The NATO summit will be held in Chicago in May 2012 and the city is preparing for thousands of protestors.

To see Ahmed Rehab’s interview on WTTW Channel 11′s Chicago Tonight, click here.

[Ahmed Rehab WTTW Original Post]

Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy met with Muslim rights advocates on Tuesday.

by ODETTE YOUSEF

Less than one week after sending a letter to Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, a Muslim rights advocate organization says it has been reassured that Chicago police will not undertake blanket surveillance of the city’s Muslim population.

The Chicago office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations addressed the letter to McCarthy after learning that while McCarthy was police director in Newark, N.J., he knew of a wide-ranging surveillance operation that the New York Police Department undertook to monitor Muslims in Newark. The 2007 surveillance operation, which NYPD characterized as a “joint operation” with the Newark Police Department’s Criminal Intelligence Unit, resulted in a 60-page report about where Muslims in Newark lived, socialized, and prayed.

McCarthy has distanced himself from the operation. On Tuesday morning, McCarthy met with individuals from CAIR-Chicago and from the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, to respond to their concerns.

“We sought and received reassurances that such a program would not be carried out in Chicago and that the superintendent stood against community profiling and blanket investigations,” said CAIR-Chicago Executive Director Ahmed Rehab.

Rehab said he has no reason to believe that McCarthy, who was appointed to head Chicago’s police department by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, harbors any anti-Muslim sentiment.

“We’re hoping that this marks a new page for Muslim-police relations, in which we move forward,” said Rehab. “There’s two sides to the same coin: safety and civil rights, there can be a balance achieved between both, and there will be.”

[Ahmed Rehab WBEZ Original Post]

CAIR-Chicago Executive Director Ahmed Rehab is asking Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department, Gary McCarthy, to speak out on a secret operation to spy on Muslims in New York and New Jersey. The spying on Muslims was carried out by NYPD in 2007 while McCarthy was the Director of NYPD.

ABC: CAIR-Chicago’s Ahmed Rehab responds to NYPD spying on Muslims:
Rehab spoke to ABC regarding the secret operation, in which the NYPD’s Demographics Unit took photographs of mosques and eavesdropped in Muslims businesses throughout the New York and New Jersey area.

“The fact that the NYPD is spying on American citizens, who happen to be Muslim, is insane and ludicrous. It’s illegal and unconstitutional,” said Rehab. “Anyone aware of such an egregious violation of our Constitution and the very spirit upon which it stands ought to report it.”

McCarthy’s spokesperson said he was aware about this in New Jersey and that NYPD let law enforcement in New Jersey know about the operation:

“As a matter of professional courtesy, the NYPD made then-Director McCarthy and other chiefs from Long Island aware that they were conducting an operation in their jurisdictions. No Newark police officers were used in the operation.” said Melissa Stratton, Spokesperson of the Chicago Police Department.

Rehab was also quoted in the Wall Street Journal on the issue.

[Ahmed Rehab ABC 7 Original Post]

Ghonim’s Facebook page, “We Are All Khaled Said”, became a symbol of the Egyptian revolution and of the rest of the revolutions spreading through the middle east. Ghonim recently released a book, “Revolution 2.0″ a memoir chronicling his experience in the revolution and beyond. “The power of the people is greater than the people in power,” says Ghonim.

Rehab traveled to Egypt on Jan 23, two days before the revolution broke out, and participated in the street protests while blogging and running interviews with media outlets in the US. “The most important thing moving forward is determining the right measurements of success: it’s about fixing process, not changing persons,” says Rehab.

Both Ghonim and Rehab agreed that the election was not only the fairest in Egypt in generations but pivotal in that it portends a continuing democratic process that only found its beginning in Tahrir Square but by no means ended there.

Imagine if the absence of characters “whacking knee caps” and “making offers you cannot refuse” was deemed as an “omission” and therefore pro-Italian propaganda, and as a result too controversial to sponsor.

Pathetic? Incredulous?

Well imagine no more.

Such is the pitiful state that Islamophobia has reached in this country, and it’s very real.

All-American Muslim is an American reality show like any other. It portrays the trials and travails of five Michigan families with typical reality show themes like marriage, birth, business, faith, food and of course drama queens.

There is one problem however, at least for the Florida Family Association:  the characters in the show are American Muslims.

The Florida Family Association got its members to send in dozens of emails to the show’s advertisers based on a pre-written template that stated in part:

“The show profiles only Muslims that appear to be ordinary folks while excluding many Islamic believers whose agenda poses a clear and present danger to the liberties and traditional values that the majority of Americans cherish.”

