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Saturday, August 31, 2019

HHS FINDS VERMONT MEDICAL CENTER UNLAWFULLY FORCED NURSE TO ASSIST WITH ABORTION AGAINST HER CONSCIENCE

Featured Organization: The University of Vermont Medical ...
HHS FINDS VERMONT MEDICAL CENTER UNLAWFULLY FORCED NURSE TO ASSIST WITH ABORTION 
AGAINST HER CONSCIENCE
BY HEATHER CLARK
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:

BURLINGTON, Vt. — The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has sided with a nurse who filed a complaint in May 2018 against the University of Vermont Medical Center after she was allegedly forced to assist with an abortion despite her moral objections. The hospital denies the allegations, but admits that its policy may require nurses to assist in emergency situations despite their desire to opt out.
“Forcing medical staff to assist in the taking of human life inflicts a moral injury on them that is not only unnecessary and wrong, it violates longstanding federal law,” Roger Severino, the director of HHS’ Office of Civil Rights, said in a statement.
“Our investigation has uncovered serious discrimination by UVMMC against nurses and staff who cannot, in good conscience, assist in elective abortions,” he noted. “We stand ready to assist UVMMC in changing its policies and procedures to respect conscience rights and remedy the effects of its discrimination.”
According to a press release from HHS, the nurse — who is not being publicly identified — was assigned to assist with an abortion despite staff knowing about her objection for years. She was not specifically advised that she was to participate in an abortion until she walked into the room, at which point, the acting physician remarked, “Don’t hate me.”
Upon realizing what her assignment entailed, the nurse again objected, but was allegedly forced to assist. She told HHS that she feared if she did not comply, she would either lose her job or be reported to her licensing agency.
The Office of Civil Rights investigated and found that other personnel had been assigned to assist with abortions, without knowing in advance and despite their stated religious or moral objections.
It also discovered that the medical center has a policy that requires staff to participate in certain situations despite their desire to opt out, which violates federal law — specifically the Church Amendments  — as well as HHS grant regulations.
HHS says the the University of Vermont Medical Center has not been cooperative in providing requested documents, but is giving the healthcare facility 30 days to advise the government of its willingness to amend its policy or be subject to potential loss of its federal funding.
Vermont Medical Center told the Burlington Free Press that it feels it is being “blackmailed” into changing its policy.
“They threatened to take back $1.6 million for services, but we won’t be blackmailed into changing our policy,” Interim President Dr. Stephen Leffler said. “Our hope is they don’t take the dollars back. It will harm other people who have nothing to do with this.”
Leffler said that employees can opt out of objectionable procedures, but if a “critical situation” arises, such as one that is deemed life-threatening, they may be asked to assist regardless.
“We do everything in our power to make sure people who want to opt out can,” he explained, “but our policy is built with patient protection in mind.”
“They believe people should have the 100 percent option to opt out, even if it puts a patient’s life at risk,” Leffler added. “We disagree with that.”
Leffler also disagreed with the HHS characterization of the situation, stating that the medical center investigated the matter and the allegations “are not supported by the facts.” He also argued that the hospital is willing to meet to officials but has never been approached about doing so.
“The University of Vermont Medical Center has robust, formal protections that safeguard both our employees’ religious, ethical and cultural beliefs, and our patients’ rights to access safe and legal abortion,” the facility said in a statement on Wednesday.
“We nonetheless remain willing to work cooperatively with OCR to identify any ways in which we can further support our employees’ conscience and religious rights, in a manner that is consistent with high-quality patient care, and the other legal and ethical obligations we have to our patients.”

AUSTRALIA TO DEPORT MUSLIM MIGRANT FOR "SICKENING SEX ASSAULT" ON 3 YEAR OLD WHILE ON DUTY AS A SECURITY GUARD

Security guard jailed for indecent assault of girl, 3, at Sydney mall | Nine News Australia

It was described in court as "every parent's worst nightmare," a three-old-girl led away from a playground and indecently assaulted at the DFO in Homebush. The security guard who did this has been jailed for at least two and a half years.

