Pakistani Children are facing a new dilemma in regards to their educational life. Even the children in the rudimentary class of the nursery are not free from the cumbersome experience of having to deal with this predicament. That being said, the dilemma in question is the one related to the extravagant and excessive loading of the school bags worn by these unfortunate children. The weight itself is appalling and astonishingly dense. It makes one wonder as to how these fragile children can keep upright with this entire burden, not to mention the ordeal and the strain that this load placed on their backs.

The list of books and other such relative accoutrements for a child in any phase of his educational life is long and tedious dense.

If one pays close consideration and attention, then two aspects can be noticed while procuring items for a child’s school. One needs to establish and set up a certain approach to ensure the timely dropping off and picking up of the child from the school. It is a probability that the parent would have to perform the said tasks by his own self. There, he may notice that the weight of the school bag being worn by his child as well as the other children far exceeds their own weight. Many children would be bending backwards to balance and balance this load. This surely makes one ponder the question of this being a monumental penalty or not.

At present, there is no consideration or assessment being spared by any authority on this most inhumane and callous of acts towards children. There is a strong possibility that these overloaded children will suffer from complications and severe deformities of the vertebrae and health, if the problem mentioned herewith is left unchecked.

The children are not yet brawny enough to bear this heavy weight. It should be noted that these young children of mere two and a half to three years of age have to go through about 12 books and copies on a daily basis. Is this justice upon the poor little darlings?

Another fact that directly violates consumer rights is the designation of particular and specific bookshops and uniform outlets by the schools. The books published are priced extravagantly by the publishers, and the customer is not even provided the liberty to purchase these books from the local market. They have to be procured from certain designated outlets and bookstores. This needs to be done frequently as well because many of these books are not made available for purchase upon a single visit to these bookstores.

The notion of Play groups may have been incorporated in order to provide parents with some peace of mind and relief from tension. However, lately these ventures have become notable for imposing unjust expenditures and excessive burden on children.

On a more optimistic and brighter note, these centers give homework to children which inculcates and nurtures a sense of learning, for both the children and the supervising parents, as well.

In conclusion, these are matters that require the utmost minute and highly prioritized attention as soon as possible.

About the author

I love to write creative articles. I have been writing on different social and religious topics for 2 years now. Give me a creative topic and I will write it for you.

View the Original article

A school in the village of Arveyres in the Gironde region of south west France has declared that from this month onwards, it would no longer offer meat alternatives to children who did not eat pork. This decision was brought about after the mayor of Arveyres, Benoit Gheysen, made a statement to AFP that the cost of providing alternative meals was expensive and yet most of the food was going to waste. He said that many times the children who did not take the substitute diner complained as well and left the pork, leaving the staff distressed on the amount of food going to waste.

The mayor has however, vowed that the children would get all the protein they needed because vegetables, lentils and salads would be offered whenever pork was on the menu. He also believes that the school in Arveyres is not the only one in France that is facing the same dilemma; he added that pork was served no more than once a week.

Since pork is forbidden under Jewish and Muslim dietary laws, some parents have offered to pack for their children lunch from home. This gesture has however, been brushed away by the mayor who says that it would be logistically hard to implement and ethically shocking.

There will be 30 children out of 180 who will face the effects of this change.

In France, the issue of halal meat is often a controversial topic which has been used as a political football especially with approaching elections.

Before last year’s presidential elections, Marine Le Pen, the leader of the anti-immigration National Front party launched a row when she claimed that all meat from abattoirs in the region of Paris was prepared using Islamic halal traditions hence misleading non-Muslim consumers in the capital.

Wading into the war, former president Nicolas Sarkorzy suggested that meat would be labeled to tell consumers how the animal was slaughtered, but the Muslims and Jews rejected the idea fearing it would lead to their being stigmatized.

At that time, Claude Gueant, former Interior Minister under Sarkozy said that halal meat was one reason why the government opposed Francois Hollande’s plan to give foreign residents the vote in French local elections. He said that as an example we don’t want foreign local councilors making halal meat obligatory in school canteens. Hitting back however, the French Council of Muslim Faith slammed what it said was the use of Muslims as scapegoats in the election campaign.

About the author

View the Original article

The Collectif contre l'Islamophobie en France reports that the Notre-Dame Catholic primary school at Saint-Mihiel, in the la Meuse department of Lorraine in north-eastern France, has been subjected to a campaign of Islamophobic harassment.

