CAIR-Chicago Executive Director Ahmed Rehab delivered the keynote speech at a fundraising dinner for the Muslim Educational and Cultural Center of America on May 8th.

“The relevance of bin Laden should be overshadowed by the wave of pro-democracy movements in the Middle East,” said Yaser Tabbara, a Chicago attorney and member of the board of directors of the Council on American Islamic Relations. “Bin Laden was already marginalized, I’m someone who goes to the Middle East quite a bit and I haven’t heard his name in a very long time.”

The DuPage County Board voted 13-5 this week to grant a special use permit to the Muslim Education and Cultural Center of America (MECCA).

Christina Abraham talks to The Washington Post about a local teacher who was denied leave from work to preform the Hajj. The Justice Department is suing on the teacher’s behalf, accusing the district of violating her civil rights by forcing her to choose between her job and her faith.

The distinctive minaret and golden dome will be absent, but MECCA — after months of controversy — won approval Tuesday to build a mosque near Willowbrook. After rejecting a call to send the matter back to the county’s Zoning Board of Appeals for further study, the board signed off on the revised plan by approving a conditional-use permit 13-5.

The Chicago office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Chicago) congratulates MECCA (the Muslm Educational and Cultural Center of America) for receiving approval today from the DuPage County Board for a special use permit to build a a new mosque.

“We think there is a bias against the Muslim institutions,” said Kevin Vodak, the lawyer for CAIR-Chicago. He noted that the board rejected the Irshad proposal without explanation, which is highly unusual, and that last fall the county took up an amendment to prohibit any new religious institutions in residential areas. “Most of the new proposals are from Muslims,” Mr. Vodak said.

The vote is next week! Call the DuPage County Board and show your support for MECCA as well as the other mosques seeking permits: the Islamic Center of the Western Suburbs (ICSW) and the Irshad Learning Center (ILC).

For area Muslims, practicing their faith can require traveling to mosques outside their communities or gathering in residential homes to pray. Now after years of fundraising and preparation, several groups want to move ahead with plans for their own places of worship in DuPage County.

The DuPage County Development Committee (CDC) voted yesterday to recommend granting a permit to the MECCA Mosque, but the issue is not over yet. The County Board will vote on the matter next week. Call the County Board and show your support for MECCA as well as the other mosques seeking permits.