PM to deport Sydney security guard who assaulted toddler | Nine News Australia

AUSTRALIA TO DEPORT MUSLIM MIGRANT FOR "SICKENING SEX ASSAULT" ON 3 YEAR OLD WHILE ON DUTY AS A SECURITY GUARD 
BY CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
Yesterday Jihad Watch reported on this story, and here is a new development: “Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said his government will ‘boot out’ a convicted child sex offender all the way back to his homeland Iraq once his prison sentence has been finished. Iraqi-born refugee Mohammad Hassan Al Bayati, 30, was sentenced Tuesday for the sickening sexual assault of a three-year-old girl in December 2016.”
Kudos to Morrison.
Al Bayati worked as a security guard, and used his position of trust to lead a three-year-old toddler away and sexually assault her. He was caught on camera. Al Bayati then berated the toddler’s mother about leaving the child unattended. He subsequently denied the assault “despite being found guilty,” and reportedly boasted to detectives “to check his phone to ‘see how many girls I have.’” Although every culture has sex offenders, Islam is the only faith that sanctions sex abuse of infidels, even children.
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa permitting “sexual experiences” with girls of all ages.  He stated:
Anyone who has a wife less than nine years of age is not allowed to engage in sexual intercourse, whether she is his permanent or temporary wife. However, other forms of sexual pleasures are permitted, such as touching with lust, hugging, and rubbing penis between the buttocks and thighs; even if she is a nursing baby.
“Australia to ‘Boot Out’ Iraqi-Born Convicted Child Sex Offender,” by Simon Kent, Breitbart, August 28, 2019:
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said his government will “boot out” a convicted child sex offender all the way back to his homeland Iraq once his prison sentence has been finished. Iraqi-born refugee Mohammad Hassan Al Bayati, 30, was sentenced Tuesday for the sickening sexual assault of a three-year-old girl in December 2016.
He was working as a security guard at at a Sydney shopping centre when he took the girl away from the centre’s playground while her mother was Christmas shopping.
Security camera vision shows Al Bayati taking the girl into an area without surveillance, where he assaulted her. A jury found Al Bayati exposed his genitals and touched the girl’s underwear during the 11 minutes they spent in a stairwell.
The New South Wales District Court sent Al Bayati to jail for four-and-a-half years’ jail, with a non-parole period of two-and-a-half years.
He came to Australia by boat from Iraq in 2011, and was given a permanent protection visa to stay.
“This bloke has no right being here, he’s abused the generosity of a country that gave him a new start, and it was absolutely appalling,” Mr Morrison told local news outlet Channel Seven.
“And just because you’re on a permanent protection visa, it’s a warning to anyone. Once he’s been released from jail, he’ll go immediately into detention and we’ll deport him from there,” Morrison explained.
“If you come here on a visa and you violate our laws, we will boot you out.”
Mr Morrison previously noted laws he was responsible for as immigration minister, under then prime minister Tony Abbott, made it mandatory for non-Australian citizens to have their visas cancelled if they were convicted of a crime carrying a punishment of more than a year in jail….

Friday, August 30, 2019

NEW FEC COMPLAINT FILED AGAINST REP. ILHAN OMAR OVER ALLEGED AFFAIR WITH CONSULTANT~OMAR WANTS U.N. IN CHARGE OF SOUTHERN BORDER

NEW FEC COMPLAINT FILED AGAINST REP. ILHAN OMAR OVER ALLEGED AFFAIR WITH CONSULTANT
A conservative watchdog group has filed a complaint with the FEC in connection with congresswoman Ilhan Omar's alleged affair with a Democrat consultant. One America's Jack Posobiec has more on the freshman lawmaker's latest scandal.
Rep. Omar dismisses questions on alleged affair 