In late December, as part of the French national curriculum which requires pupils to receive a basic grounding in the history of the three main monotheistic faiths, the school taught a class on the origins of Islam, just as it does on those of Christianity and Judaism. A handout that included quotations from the Qur'an and named the architectural features of a mosque was given to students.

Early in January the principal of Notre-Dame, Christelle Lainet, was accosted in the schoolyard by the mother of one of the pupils. Apparently unable to distinguish between proselytism and the transmission of knowledge, as the CCIF puts it, the parent vehemently objected to her offspring being taught about Islam, using what Lainet described as "very racist" language. The father then paid a visit to Lainet at her office, expressing similarly extreme views and demanding the right to withdraw his child from the course on Islam, which Lainet agreed to.

(The CCIF notes that one of the common themes of Islamophobic propaganda in France is scaremongering over often dubious reports of Muslims withdrawing their children from classes in history, biology and sport. Such behaviour is held to demonstrate that Islam is incompatible with the secular principles of French society. But apparently it's OK when anti-Muslim racists do it.)

On 29 January the far-right secularist website Riposte Laïque published an article on the case, which claimed that pupils at Notre-Dame de Saint-Mihiel were being "punished" because their parents had refused to allow them to learn a chapter from the Qur'an. Written in the hyperbolic and paranoid prose that characterises that site, it warned of the dangers of allowing the "virus" of "Islamic fascism" to "contaminate hundreds of thousands of children".

The article gave the address, email and phone number of the school, with the evident aim of encouraging its readers to harass Lainet and her staff, who it said had "forced children to swallow verses from the Koran, in order to familiarise themselves with an ideology that has nothing to envy in Nazism". The Riposte Laïque piece was also crossposted on a number of far-right sites.

As a result, Christelle Lainet told the Républicain Lorrrain, she had received threatening phone calls from people who treated her like dirt and her inbox was filled with three hundred messages containing personal insults and threats. Lainet also stated that the allegations in the Riposte Laïque article were "pure imagination". With the support of the school administration, she is has filed a complaint for defamation.

The CCIF expresses its full support for Lainet in face of the harassment to which she has been subjected. They note that Muslims are not the only victims of Islamophobia and that this hateful ideology "threatens the whole of society", because it divides citizens and undermines the tolerance and respect for others that are the foundations of coexistence.

View the Original article

The Muslim community in Philadelphia held a meeting venting frustrations over people committing crimes dressed in traditional Muslim garb.

"We have a right to wear a face veil if we choose to, that's our right, our God-given right," said Alia Walker.

Muslim women in West Philadelphia are becoming increasingly fearful.

This as the pressure mounts for the capture of the woman dressed in Muslim garb and her accomplice, who kidnapped a 5-year-old girl from her classroom and brutally assaulted her.

"Right now, a lot of the Muslim sisters are saying, 'People are walking around looking at them cross-eyed.' They haven't done anything wrong," said Rep. Ron Waters.

At a standing room only meeting to discuss the matter, Muslims expressed outrage that it's happening again and again.

Criminals have been committing crimes disguised as Muslim women – robbing banks, stores and now kidnapping. Violent crimes they fear put Muslim women in danger.

"We consider anyone dressing up like a Muslim woman perpetrating a hate crime," said Iman Asim Abdul Rashid.

WPVI Philadelphia, 2 February 2013

View the Original article

A Greek Orthodox school is being taken to the High Court for banning a Muslim pupil from wearing a headscarf.

The nine-year-old girl's parents were so incensed at the decision they have pulled her out of St Cyprian's Greek Orthodox Primary Academy, in Thornton Heath. Now they have applied to the High Court in an attempt to force the school – the only one of its kind in the country – to reverse its ban on their daughter wearing a hijab.

The girl's parents pulled their daughter out of St Cyprian's, which this week came top of Croydon's primary school league table, in September. She is now dual-rolled at All Saints CofE Primary School, in Upper Norwood. Her parents want her to return to St Cyprian's as her brother still attends the school.

The family have submitted a fresh application to have the issue heard at the High Court after their first attempt was rejected. The matter is due to be considered in February.

The school claims to "respect the religious beliefs and practice of all staff, pupils and parents". Its mission statement says the school is "committed to combating racism" and promoting "good relations between people of different ethnic origins". It adds: "We recognise and celebrate the fact that a significant percentage of our children are from ethnic minority groups".

