February 2020
Second Annual Muslim Unity Conference to bring Shias and Sunnis together
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: The second Annual Muslim Unity Conference was held at the SABA Islamic Center, San Jose on December 7, 2019. The objective of the conference was to promote Muslim unity by bringing Sunnis and Shias together. The first Muslim Unity Conference was held on December 15, 2018 at the Saba Islamic Center. The unity conference initiative is sponsored by many organizations including the Northern California Islamic Council (NCIC) which is the prime mover. The NCIC, under the leadership Dr. Hatem Bazian, provides a unifying platform and voice for diverse Muslim organizations in Northern California, to facilitate cooperation and active engagement in the society, and to advocate for the interests of Muslim communities. The NCIS strives to promote peace, harmony and brotherhood between various Muslims sects, in particular the Sunni and Shia Muslims, by highlighting our common heritage and our common bonds. Read More
As Trump visits India:India’s 200 million Muslims are terrified of being deported
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: Hours before President Donald Trump’s arrival in India for a 36 hours visit on Monday, Foreign Affairs Magazine has launched a bitter criticism of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s controversial Citizenship Amendment Act. The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) coupled with a plan to implement a nationwide counting of citizenship (National Register of Citizens or NRC) by India's Hindu nationalist government has triggered widespread protests in India. Foreign Affairs Magazine said that India’s 200 million Muslims are terrified of being deported because of CAA and NRC. Read More
US Religious Freedom Commission says: CAA may lead to disenfranchisement of Indian Muslims
By Abdus-Sattar Ghazali:Days before US President Donald Trump's visit to India, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) issued a bitter criticism of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's anti-Muslim Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) which sparked large scale protests across India. The controversial law provides a fast track to Indian citizenship for non-Muslim migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. Quickly after the CAA's passage, large scale protests broke out across India with the government instituting a violent crackdown against the protestors. Read More
Lodi terror case of Hamid Hayat closed
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: Six months after a federal judge vacated the 2006 terrorism conviction against Hamid Hayat, prosecutors said Friday they will not pursue another trial against the Lodi resident.“Due to the passage of time, the government now moves this court to dismiss, in the interest of justice, the indictments in this case,” federal prosecutors said in a motion filed in U.S. District Court, in Sacramento. Read More
Over 430 Dalits convert to Islam citing injustice, more are in the process of conversion
By Muslim Mirror Desk: Around 3000 Dalits in Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore, who had said - post wall tragedy in December 2019 - that they would convert to Islam in phases from January 5 , have started converting to Islam, India Today reported Wednesday. On December 2, after heavy rains lashed Mettupalayam and the surrounding regions, a wall which protesters in the region called as the “wall of discrimination” collapsed on three houses and resulting into death of 17 Dalits. Read More
Plight of Dalits in India worsened under Modi
US Report about plight of Dalits
"Untouchability" and Segregation Human Rights Watch Report
The Plight of Untouchable Christians in India Today
Amid complete shutdown in Indian administered Kashmir: 36th death anniversary of JKLP founder Maqbool Bhat is observed
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: Amid complete shutdown in Kashmir Valley the 36th death anniversary of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) founder, Maqbool Bhat, was observed Tuesday (February 11). He was hanged at Tihar Jail on this day in 1984. According to Deccan Herald, fearing protests, authorities imposed restrictions in parts of Srinagar City since morning. All the major entry and exit points to these areas have been blocked with rolls of concertina wires to prevent people from assembling at a single spot. Hundreds of police and paramilitary CRPF men in full riot gear have been deployed in sensitive areas of Srinagar. Read More
Brutalities Continue In Kashmir
By Syed Rifaquat Ali: While the BJP government claims that peace has returned in Kashmir and restrictions lifted, the fact is that brutalities are increasing alarmingly day by day and the lockdown shows no sign of abating. The Indian prime minister, Narender Modi, a habitual liar, is telling the world that after the abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir, terrorism has been checked largely. Read More
Aam Aadmi Party stuns Modi's BJP with huge win in Delhi election
Al Jazeera: Incumbent Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party (Common Man's Party or AAP) has inflicted a crushing defeat on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in a key election in the capital. In the state assembly election held on Saturday, the AAP returned to power for a third straight term by winning 62 of the 70 seats while the BJP won the other eight, India's Election Commission said on Tuesday. Read More
Kashmiris feel 'alienated' 6 months after India 'annexation'
By Rifat Fareed (Srinagar, India-administered Kashmir): In August 2019, New Delhi scrapped Kashmir's semi-autonomous status, imposing a security blockade in the region. Rifat Fareed, DW's reporter in Srinagar, says six months on, Kashmiris feel more disgruntled than ever. Read More
The Trump plan is just a cover for Israel's final land grab
By Jonathan Cook: Israel needed a fresh pretext to justify seizing the last fragments of historic Palestine after the expiry of its Oslo alibi. The Trump "Vision for Peace" will never be implemented - and not because the Palestinians reject it. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s enthusiastic public embrace of the plan belies the fact that the Israeli right detest it too. The headlines are that, with US blessing, Israel's dream is about to be realised: it will be able to annex its dozens of illegal settlements in the West Bank and the vast agricultural basin of the Jordan Valley. In return, the Palestinians can have a state on 15 per cent of their homeland. Read More
Trump and Balfour compared
By Dr. James Zogby: Much has already been written about the Trump Administration’s release of its long-awaited plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace. I will not repeat the criticisms. Instead, I will focus on what I found to be the striking and disturbing parallels between this Trump “Deal of the Century” and last century’s infamous “Balfour Declaration.” Though certainly longer and more pretentious than the “Declaration”, in many ways, the “Deal” reflects much the same intent and logic as its predecessor. There are also, of course, some significant differences. Read More
Palestine – “Deal of the Century” – or Fraud of the Century?
