by Ghori-Ahmad’s suit quoted Shea as saying that hiring the Muslim woman to analyze religious freedom in Pakistan would be akin to “hiring an IRA activist to research the UK twenty years ago.” Ghori-Ahmad is seeking back pay and compensation. ----------------------------------------------In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.