There is no mention of a ban on headscarves in the uniform policy on the school's website. Girls are required to wear a dark blue coat, an optional blazer, a skirt, a white blouse, a navy blue pullover and navy blue or white socks and black shoes.

Shuiab Yusaf, trustee of Croydon Mosque & Islamic Centre, urged the school to reconsider the ban. He said: "We encourage schools to be a little less strict and allow Muslim girls to wear headscarves if that is what they want to do," he said.

Croydon Advertiser, 21 December 2012

View the Original article

ORLANDO — A woman is under arrest after carrying a sword onto a school campus.

Just before 10 a.m. Wednesday, Orange County deputies responded to the Leaders Preparatory School on North Goldenrod Road, which includes a mosque, school and day care. They found 47-year-old Dominique Eloi walking out of the mosque carrying the weapon.

A school employee said Eloi exited her vehicle with the 2-foot sword and did not respond to the employee when asked what business she had on the property. Leaders Preparatory was immediately placed on lockdown as the employee called deputies.

Eloi was arrested and charged with possession of a weapon on school grounds, disrupting a school function and aggravated assault with a weapon.

Central Florida News, 19 December 2012

See also "CAIR-FL urges stepped-up security after woman with sword arrested at mosque, Muslim school", CAIR press release, 19 December 2012

View the Original article

Byker Grove will be transformed into an Islamic school. Council planning chiefs have given the go-ahead to plans to convert Bishop's Palace – used to film the popular TV series – into a fee-paying faith school.

The BAHR Academy will cater for up to 340 boys and girls between 11 and 16 in Benwell, Newcastle. But the development of the currently empty and run-down site will also include a community building, coffee shop and events space open at weekends.

The plans were approved by Newcastle City Council at a meeting yesterday despite some objections being raised by residents about traffic congestion and noise around the site, which was used to film the children's TV show which launched Ant and Dec and Donna Air to fame.

BAHR Academy principal Mufti Muhammad Abdulmuheet welcomed the decision, which he said will see a derelict building put back into the community.

"When it was run by the BBC, the site was not open to everyone but we want the public to come along, the community facilities are for everyone to use," he said. "We want to show that Islam is inclusive and we want to be a part of Benwell and Scotswood. At the moment the building is in a dire state but the community has raised funds to bring it back into use."

Evening Chronicle, 15 December 2012

Needless to say, the English Defence League are not happy.

The EDL staged a protest at the site in November 2010, during which they chanted "scum" and "no surrender to the Taliban". A week earlier a pig's head was left outside the building. The British National Party was also involved in the campaign against what it called "Burka Grove".

The EDL demonstration was organised by former BNP parliamentary candidate Alan Spence, who recently served a 7-month prison sentence for his part in an attack by an EDL gang on Tyneside Irish Centre.

View the Original article

The parents of a schoolgirl living in the village of Privolny, Stavropol Territory, are complaining that their daughter has been barred from school for wearing a headscarf.

"Today we sent our daughter to school on the school bus. The senior teacher put her back on the bus and it took her home. She has been barred from classes over the headscarf for about two weeks now," the girl's father Rizak Rizakov told Interfax.

Rizakov said the teachers are saying this decision has been made because of a decree issued by the governor. "My daughter is in 3rd grade. Other children don't wear headscarves to school. There were three girls who wore headscarves, they have now removed them," the source said.

The man said he has filed complaints with the prosecutors and intends to stand his ground. He also said his daughter has worn a headscarf to school since September 1.

In the meantime, the press service for the territory's Education Ministry told Interfax these actions violate the school charter, which outlines requirements for students' appearance. "They will be talking to the parents and the schoolgirl. If they don't observe the school charter, they will be offered to choose a different form of education," the ministry official said.

In October, the Stavropol Territory's muftiat reported on complaints made by some schoolgirls' parents saying that their Muslim daughters had been barred from classes for some two weeks for wearing headscarves. The incidents occurred at School No. 12 in the village of Kara-Tyube.

The issue of headscarves was discussed at the highest level on October 18. Russian President Vladimir Putin said, commenting on this conflict, that people's religious feelings need to be respected, but the fact that the Russian state is a secular one needs to be taken into account.

"We always need to treat people's religious feelings with a lot of respect. This should be manifested in the state activities, in nuances, in everything. Secondly, our state is secular and we need to work on the basis of that assumption," Putin said during a meeting with Popular Front representatives.

