A 31 year old woman was charged on Saturday 29th December of second-degree murder as a hate crime following the death of a man who was pushed onto the tracks of a subway station in Queens.

The New York Times reports:

"In a statement released by the district attorney's office, Mr. Brown quoted Ms. Menendez, 'in sum and substance,' as having told the police: 'I pushed a Muslim off the train tracks because I hate Hindus and Muslims ever since 2001 when they put down the twin towers I've been beating them up.' Ms. Menendez conflated the Muslim and Hindu faiths in her comments to the police and in her target for attack, officials said."

We have reported earlier on Pamela Geller's anti-Islam advertising campaign on the New York subway, a campaign that has deliberately attempted to generate racist fear and hatred.

Defending their right to be as offensive as possible to Muslims, Geller et al constantly claim the right to 'freedom of speech'.

Imraan Siddiqi of CAIR, who runs the Stop Islamophobia Now website, took this up on Twitter: "Since when did the subway become the existential battleground, which to fight ones' ideological battles?"

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The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's largest Muslim civil liberties organization, said today that it is calling on the SUBWAY restaurant chain to apologize to a Louisiana Muslim allegedly locked out of a sandwich shop in that state because of his faith.

A retired 63-year-old U.S. citizen of South Asian heritage who lives in New Orleans reported to CAIR that on November 21, 2012, he and his wife stopped at the SUBWAY restaurant in Shreveport, La. Before ordering, they went to the restrooms in the facility. The husband exited the restroom first and went outside the restaurant to wait for his wife in anticipation of re-entering to order their food.

While his wife was still inside the restaurant, the victim attempted to re-enter, but was blocked at the door by a female SUBWAY employee who allegedly asked him "Are you Muslim?" When the victim replied that he is indeed Muslim, the SUBWAY employee reportedly responded, "We can't serve you." The employee then went inside the restaurant and locked the door behind her. Fearing for his wife's safety and distraught at the violation of his civil rights, the man called 911.

When the Shreveport Police Department arrived, an officer went inside the SUBWAY restaurant and later came out to tell the victim that the manager was "scared" of him and that he "better leave."

[NOTE: The victim is 5'6" and weighs approximately 155 pounds. He wears an Islamic cap, called a "kufi," and a beard for religious reasons. His wife, a teacher, wears an Islamic headscarf, or "hijab."]

In a letter to SUBWAY President and CEO Fred DeLuca, CAIR National Legal Counsel Nadhira Al-Khalili wrote in part:

"Louisiana Revised Statutes 51:2247 states that it is a 'discriminatory practice for a person to deny an individual the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of a place of public accommodation, resort, or amusement, as defined in this Chapter, on the grounds of race, creed, color, religion, sex, age, disability, as defined in R.S. 51:2232(11), or national origin.' According to the law, a place of public accommodation 'means any place, store, or other establishment, either licensed or unlicensed, which supplies goods or services to the general public.'"

Al-Khalili's letter cited Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on account of religion in places of public accommodation and service. She also referred to the company's diversity policy that claims SUBWAY "does not tolerate discrimination of any kind on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, creed, religion, color or national origin."

CAIR requested that SUBWAY (1) investigate this troubling incident, (2) offer a formal written apology to the victim and his wife, (3) institute policy changes that will ensure that this type of incident does not occur in the future, (4) offer compensation to the victim and his wife for the humiliation and emotional distress caused by the SUBWAY employee and the police, and (5) participate in a corporate religious sensitivity program for franchise managers.

A copy of the letter was sent to Chief Willie L. Shaw, Jr. of the Shreveport Police Department and to the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division.

CAIR press release, 29 November 2012

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Some national Jewish organizations joined a coalition of religious groups calling on the Washington Metro system to donate profits from an anti-Islam ad to charity.

"The placing of offensive, anti-Muslim ads in the D.C. Metro system is an important opportunity to affirm our commitment both to free speech and to a society that deplores hate and hate speech," said Rabbi Batya Steinlauf, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington's director of social justice and interfaith initiatives, and president of the Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington. "We are all part of one community," she said.

The ad, currently running in four train stations throughout the Washington area, reads, "In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad." It was sponsored by the American Freedom Defense Initiative.

Monday's news conference was organized by the 28-member Shoulder-to-Shoulder: Standing with American Muslims, Upholding American Values and United Methodist Women. The coalition of Christian, Jewish and Muslim groups released a letter signed by 168 religious clergy members.

The letter states that the "ads espouse inaccurate and inflammatory stereotypes about American Muslims. These ads equate generalized 'savages' with 'jihad,' dangerously painting all Muslims as savages and suggesting that these generalized 'savages' must be defeated."

Major Jewish organizations participating include Rabbis for Human Rights-North America, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and the Union for Reform Judaism.