So basically, their objection is that the show is portraying “ordinary Muslims” as – you may need to sit down for this – “ordinary Muslims”! Of course this runs the risk that unsuspecting Americans may come to view their ordinary Muslim neighbors as ordinary. According to this Florida group of nuts, this would be a travesty that American corporations must not contribute to.

We are more or less used to the unfortunate fact that there are anti-Muslim loons lurking about out there. There’s the burn-a-Quran-day pastor from Florida, there’s the group from Florida that tried to ban a Muslim professor from the Jacksonville Human Rights Commission because he was Muslim, and there’s that guy who tried to organize against Muslim family day at a Six Flags Texas theme park in Texas. Yes, yes, he was from Florida.

But what is real cause for alarm is the creeping influence of Islamophobia into mainstream American politics and culture.  From the Peter King radicalization hearings that use taxpayer funds to put mainstream American Muslims and their institutions on mock trial, to the frequent anti-Muslim rantings of the Congressman from Florida, Allen “Islam is not really a religion” West all the way to presidential hopeful Newt “Palestinians don’t really exist” Gingrich. And now, we have the weak-kneed primetime corporate sponsors.

That a group of extremists from Florida would exercise their first amendment right to carry out bigoted campaigns is unfortunate but not all that shocking. That 65 out of 67 advertisers (according to the Florida Family Association’s website of which only Lowe’s is independently confirmed) would capitulate to their nonsensical complaints that “ordinary Muslims are being portrayed as ordinary” is an alarming new milestone in the mainstreaming of bigotry in this country. For that reason, it ought to catch the attention of Americans who, for far too long, have stayed on the sidelines of the Islamophobia horror picture show.

Lowe’s admitted that they cut their ads short as a result of the emails they were receiving and after reviewing some websites and blogs out there (in the “bigotosphere”). Lowe’s is not just a “tool” in the hands of the far right, it’s the entire hardware store.

What Lowe’s is essentially saying by choosing to pull its sponsorship is that NOT portraying American Muslims as terrorists is just, well, too controversial for its brand:

“We believe it is best to respectfully defer to communities, individuals and groups to discuss and consider such issues of importance. We strongly support and respect the right of our customers, the community at large, and our employees to have different views. If we have made anyone question that commitment, we apologize.”

Lowe’s is putting forth a very dangerous argument: that the far right bigots and the mainstream Muslim voices with their pro-tolerance allies of all faiths are equal opposites; that those who wish to humanize a faith community that comprises 25% of humanity and those who wish to demonize them are equal opposites; that the forces of bigotry and the forces of anti-bigotry are equal opposites. The pervasive assumption that there is a moral equivalency between the two sparring sides is a major factor in the rise of Islamophobia in the US. But Lowe’s goes further than to claim moral equivalency. It actually takes sides, the wrong side: the side of the bigots.

The running complaint used to be that Muslims are always portrayed as terrorists. But now, the message being sent is that “not portraying American Muslims as terrorists” is sufficient for complaint and controversy. It’s moving the goal posts to a dangerous new “lowe”.

There are three lessons to be extracted from this episode:

First, it is a confirmation of what we have been stating all along:  Islamophobia is not merely a reaction to terrorism or radical ideologies (which would have been a welcome exercise), but, in fact, it is a form of bigotry that targets an entire faith community: the religion of Islam itself and its mainstream practitioners.

Second, Islamophobia is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s sort of like “we hate you because you are terrorists, but when you’re not terrorists, we want you to be terrorists so we can hate you.” In the case of American Muslim leaders and organizations, the line is “we hate you because you are terror-linked, but when you’re not, we need you to be terror-linked so we can hate you.”

Third, Islamophobia is but a smokescreen, a projection of sorts. We are often told that Muslims are trying to Islamize America and institute Islamic Shariah law (“Sharrorize” America as Imam Suhaib Webb puts it). We are told that the less than 1% of American Muslims is but a fifth column who is here to take over and subjugate the remaining 99% plus. Setting aside the obvious ludicrousness of the claim for a second, ask yourself when was the last time American Muslims organized to pull advertisements off the air from shows that do not conform with their faith values (and trust me there are many)? Our organizing campaigns are themed around anti-bigotry and social justice, not the imposition of our faith.

To the contrary, it is the Christian right, the same folks who comprise many of the leading anti-Muslim alarmists, groups like the Florida Family Association (and trust me there are many) that are time and again organizing to force their way of thinking on other Americans. A quick visit to their website shows that this is not the first time they have successfully harassed advertisers for advertising on shows that do not conform to their ideology. They’ve targeted gays, sexually liberal shows, and others they disagree with.

It is not a coincidence that the organized Islamophobia networks in this country often include the same people who are trying to force-feed the Bible into government, schools, and public life.