The Stavropol Territory's Governor Valery Zerenkov later ordered immediate work on the territory's regulation governing students' appearance. "There should be uniform rules in one territory," he said.

According to the territory's Education Minister Irina Kuvaldina, the Stavropol Territory's schools will introduce a school uniform by December 20.

Interfax, 30 November 2012

View the Original article

A Canadian Islamic organization is accusing a Toronto-area Jewish day school of using a textbook that vilifies Muslims.

In a Nov. 19 letter to Jewish groups, the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR-CAN, charges that a textbook used at the Joe Dwek Ohr HaEmet Sephardic School employs "inflammatory and hateful terms in describing Muslims."

CAIR-CAN alleges that the book, "2000 Years of Jewish History," describes Muslims as "rabid fanatics" with "savage beginnings."

"The entire chapter devoted to Islam presents a pernicious and extreme portrayal of Muslims and the Islamic faith. The material further denigrates the Prophet Muhammad as a 'rabid Jew-hater,' and falsely portrays Islam as inherently anti-Semitic and devoted to hating Jews," the group said in its letter to the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center For Holocaust Studies and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, or CIJA.

It said the text is used in grade 7 and 8 girls' classes at the Orthodox Jewish day school and "leaves impressionable young Jewish readers with a sense of suspicion and even intolerance towards their fellow Canadians."

The group wants the Centre for Jewish Education of UJA Federation of Greater Toronto to investigate.

No one from CIJA, the Wiesenthal Center or Ohr HaEmet responded to JTA's requests for comment.

CAIR-CAN's salvo comes on the heels of an investigation by Toronto-area police of a local Islamic school. Earlier this month, police cleared the school of hate crimes allegations following a complaint by Jewish groups. York Regional Police found that teaching materials at the East End Madrassah attacked Jews and "suggested intolerance," but were not criminal.

Part of the madrassah's curriculum encouraged boys to keep fit for jihad, compared Jews to Nazis, and referred to "Jewish plots and treacheries."

The complaint "prompted change" at the madrassah, noted CAIR-CAN in its letter, adding that the group "welcomes that change."

When police began their probe, the Toronto District School Board,  which rented space to the school, revoked its permit and the madrassah had to relocate.

JTA, 22 November 2012

See also "CAIR-CAN calls on Jewish school to remove anti-Muslim textbook", CAIR-CAN press release, 19 November 2012

View the Original article

Islamophobia Awareness Month launch event @ LSE

Tuesday, 20th November 2012, 6pm

At the Quad, East Building, LSE Students' Union, Houghton Street, WC2A 2AE

With Islamophobia entering the mainstream of politics across Europe and with increasing concerns over the penetration of Islamophobia in universities, the LSE Students' Union is providing a forum for discussion on the nature and extent of the problem and what can be done to challenge it.

Speakers:

• Myriam Francois-Cerrah: Journalist and Academic
• Dr Leon Moosavi: University of Liverpool
• Aaron Kiely: National Union of Students

There will also be an exhibition on Islamophobia in the Quad from Monday 19th November until Friday 23rd November.

View the Original article

Several Muslim families pulled their daughters out of schools in Russia's south after the girls were told they were not allowed to wear their hijabs, a top Muslim said on Monday.

The Mufti of the southern Stavropol region Muhammad-Haji Rakhimov said he had received complaints from several parents whose daughters were for the first time not being allowed into their schools wearing their hijabs. The situation resembles a "stalemate" because both the Muslim parents and school authorities refuse to budge, and several girls including second-graders have not been to school for two weeks now, he said.

"The parents of these girls are not letting them go to school, which can lead to the child welfare services taking them away," Rakhimov said. He could not explain the authorities' sudden change in school policies. "There have not been any problems before this month."

He added that there were now "many girls" in the Stavropol region who were being kept out of school for this reason, and their parents were too poor to send them to private schools.

One such institution is a rural public school in the village of Kara-Tyube, close to the overwhelmingly Muslim region of Dagestan. The school's list of rules posted on its website says that students' appearance should be in line with the "business style used in a secular society, excluding provocative elements".

News24, 15 October 2012

View the Original article

Controversial plans to open a mosque in a former school building in West Bloomfield moved a step closer to reality Friday with a decision by the Michigan Court of Appeals. The appeals court upheld a lower court ruling that found the sale of the former Eagle Elementary to the Islamic Cultural Association was proper.