By Peter Koeing: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas demolished President Trump’s “Peace Plan” or, as the Donald called it, “The Deal of the Century”, calling out “Jerusalem is not for sale”, warning that the “conspiracy deal will not pass. The Palestinian people will reject it.” He added, “[the Plan] belonged to the dust bin of history”. And he is absolutely right. That is an understatement. Indeed, the Palestinians were never even consulted. President Abbas denounced the Plan as a “new Balfour Declaration”. Turkish President Erdogan said, “This is the plan to ignore the Palestinians’ rights and legitimize Israel’s occupation,” as quoted by Anadolu Agency. Read More
Understanding the Trump ‘Deal of the Century’: what it does, and doesn’t say
BY Yumna Patel: After years of anticipation that began on US President Donald Trump’s campaign trail in 2016, the “Deal of the Century” was finally unveiled last week to Israeli fanfare and Palestinian outrage. The 181-page plan, complete with conceptual maps, proposed land transfers, and economic incentives, touched on a number of the critical issues surrounding the Israeli Palestinian conflict for decades. Borders, settlements, refugees, and the status of Jerusalem were all mentioned in the plan, which was described by Trump as a “win-win” situation for both parties. Read More
Seattle City Council passes resolution against CAA, NRC
by Countercurrents Collective: The Seattle City Council, one of the most powerful city councils in the U.S., on Monday unanimously passed a resolution condemning India’s recently-enacted Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC). Reaffirming Seattle as a welcoming city and expressing solidarity with the city’s South Asian community regardless of religion and caste, the resolution “resolves that the Seattle City Council opposes the National Register of Citizens and the Citizenship Amendment Act in India, and finds these policies to be discriminatory to Muslims, oppressed castes, women, indigenous, and LGBT people“. Read More
Kashmir Solidarity Day observed in New York
Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai, Secretary General, World Kashmir Awareness Forum has urged the Trump administration to place Kashmir on its radar screen, because of the American and international consensus that Kashmir pinched between nuclear-capable India and Pakistan is the most dangerous place on the planet. Now is no time for complacency or temporizing. The nuclear clock is moving forward, not backward. And the chilling suffering and misery of the Kashmiri people continues every day a peaceful resolution is deferred. Read More
Missionary Diversion: the Question of Slavery
By Dr. Habib Siddiqui: Christian missionaries and die-hard Trinitarians are in the business of proselytizing ‘lost souls’ so that they can be ‘saved’ from eternal damnation. One such missionary who not too long ago had supported the apartheid structure in his native South Africa recently wrote a book with a provocative title - 'Slavery, Terrorism and Islam'. Someone in the internet quoted some passages from his book, which shows the depth of the author’s bigotry. Read More
Erdoğan bitterly criticizes treasonous Arab leaders who back Trump’s Middle East plan
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan on Friday (Jan 31) criticized Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab states for not speaking out against the Middle East plan of President Donald Trump which he said endorsed the Israeli annexation of Palestinian lands. “Some Arab countries that support such a plan commit treason against Jerusalem, as well as against their own people, and more importantly against all humanity,” Erdogan told his party’s provincial heads in Ankara. Read More
Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) rejects Trump Mideast plan
Al Jazeera: The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has said it rejects US President Donald Trump 's recently unveiled Middle East plan. The 57-member body, which held a meeting on Monday (Feb 3) to discuss the plan in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, said in a statement that it "calls on all member states not to engage with this plan or to cooperate with the US administration in implementing it in any form". Read More
Trump’s Middle East ‘vision’ is a disaster that will only make things worse
By Tony Walker: US President Donald Trump’s “vision” for Israelis and Palestinians is not a realistic peace plan to end a decades-old conflict. Rather, it’s more like a real estate deal in which one side is a recipient of a low-ball offer. In the meantime, the other side is continuing to expand its hold on property to which it does not have the title deeds under international law. This is not the “deal of the century”, as Trump claims, but an invitation to Israel to assert its sovereignty over swathes of territory seized in the 1967 war. Read More
Trump attempting to consolidate the Balfour Declaration
By Askiah Adam: Why should the Palestinians submit to tyranny when international law and order is on their side? For instance, by agreeing to Trump’s idea of a solution the Palestinians are denying their right to protection from the International Criminal Court (ICC) their recourse to justice against the tyrant under the present circumstances. Should they for US$50 billion over 10 years and the million jobs promised renounce all rights that would secure them their dignity and the return of lands stolen from them? Or is there restitution in economic development? Read More
Middle East Update
By Arthur Kane Scott: As we enter Winter, 2020, the Middle East once again dominates the news. The Iranian-American crisis is pivotal as it could lead to an intensification of conflict between the two powers, but with major ramifications for other Middle East countries, if not the world, given the U. S. abandonment of the nuclear agreement with Teheran. Geopolitical/cultural complexity represents a core theme within the Middle East making it challenging to analyze, or predict. Let me identify some of the forces, outside/inside the Middle East, that make it opaque for westerners to grasp. Read More
European Union says CAA dangerously divisive
Syed Rifaquat Ali: The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) passed in the Upper and Lower Houses
of Indian parliament without any comprehensive debate has been condemned not only
throughout India but all over the world. The European Union lawmakers, numbering 154, have proposed a resolution that terms CAA a contentious law 'discriminatory and dangerously divisive' which may lead to the largest statelessness crisis in the world and cause widespread human suffering. Read More
The Journal of America Team:
Editor in chief:
Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Senior Editor:
Prof. Arthur Scott
Special Correspondent
Maryam Turab
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