And so comes the most important realization:

The organized American Muslim community’s agenda is in fact a social justice agenda. Any objective scrutiny of our organizations, campaigns, projects, and discourse reveals that this is widely and consistently the case.

On the other hand, as I already mentioned, you will find that it is it is none other than the far right that is out to force their narrowly conceived socio-religious ideology and way of life on Americans.

They conveniently promulgate the whole Islamist supremacist takeover fantasy and the Shariah scare as a divergence, a distraction, a smokescreen.

Projection is the name of the game.

They often use soft namesakes like “family” and “freedom” to give the impression of docility, and they inundate their websites and blogs with American flags and eagles to give the impression that they are the tried and true patriotic Americans who are best poised to speak for the majority.

They are not the majority, but they are not less than 1% either. They are in the millions, have access to billions of dollars, and have sufficiently organized at both the grassroots level and onas well as the internet in recent years to start to flex some muscle. (It is often stated that if fascism were to ever come to America, it would be wrapped in the US flag and bearing a cross.)

There is a ray of light. More Americans are beginning to wake up to the Islamophobia disease and the attempts at divergence from the real threat to our freedoms and democracy.

A year ago, the scorching Park51 controversy, while contrived and sensationalized at the end of the day, failed to impress the media or the public. In the case of the Lowe’s controversy, Americans are joining hands in speaking out against bigotry. Muslim, Catholic, and Jewish groups, as well as notable individuals, including 2010 Spirit of Anne Frank awardee Anya Cordell, California State Senator Ted Lieu, music mogul Russell Simmons, actress Mia Farrow, and several other celebrities, have come out strongly to say “enough is enough.”

For Lowe’s and other companies that gave in to bigotry, the choice is simple: own up to your error and do the right thing – or risk being chalked up on the wrong side of history (not to mention the wrong side of an impending boycott). Their motto is “let’s build something together.” Well how about some backbone for starters?

[Ahmed Rehab Huffington Post Original post]

[Interview Begins at 9:35]

Lowe’s, the North Carolina-based home improvement giant has raised controversy by pulling their ads off a reality TV show called ‘All-American Muslim.’

Anti-Muslim groups, like the Florida Family Association, pressured advertisers to stop sponsoring the show which they call “propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda’s clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values.”

“We were really disappointed and stunned that Lowe’s, a major corporation, would take such a stupid decision to side with bigotry against communities,” said Ahmed Rehab, executive director of the Chicago Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Chicago).

Rehab called the group’s action a step in the wrong direction and an insult to the Muslim community, “…to marginalize and dehumanize the Muslim community through the notion that the only form of portrayal that is acceptable would be for Muslims to come out as terrorists.”

Rehab is calling for consumers to boycott Lowe’s.

“Islam is a faith the preaches peace, coexistence, justice, tolerance, love, compassion.  That’s what we stand for,” Rehab added.

[Ahmed Rehab NBC 5 Original post]

“What we’re being told here essentially is that it is too controversial to have a show with Muslim characters that are not portrayed as terrorists,” remarked CAIR-Chicago Executive Director Ahmed Rehab.

[Ahmed Rehab ABC 7 Original post]

After facing pressure from right-wing conservative groups, the Lowe’s home-improvement chain, pulled its ads from a reality TV show about American Muslims. Anti-Muslim groups claim the show, All-American Muslim, “riskily hides the Islamic agenda’s clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values.”

“It’s one thing for bigots and nuts to be bigots and nuts. It’s another thing for amainstream company to embrace that. This is the mainstreaming of bigotry,” said Ahmed Rehab, Executive Director of CAIR-Chicago.

[Ahmed Rehab CBS 2 Original post]

December 8, 2011 (CHICAGO) (WLS) — The Council on American-Islamic Relations is calling for federal hate crime charges to be filed against a downstate man after a brutal attack.

Twenty-three-year-old Joshua Scaggs is being held on $500,000 bond after he allegedly slashed the throat of a University of Illinois law school professor.

A witness tells police both the suspect and victim were seated in the waiting area of a train station in Champaign when the suspect jumped up and shouted “this is my country” and attacked the victim.

The attacker reportedly told police he thought the victim was Middle Eastern.

“It’s something that we must take very seriously,” said CAIR-Chicago executive director Ahmed M. Rehab. “CAIR-Chicago is very disturbed by this news. The Muslim community is disturbed. People of conscience are disturbed. We’ve called police to investigate it, and to prosecute it as a hate crime, because that’s what it is.”

An assistant state’s attorney says he decided not to charge Scaggs with a hate crime because the other charges have stiffer penalties.

(Copyright ©2011 WLS-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)

[Ahmed Rehab ABC 7 Original post]