The Court of Appeals said plaintiffs Melvyn Sternfeld and Eugene Greenstein, West Bloomfield residents who both opposed the sale, failed to prove that they would be harmed by the transaction. "Sternfeld's vague and speculative affidavit does not establish his standing to pursue declaratory and injunctive relief," the three-judge panel said in its ruling.

It wasn't known whether Sternfeld will appeal the decision to the Michigan Supreme Court. His attorney, Robert Davis, wasn't immediately available for comment.

In its three-page ruling, the three-judge panel wrote that Sternfeld never asserted in court filings that the sale of the school to the ICA would have an impact, negative or otherwise, on his home, life or activities "because of close proximity" to the former school. "There is no injury, other than a hypothetical one," said the appeals court.

The ICA wants to convert the former school into a mosque and cultural center, which would be the first to be located in the township. The building was sold by Farmington Public Schools for $1.1 million in June 2011.

But some West Bloomfield residents don't want to live so close to a mosque and Sternfeld and Greenstein tried to stop the sale by filing a lawsuit in Oakland County Circuit Court. A Circuit judge dismissed the case.

Detroit News, 21 September 2012

View the Original article

The Sunday Express has apologised and paid damages to a London school it falsely claimed taught an extreme form of Islam.

Northern & Shell's Sunday title published a front-page story on 12 June 2011, headlined "Spies in schools to hunt fanatics", in which it wrongly stated that the King Fahad Academy in Acton, west London, taught extreme Islam. The article, which was also published on the paper's website, falsely suggested that the academy school had been infiltrated by Islamic fanatics.

Clare Kissin, counsel for the King Fahad Academy, said in a statement at the high court in London on Tuesday: "The King Fahad Academy does not teach an extreme form of Islam, nor does it teach its students antisemitism or any form of racism and it has not been infiltrated by Islamic fanatics."

The Sunday Express apologised for the article and said it regretted the distress caused. The paper agreed to pay an undisclosed amount in damages and legal costs to the school.

Dr Sumaya Alyusuf, director of the King Fahad Academy, said in a statement: "I am very pleased that the newspaper has withdrawn and apologised for these allegations. The school can now concentrate on its mission to provide a world class international education to students through a well-balanced curriculum, which aims to produce citizens who appreciate the multicultural world in which we live."

Guardian, 31 July 2012

View the Original article

Louisiana Rep. Valarie Hodges, R-Watson, is retracting her support for Gov. Bobby Jindal's voucher program, after realizing the money could be applied to Muslim schools, Livingston Parish News reports.

Hodges initially supported the governor's program because she mistakenly equated "religious" with "Christian," according to the report. Jindal's reform package allowsstate education funds to be used to send students to religious schools.

"Unfortunately it will not be limited to the Founders' religion... We need to insure [sic] that it does not open the door to fund radical Islam schools. There are a thousand Muslim schools that have sprung up recently. I do not support using public funds for teaching Islam anywhere here in Louisiana," Hodges was quoted as saying in the Livingston Parish News.

Huffington Post, 7 July 2012

See also "Louisiana Republican: When I voted for state funds to go to religious schools, I didn't mean Muslim ones", Patheos, 5 July 2012

And "Republican horrified to discover that Christianity is not the only religion", Jezebel, 6 July 2012

View the Original article

One of the slides from a presentation that was merely intended to 'stimulate discussion'Poor judgment and poor oversight led to the teaching of anti-Islamic material at a military school for officers, the Pentagon said Wednesday

Though an Army lieutenant colonel who taught the class has been relieved of his teaching duties, investigators recommended reviewing the actions of two civilian officials at the school to see if they also should face discipline, the Defense Department said in a statement. A second military officer will receive counseling.

Materials in a course for military officers at Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Va., portrayed the U.S. as at war with Islam. That's an idea counter to repeated assertions by U.S. officials that the war being fought by America is one against terrorists.

Some of the material suggested the U.S. ultimately might have to obliterate the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia without regard for civilian deaths, following World War II precedents of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima, Japan, or the allied firebombing of Dresden, Germany.

The teacher, Lt. Col. Matthew Dooley, also suggested that the Geneva Convention, which guides behavior toward prisoners, was "no longer relevant" and that Muslims "hate everything you stand for."