Ilhan Omar: Let’s Put the UN in Charge of the Southern Border

BY LUIS MIGUEL
Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) on Wednesday told a South Minneapolis audience that she wants to see an overhaul of U.S. immigration policy that would include bringing in the United Nations to handle the mass migration at the southern border.
Claiming that Americans are “losing our moral high ground” on immigration, the Somali-born congresswoman argued that the UN would run migration flow more “humanely.”
“We should do what any other country does, by dealing with this situation in a serious way,” she said. “So we have to bring in the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees — an agency that has the expertise and the training to handle massive flows of refugees humanely.”
Such a move would undermine American sovereignty and place our immigration system in the hands of a UN leadership that seeks to create open borders and erode our nation’s autonomy.
Omar made her comments while speaking at a town hall. She countered the rhetoric of President Trump and his supporters, disputing characterization of current migration levels as an “invasion.”
“What we face is not an invasion,” Omar said. “This is not an invasion, it’s an immigration crisis.”
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), apprehensions at the southwest border during fiscal year 2019 alone have been over 750,000 — and that doesn’t include illegal aliens who escaped apprehension and have successfully entered the country.
“We’re all here tonight because we all recognize that immigration is one of the defining civil rights and human rights issue of our time,” Omar added.
As a member of “The Squad,” a group of four freshman Democratic congresswomen pulling their party further leftward, Omar holds a progressive stance on migration, favoring policies that would relax enforcement and allow greater entry of illegal aliens.
“There is no good way to detain immigrants,” Omar told her audience. “We are treating people like criminals when they have not committed a crime.”
The logical conclusion of such rhetoric is the decriminalization of illegal border crossings — a platform of some Democratic presidential candidates, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, Former HUD Secretary Julián Castro, and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg.
The decriminalization of illegal border crossings, along with an end to detainment of illegal aliens, would effectively create an open border.
Omar has also called for the abolishment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and co-sponsored legislation this summer that would prohibit federal agencies from using the word “alien” to refer to persons in the country illegally.
Jennifer Carnahan, chairwoman of the Republican Party of Minnesota, criticized Omar and defended the Trump administration’s focus on stopping illegal migration through stricter enforcement.
“President Trump and Republicans in Congress have been working to address the crisis at the border while Democrats have been more interested in obstructing to score political points,” Carnahan said in a statement.
Omar’s remarks on migration surfaced at the same time she is involved in another controversy: A possible campaign-finance violation related to Omar’s giving of travel reimbursements to a consultant who is alleged to have been her paramour.
Despite not having a full congressional term under her belt, Omar has become notably adept at drawing media attention.
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Teaching Kids to Hate: Minnesota Children Instructed to Color Cards of Anti-Israel and Anti-American Ilhan Omar for Class Assignment
Minnesota Students Assigned to Color Reverential Photos of Rep. Ilhan Omar