JTA, 16 October 2012

See also Jack Moline and Clark Lobenstine, "Anti-Jihad Metro ads: An interfaith response to hatred", Washington Post, 15 October 2012

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Inae Oh of the Huffington Post interviews Rabbi Jill Jacobs, executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights-North America, which took out an advertisement urging New York subway users to "help stop bigotry against our Muslim neighbors", in an effort to counter Pamela Geller's notorious "savages" ad. Rabbi Jacobs explains:

"I was very concerned that people might think that these ads speak for the Jewish community, as Geller couches her anti-Muslim message in the language of supporting Israel. The suggestion that she is speaking only about terrorists, and not about Muslims in general, falls apart as soon as you read her writings, which are fear mongering about Muslims in the U.S. and in the world, and about Islam as a religion."

She adds: "I want to spread the message that 1800 rabbis – along with the majority of the American Jewish community – believes in partnership with our Muslim neighbors. We, of course, oppose all acts of terrorism. We will not, however, allow the actions of a small minority to be an excuse for dehumanizing an entire people."

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Striking back against an anti-jihad advertisement in the subways widely perceived as anti-Muslim, two religious groups – one Jewish, one Christian – are taking out subway ads of their own to urge tolerance.

Rabbis for Human Rights – North Americaand the group Sojourners, led by the Christian author and social-justice advocate Jim Wallis, are unveiling their campaigns on Monday. Their ads will be placed near the anti-jihad ads in the same Manhattan subway stations, leaders of both groups said and transit officials confirmed. The groups said their campaigns were coincidental.

The ad by Rabbis for Human Rights turns the language of the earlier ad, placed by a pro-Israel group, on its head. The original ad says, "In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat jihad." The ad by Rabbis for Human Rights says, "In the choice between love and hate, choose love. Help stop bigotry against our Muslim neighbors."

"We wanted to make it clear that it is in response to the anti-Islam ad," said Rabbi Jill Jacobs, executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights, whose members include rabbis from all streams of Judaism.

The Sojourners ad simply says, "Love your Muslim neighbors."

Another Christian group, United Methodist Women, an affiliate of the United Methodist Church, has placed similar ads in the same 10 Manhattan stations where the anti-jihad appears. The ads, which went up on Wednesday, say, "Hate speech is not civilized. Support peace in word and deed."

One of the Methodist group’s ads, in Times Square station, is posted right next to one of the anti-jihad ads.

City Room, 4 October 2012

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Muslim civil rights groups and community organisations have condemned a series of anti-Islamic advertisements that will be appearing in New York's subway stations next week.

The ads had initially been rejected by the city's Metropolitan Transport Authority (MTA) but were later allowed after a legal appeal ruled them to be expressions of freedom of speech. One ad reads: "In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat jihad."

The ads are set to appear in at least 10 of the city's 400 subways stations and have been designed and paid for by the controversial American Freedom Defence Initiative, which is led by outspoken anti-Islamist activist Pamela Geller. The AFDI has been termed an "active anti-Muslim group" by the civil rights watch dog organisation the Southern Poverty Law Centre.

"You are talking about people like me being called a "savage"," said Linda Sarsour, the executive director of the Arab American Association of New York. "It is all bubbling up. I know there is freedom of speech, but with freedom of speech comes responsibility. This promotes hate."

The AFDI first came to prominence during a prolonged fight about the building of an Islamic cultural centre in downtown Manhattan. Its critics dubbed the project a "Ground Zero mosque" and waged a high-profile campaign against it that many said was Islamaphobic. The SPLC termed Geller "the anti-Muslim movement's most visible and flamboyant figurehead."

Ads similar to the ones set to appear in New York have already been put on buses in San Francisco. However, the local transport authority in the city, known as Muni, donated the funds raised by the ad to the city's Human Rights Commission and also ran their own ad next to it that stated: "Muni doesn't support this message." The AFDI has also sought to run the ads in Washington DC but authorities there have delayed them for public safety concerns.

Muslim civil rights groups said the ads were coming at an especially sensitive time as world politics are already being rocked by violent protests and attacks on American embassies in the wake of the production of an anti-Islamic film made by an Egyptian Coptic Christian living in California. It also comes after several high-profile incidents in the US, including the burning of a mosque in Joplin, Missouri. "They add to the overall picture of anti-Muslim feeling that is growing up in our nation," said Ibrahim Hooper, a director at the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

The renewed controversy over the ads also comes on the same day as a major global report by the Pew Research Centre identified a rise of religious intolerance worldwide, including in the US. On the two measures the survey used – called "social hostility" and "government restrictions" - the US moved up the scale for the first time in both areas. When it came to official restrictions the US went from a low category to moderate, but when it came to the social hostilities index the country went from the lower end of the moderate scale to the upper end.

Guardian, 20 September 2012

See also "Controversial 'Defeat Jihad' ad to appear in NYC subways", CNN, 19 September 2012

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