The Pentagon suspended the course in late April when a student objected to the material. The FBI also changed some agent training last year after discovering that its curriculum, too, was critical of Islam.

The new findings come from a report sought by chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Gen. Martin Dempsey. He had ordered all service branches to review their training to ensure that other courses don't use anti-Islamic material and that procedures are in place to screen course content. The report itself has not been released, but the conclusions were described by Dempsey's spokesman, Marine Col. Dave Lapan, in a written statement to the media and later in a conversation with Pentagon reporters.

Lapan said the intent of the inflammatory material was to be provocative – "to be something to stimulate discussion and challenge people's beliefs and generate academic discussion," he said. But briefing slides used in the class, for instance, did not explain that. "The flaw was that it didn't clearly define that it was meant to be provocative," Lapan said.

Associated Press, 20 June 2012

See also "Military instructor suspended over Islam course", Reuters, 20 June 2012

View the Original article

The Belgian press has reported that three Vlaams Belang politicians staged a protest at a school in Schoten, where many of the students are Muslims, because it had organised a barbecue that included halal meat.

The protestors climbed over the wall into the school grounds and, according to deputy head Jacques Gits, "intimidated the children and pushed pork sausages down their throats". One of the students, who were aged between 12 and 14, added: "They said that halal meat is not real food and that our stomachs needed filling."

Vlaams Belang claim that they were responding to objections by parents to the "halal barbecue", although the school itself says that the only complaint it received was one anonymous phone call. School head Ilse De Bast explained: "This week was about other cultures and their customs. Every child was free to bring food from home for their classmates to taste. There was halal meat, but also other food."

In reply to criticisms, VB leader Filip Dewinter said that the protest "was meant to be funny". He added: "It would be better if schools stopped exposing children to such multicultural activities."

It appears that the story was broken by the Anti-Fascist Front who also provide a summary of press coverage.

View the Original article

Alif Academy, an independent Islamic school in Forest Gate, has been granted planning permission after attempts by Newham Council to close them down.

A public inquiry was set up by The Planning Inspectorate in February to inspect the council's enforcement notice on the grounds that the primary school and nursery was not safe or fit to operate as a school.

The enforcement notice was quashed and planning permission granted at Newham Town Hall in East Ham on May 23.

Headteacher Hasib Hikmat estimates it has cost the school £52,000 in legal fees to overturn the decision.

He said: "In a time of austerity, the council think it's fine to be spending public money, probably tens of thousands of pounds, on legally fighting something that made little sense from the beginning trying to shut down a school that provides extra capacity and jobs for local people which runs with no financial assistance from the council."

Mr Hikmat said the parents and staff were "chuffed" at the Planning Inpectorate's decision and plan to have "a very, very big party" to celebrate.

He added: "Newham is in dire need of better schools and it's opened the door to more investment in the development of industrial sites in Newham and, hopefully, more schools. We do want to build bridges with the council. We are not here to cause trouble, we are here to operate a school and invest in the community."

Now Alif Academy has planning permission, they hope to win a Nursery Education Grant to help with their development.

Newham Recorder, 30 May 2012

Newham Council does seem to have a tendency to waste public money trying to shut down local Muslim institutions. Last year the council's enforcement notice on the Tablighi Jamaat mosque in West Ham was also overturned by the Planning Inspectorate.

View the Original article

Community Unites with CAIR Against Hate at Hillsborough County School Board

Anti-Muslim Extremists Defeated at School Board

Diverse interfaith coalition stands united in solidarity with Muslim community

Dozens of diverse community members of many faiths attended yesterday's school board meeting to request the school board not to give in to censorship by banning advocacy groups at the request of anti-Muslim extremists.

The board agreed that there is no place for censorship in America and that the current policies which permit teachers to invite qualified speakers to schools do not need to be changed. Those pushing for censorship claim that their problem was only with CAIR, not Islam, however, their statements caught on video shows that they really wished to attack Islam and Muslims as a whole. Their attack on CAIR was simply because CAIR is the largest Muslim civil rights organization.

Nonetheless, dozens of community members came out to oppose the hate and show solidarity with the Muslim community.

Hassan Shibly Official Blog, 11 April 2012

For the background to the controversy see here, here and here.

Photo: Hassan Shibly (centre) at the school board meeting.
Below, an example of the propaganda issued by his opponents.

 

View the Original article