Scandal-ridden congresswoman is treated as an icon

BY SARA DOGAN
SEE: https://www.stopk12indoctrination.org/minnesota-students-assigned-to-color-reverential-photos-of-rep-ilhan-omar/republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
In her short time in Congress, freshman U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar has made a name for herself as a vehement anti-Semite. She infamously invoked age-old anti-Semitic tropes when she tweeted “It’s all about the Benjamins [$100 bills], baby,” accusing the pro-Israel organization AIPAC of donating to politicians in order to secure favorable treatment of the Jewish state. Omar is also an ardent supporter of the Hamas-funded Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.  Now it appears that despite her highly controversial record and short career in public service, schoolchildren in Minnesota are being taught to venerate the fledgling politician.
John Hinderaker the President of the Center of the American Experiment located in Omar’s home state of Minnesota, reports on Powerline’s blog that a public elementary school in the state assigned its students to color in reverential pictures of Omar and also to write a report on the Congresswoman.
“This photo came from a public elementary school in Minneapolis,” Hinderaker reports, citing an image featuring a display of coloring pages that each depict Omar standing with an almost military bearing, face upturned, staring off into the distance. She is wearing a headscarf and keffiyeh (prayer shawl). Several detailed floral designs are arranged around her face. “I’ve been told that the same coloring project has been reported in at least one suburban school district, but I don’t have definite confirmation of that yet,” Hinderaker adds. He does not identify the school districts participating in the assignment.  
As Hinderaker points out, Omar is a highly successful politician, who has raised “three to five times as much” in campaign donations as other U.S. House members from Minnesota. Apparently, Minnesota’s public schools are doing whatever they can to cement her reputation as an icon.
“Omar is being raised to heroic status in her district’s public schools,” writes Hinderaker. “Elementary school students are apparently being taught to revere her, much as, in recent years, they have been taught to see Martin Luther King, Jr. as a kind of secular saint. Someone has distributed an Ilhan Omar card that students are instructed to color, while writing a ‘report’ on the inside. I assume those reports are paeans to the Congresswoman.”
Congresswoman Omar’s questionable actions and comments extend well beyond her hatred of Israel. She served as the keynote speaker at a recent event to benefit the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), an organization known for its strong ties to Islamic extremism. Steven Pomerantz, the former chief of counter-terrorism at the FBI has baldly stated that “CAIR, its leaders and its activities effectively give aid to international terrorist groups.”
At that event Omar shared the stage with CAIR-Florida executive director Hassan Shibly, who refuses to classify Hezbollah and Hamas as terrorist organizations. During her speech, Omar notoriously referred to the 9/11 attacks in which approximately 3000 American citizens died as “some people did something.” 
Omar’s record in the Minnesota State House of Representatives, where she served as a representative from 2016-2018, is also troubling. In 2017, Omar voted against a bill that would allow life insurance companies to refuse to pay benefits in cases where the insured party died while committing an act of terrorism—one of only two state representatives to do so. She also opposed a bill which would make it a felony for parents to make their daughters undergo female genital mutilation.
Other allegations against the Congresswoman are deeply disturbing. The Minnesota Sun reported in October 2018 that “probable cause” existed to show that Omar together with her campaign committee to elect her to the state legislature in 2016 had committed “at least three separate [campaign finance] violations, including the alleged use of campaign funds to pay off legal fees related to her divorce.”
Online encyclopedia of the left, Discoverthenetworks.org, also reports that during her run for the Minnesota House in 2016, Omar “faced highly credible allegations that – in an effort to perpetrate immigration fraud and/or student loan fraud – she had married her own brother, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, in 2009 and was still legally his wife.” Omar responded by claiming these reports were “disgusting lies” made by those who are “deeply invested in stopping a progressive, black, Muslim, hijab-wearing, immigrant woman.”
Congresswoman Omar is establishing her own legacy—one in which scandals percolate and anti-Semitism, and apologetics for Islamic extremism take center stage. Minnesota’s public schools are attempting to give her a very different one.
To learn more about the Freedom Center's campaign to halt indoctrination in K-12 schools, please visit  www.stopk12indoctrination.org.  __To read the K-12 Code of Ethics CLICK HERE. __To order the Freedom Center’s new pamphlet, “Leftist Indoctrination in Our K-12 Public Schools,” CLICK HERE. __To donate to the Stop K-12 Indoctrination campaign, CLICK HERE.
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VIDEO: CRUCIAL QUESTIONS FOR ILHAN OMAR

Suggestions for Seth Meyers when Omar returns on his show

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
Subscribe to the Glazov Gang‘s YouTube Channel and follow us on Twitter: @JamieGlazov.
In this new Glazov Gang episode, Jamie Glazov puts forward: Crucial Questions for Ilhan Omar, offering suggestions for Seth Meyers when Omar returns on his show.
Don’t miss it!
And make sure to watch John Guandolo discuss Ilhan Omar’s Sharia Hate and Deception, where he asks: Is it really shocking that a Muslim congresswoman adheres to Sharia and hates Jews?
____________________________________________________________
SEE ALSO:

https://www.jihadwatch.org/2019/08/ilhan-omar-we-have-to-bring-in-the
-united-nations-high-commissioner-on-refugees-to-handle-us-border-crisis

ETHIOPIAN MUSLIM STABS WOMAN TO DEATH IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

ETHIOPIAN MUSLIM STABS WOMAN TO DEATH 
IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

margery magill

Eliyas Aregahegne

Intern, 27, is knifed to death by man who ‘targeted her at random’ – Margery Magill was fatally stabbed while she was walking a dog in Washington, DC Tuesday night

