October 2011
Occupy Wall Street Meets Tahrir Square
At the risk of being obvious, let us list the ways that Occupy Wall Street is not like Tahrir Square: no protesters have been killed, there have been no demands for the president to step down and no crowds swelling above six figures. The protesters are in far less danger, and seem to pose far…
Religion claims its place in Occupy Wall Street
BOSTON— Downtown Dewey Square is crammed with tents and tarps of Occupy Boston protesters, but organizers made sure from the start of this weeks-old encampment that there was room for the holy. No shoes are allowed in the “Sacred Space” tent here, but you can bring just about any faith or spiritual tradition. A day’s…
AP IMPACT: NYPD keeps secret intelligence files on city Muslims who change their names
NEW YORK — Muslims who change their names to sound more traditionally American, as immigrants have done for generations, or who adopt Arabic names as a sign of their faith are often investigated and catalogued in secret New York Police Department intelligence files, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. The NYPD monitors everyone…
Muslims combat radicalization with online tools
WASHINGTON — A Muslim organization is working to counter radicalization by providing the work of progressive Islam scholars online in simple, youth-friendly language. Muslims for Progressive Values (MPV), a nonprofit group that has established liberal Muslim communities in the U.S. and Canada, created the “Literary Zikr’ website to provide an alternative to the fundamentalist versions…