
COUNCIL ON AMERICAN-ISLAMIC RELATIONS - CHICAGO | DEFENDING CIVIL RIGHTS. FIGHTING BIGOTRY. PROMOTING TOLERANCE
“He is a man of great integrity…He’s looking to truly serve his country and his community. Muslims who serve every day in the Illinois State Police deserve a chaplain of their own faith,” said Ahmed Rehab, Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
“Our concern is that the Illinois State Police is kowtowing to articles online published by notorious anti-Muslims who have been in the business of smearing Muslim activists leaders and Imams for the longest time,” said Rehab
“It is essentially guilt by association,” said Christina Abraham.
“Critics argue when you think about it, for the most part, all of the people who try to blow airliners out of the sky look alike,” Doocy said.
“False,” replied Ahmed Rehab. “False information. Not true. I mean, we don’t have to go far. The last guy that tried to take down a plane was a young African. And in the past, prior to that incident, we were looking for Middle eastern-looking men. Next time it could be an Asian guy. So no, they don’t always look alike.”
CAIR-Chicago is a grassroots organization; therefore, it makes full sense for its work to be funded through a grassroots support network. This new initiative is a simple partnership between us that will cost you just $1/day and will make all the difference in the world for the future of the Muslim community in Chicago.
SPEAKER – Ahmed Rehab, Executive Director, CAIR-Chicago
WHEN – Friday, January 29th, 2010. 12:15PM
SPEAKER – Yaser Tabbara, Board Member, CAIR-Chicago
WHEN – Friday, January 29th, 2010. 1:10PM
“The real question is not whether we should use the term “war” or not, but who is this war against. And that is what Obama and others have been struggling to articulate…. In the past we’ve heard that we are at war with “Radical Islam”, but “Radical Islam” is a concept, and you cannot go to war with a concept. You can go to war against a people or an entity and that is where Al-Qaeda comes in. President Obama was correct in stating that we are at war with Al Qaeda,” said Ahmed Rehab.
“The American Muslim community stands with other Americans in a collective commitment to support the Haitian people during their time of crisis with money, supplies, and prayers,” said Ahmed Rehab, Executive Director of CAIR-Chicago. The Coalition also demanded Temporary Protected Status for Haitian immigrants in the US.
“If you add up hate mail, hateful phone calls and e-mails, racial slurs being yelled at people and verbal or physical altercations, it’s dozens of incidents,” said Amina Sharif.
“Hate is a self-addressed envelope and so the person who bears this hate is the victim of his own hatred before I am. And I can only pray for that person to find peace and to rid himself of that hatred,” said Ahmed Rehab.
“I’m concerned about national security here, not civil liberties per se, and that’s why I oppose racial profiling. Because from a national security perspective it will not work neither logically nor scientifically. There is a study from the University of Texas that shows mathematically that racially profiling causes us to miss more opportunities than catch them,” says Ahmed Rehab.
After Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab slipped by airport security only to be stopped thanks to the vigilance of fellow passengers, a debate on the effectiveness of airport security and counter-terrorism intelligence is no doubt in order. But trying to fix a problem without actually fixing the problem is misguided. Trying to fix it by introducing a new problem is dumb. This guy seemed to have left every clue short of raise his hand and proclaim, “Arrest me, I am a terrorist!”
“The core of the problem is that Muslims are seen as a Monolith by the media and so when one Muslim commits and act of terror or error, all Muslims are brought to bear for that Act. And that kinda of mentality does not exist for other communities because of the nuanced understanding of other communities,” said Ahmed Rehab.