Margery Magill was fatally stabbed in Washington, DC, on Tuesday night, while she was walking a dog in Washington, DC
The suspect targeted the 27-year-old capitol hill  intern ‘at random’ police said
Police say 24-year-old Eliyas Aregahegne attacked Magill as she was walking a dog for a family who hired her through the Rover app
Aregahegne was arrested Wednesday and charged with first-degree murder while armed
Neighbors heard Magill scream and ran outside to find her lying on the sidewalk
The victim from Yuba City, California, was interning in DC for the summer
A 27-year-old woman was fatally stabbed while walking a dog in Washington, DC, in what police say was a random attack.Margery Magill, a California native who was interning the capital for the summer, suffered multiple stab wounds and bled out on the sidewalk just before 9pm on Tuesday.Police say 24-year-old Eliyas Aregahegne randomly targeted Magill as she was walking a dog for a family who hired her through the Rover app.Aregahegne is facing charges of first-degree murder while armed.For no reason authorities can immediately discern, a man repeatedly stabbed the 27-year-old Magill about 8:45 p.m. and then ran, the District’s police chief said.
Police said the incident did not appear to be an attempted robbery or sexual assault, and there was nothing to indicate that he was under the influence of alcohol or drugs. 
Chris Chambers, who lives on the street where the attack occurred, said he ran outside after hearing someone scream and yell “Oh, no!” and “Help me!”’
‘Came downstairs and came out with my wife and all we saw was a dog across the street with a leash and no human and we knew something was wrong,’ Chambers told NBC4.
‘We looked down and we found the young lady on the sidewalk in front of our house bleeding.’
Police arrested 24-year-old Eliyas Aregahegne on Wednesday in the fatal knife attack.
He was charged with first-degree murder while armed.
Police arrested 24-year-old Eliyas Aregahegne for the murder of Margery Magill 1Police arrested 24-year-old Eliyas Aregahegne, within hours, for the murder of Margery Magill in Northwest Washington DC
‘It’s absolutely tragic. I still can’t wrap my head around it,’ the victim’s sister, Raeann Magill, told NBC4.


‘You know, out walking a dog and to be attacked like that. How can anyone even fathom that? I mean, it’s truly tragic and I even think to myself, why her?’
The family said Magill had a passion for animals and loved to travel.
She also loved living in DC, according to her sister.
‘She loved the city. She loved the energy. She really wanted to build her career here and thrive off of the energy that was Washington,’ Raeann said.
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SEE ALSO:

Eliyas Aregahegne: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN: 20 YEAR OLD FREEDOM ACTIVIST GETS 15/24 YEARS JAIL SENTENCE FOR "SPREADING PROSTITUTION BY TAKING OFF HER HIJAB"


Anti-compulsory hijab campaigner Saba Kordafshari's fight for women's rights

White Wednesdays campaigner Saba Kordafshari's fight for women's rights in Iran. She was sentenced to 24 years in prison for demanding an end to compulsory hijab. She is one of millions of Iranian women to protest against compulsory hijab.

ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN: 20 YEAR OLD FREEDOM ACTIVIST GETS 15/24 YEARS JAIL SENTENCE FOR "SPREADING PROSTITUTION BY TAKING OFF HER HIJAB"
BY ROBERT SPENCER
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
American feminists were too busy with preparations for their next Hijab Day to 
take any notice.

“Iranian women’s rights activist, 20, is jailed for 15 years for ‘spreading prostitution by taking off her hijab,'” by Chris Pleasance, MailOnline, August 28, 2019:
An Iranian women’s rights activist has been jailed for a total of 24 years – including a 15-year term for ‘spreading prostitution by taking off her hijab’.
Saba Kord Afshari, 20, was handed the sentence Tuesday by Tehran’s Revolutionary Court after being found guilty of removing her headscarf as well as ‘spreading propaganda against the state’ and ‘assembly and collusion’.
Afshari and her mother, Raheleh Ahmadi, had been prominent members of the White Wednesdays protest group, which spoke out against the compulsory hijab.
The pair routinely posted videos of themselves walking around the streets of Tehran without their headscarves to encourage other women to flout the law.
She was first arrested in the Iranian capital in August last year and jailed for a year, according to Iran Human Rights Monitor.
Afshari was released in February but continued to protest against human rights abuses by the Iranian regime, which saw her re-arrested in June.
She eventually ended up in the women’s wing of Evin Prison, in Tehran, where human rights groups say she was pressured into making video confessions of her crimes.
Despite her mother also being arrested, Afshari refused to record the videos….
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SEE ALSO:
Rejecting hijab dooms woman to 24 years in prison
BY TAREK FATAH
SEE: https://theprovince.com/opinion/columnists/rejecting-hijab-dooms-woman
-to-24-years-in-prison/wcm/1ca7d73e-1c4b-4cfe-a3d9-cce2459bec23 
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
You may never have heard of Saba Kord-Afshari, but the 20-year-old Iranian woman was sentenced to 24 years in prison by the Islamic Republic of Iran on Monday for the crime of defying the country’s ‘hijab law’ that forbids all women in Iran from displaying their uncovered head in public.
Kord-Ashrafi is just one of many courageous Iranian Muslim women who have defied the country’s mullahs and their female enforcers by observing what is now known as ‘White Wednesdays’ when girls and women take off their hijabs and bare their hair in public.
Her shocking conviction would have gone unnoticed and unreported had it been left to the mainstream media in Canada, who were too busy celebrating the cloth as exotic attire.
But Irvin Cotler is not one to be silenced. He along with Iranian feminist Masih Alinejad were among the first to bring the injustice towards Kord-Ashrafi to the world’s attention. The former attorney general of Canada and human rights crusader tweeted: “Condemn the brutal & unjust sentence of #SabaKordafshari, who at only 20 years old has just been sentenced to 24 years of imprisonment. Her “crime”? Speaking out for women’s rights in #Iran. We must all, wherever we are, stand in solidarity with Saba & #WhiteWednesdays prisoners.”
Saba Kord-Afshari’s trial began on Aug. 19 when she was charged with “spreading corruption and prostitution by taking off her hijab and walking without a veil [hijab].”
As Iranian, Saudi and other Muslim women around the globe struggled for freedom from the hijab, which they consider a political symbol that has nothing to do with piety, the reaction among the liberal circles in the West was confounding. Here an increasing number of feminists, leftists and the liberal media glorified the hijab as some exotic symbol of women’s liberation that had to be embraced.
On the day Saba Kord-Afshari was imprisoned for 24 years for daring to dump her hijab, that same piece of headdress was depicted in positive light by the Toronto Star in a story on its financial pages about “How to put your investments where your social conscience is.”
The story showed a smiling woman attired in hijab surrounded by words “ethics”, “integrity”, “respect”, “reliable”, “teamwork” and “ethics” rotating around her as she clicked a “Core Values” button in the centre.
It did make me wonder about the world of guilt and fantasy some of my more liberal colleagues live in.
The hijab, as colleague Farzana Hassan and myself have insisted for years on these pages, is a political symbol, not one of piety.
This is best demonstrated by North America’s top protagonist of the hijab, U.S. Congresswomen Ilhan Omar who told Vogue magazine that wearing her hijab allows her to be a “walking billboard” … “To me, the hijab means power, liberation, beauty, and resistance,” she added.
Had the hijab been a symbol of piety, I doubt any Muslim woman would flaunt it while dating married men as is being alleged by a DC woman who claims Rep. Omar and her husband are having an affair.
While Islamists and liberal Canadians fawn over hijabs, Yasmine Mohammed, an Egyptian shared a very unsympathetic judgment on that piece of cloth. She tweeted: “To me, the hijab means female subjugation, victim-blaming, and perpetuation of rape culture.”
A harsh view, but one that resonates with many Muslim victims of Islamism.

ISLAMIC "CAIR" TOUTS PARTNERSHIP WITH U.S. CENSUS BUREAU

ISLAMIC "CAIR" TOUTS PARTNERSHIP WITH 
U.S. CENSUS BUREAU 
BY STEVEN EMERSON
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
Update Aug. 30: Following this IPT report, the Commerce Department confirms that it dropped the partnership with CAIR. Click here for details.
Federal law enforcement knows enough about the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) to order its agents not to engage with the group outside of criminal investigations. But despite that, the U.S. Census Bureau believes the conservative, Sunni-dominated Islamist organization is a trustworthy organization to partner with in next year's national population count.
"CAIR is proud to partner with the U.S. Census Bureau to ensure American Muslims are fairly and accurately counted in the 2020 Census," Executive Director Nihad Awad said in a CAIR news release. "Full participation in the census ensures that American Muslims will be better represented in Congress and that their communities receive an equal share in state and federal programs."
It isn't clear what CAIR or the Census Bureau will do as part of the partnership. The statement indicated CAIR will promote participation in the Census and advise people how to avoid scams. The Census Bureau did not respond to a request for comment.
"CAIR wants to ensure that that not only are American Muslim communities being fairly counted – but that their neighborhoods are getting a fair share in federal and state funding," the CAIR release said.
Internal documents seized by the FBI show that CAIR and its founders, Omar Ahmadand Nihad Awad, were deeply involved in a Hamas-support network in America created by the Muslim Brotherhood. A committee report described the group's missionas "defending the Islamic cause in Palestine and support for the emerging movement, the Hamas Movement."
Both Ahmad and Awad appear on the "Palestine Committee" telephone list (Ahmad is listed as "Omar Yehya"), and CAIR is listed on a meeting agenda which named the committee's branches.
"[U]ntil we can resolve whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and HAMAS," a senior FBI official wrote in 2009, "the FBI does not view CAIR as an appropriate liaison partner."
The policy remains in effect a decade later. The FBI's conclusion was shared by federal prosecutors and a U.S. District Court judge who reviewed the evidence.
Records seized by the FBI "do create at least a prima facie case as to CAIR's involvement in a conspiracy to support Hamas," U.S. District Court Judge Jorge Solis wrote in 2009.
"CAIR," prosecutors wrote, "has been identified by the Government at trial as a participant in an ongoing and ultimately unlawful conspiracy to support a designated terrorist organization, a conspiracy from which CAIR never withdrew."
CAIR has never acknowledged its Palestine Committee connections or tried to argue that it moved away from that support. Its leaders refuse to condemn Hamas, often angrily. Awad continues to promote anti-Israel rhetoric, as in 2014, calling the Jewish state "the biggest threat to world peace and security."
Awad publicly expressed support for Hamas in 1994 – the year CAIR was founded – over the Palestine Liberation Organization.
In a 1998 speech, Awad openly referenced Jewish advisers in the Clinton administration as the driving force behind U.S. foreign policy: "Look at their names. Look at their ethnic, their ethnic or religious or racial background. You will see that these are the same groups that belong to the same interest groups in the (Clinton) Administration...they are the same people who are opposing the peace agreement (with Iraq)."
But aside from its roots in a Hamas-support network, CAIR has a history of grossly inflating the American Muslim population. It issued a report in 2001 claiming there were 6 million Muslims in the United States.
Six years later, however, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press analyzed Census Bureau data to estimate "the total population of Muslims in the United States at 2.35 million." That number increased to 3.45 million people in 2017.
CAIR's partnership is a problem, said Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. But there's a deeper concern, which is found on the Census Bureau's website.
"The U.S. Census Bureau does not collect data on religious affiliation in its demographic surveys or decennial census. Public Law 94-521 prohibits us from asking a question on religious affiliation on a mandatory basis; in some person or household surveys, however, the U.S. Census Bureau may collect information about religious practices, on a voluntary basis."
Given that, Jasser asked, why is the Census Bureau partnering with a religious organization at all?
CAIR's announcement perpetuates a stereotype that Muslim Americans are not engaged in society. "It's counting all Americans as equals," Jasser said, "not as faith groups."
The notion that Muslims need to be encouraged to participate in the national census treats an entire population as "naïve immigrants," Jasser said. "They claim we're well-integrated. If that claim is true, why is this project necessary?"
It is important that Muslim Americans participate in the Census. CAIR's history, however, raises questions about whether the Census Bureau has partnered with an organization deserving of its trust.
Research Analyst Teri Blumenfeld contributed to this report.