Free Republic

SANTA ANA, Calif. — Eleven Muslim students charged with disrupting a speech by the Israeli ambassador to the U.S. at a California university sought Friday to have the district attorney pulled from the case. Prosecutors illegally obtained search warrants and focused on the religion of the defendants by dubbing the case the "UCI Muslim case," said Dan Mayfield, one of the students' attorneys. "We are asking the attorney general of the state of California to step in and take over the case," Mayfield said during a news conference after the students' arraignment was postponed until April 15. The courtroom was...

Despite a previous denial, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations – which regards itself as the leading U.S. Muslims civil rights group – participated in a three-day summit of members of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. The evidence surfaced at the trial of the Texas-based Islamic charity Holy Land Foundation and five of its former organizers, who are accused of supporting Hamas. Prosecutors named the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, an unindicted co-conspirator in the case. According to Steve Emerson's Investigative Project on Terrorism, FBI Special Agent Laura Burns testified Thursday that the "Nihad" listed...

An Arab nation with ties to 9-11 has pledged a major endowment to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, even as the Washington-based nonprofit group insists it receives no foreign support. The United Arab Emirates recently announced on its official government website that it has set up an endowment serving as a source of income for CAIR. The amount of the funding is undisclosed, but sources say it will be enough to help CAIR finance the construction of a new $24 million office building and a planned $50 million public-relations campaign aimed at repairing Islam's -- and the UAE's -- image...

A traffic stop in Detroit has led to serious suspicion , police said . Detroit police officers pulled over a vehicle near Atkinson and Second streets on a traffic stop. When officers questioned the driver, the man said he was from West Africa. In the trunk of the vehicle, police found license plates from different states, identifications cards and Arabic literature, Local 4 reported. The man was taken in to custody on a traffic violation. Police will not comment on the items found in the vehicle, but did say they are working with federal authorities.

. . . but not without multiple lawsuits. The strange story of the Islamic Society of Boston's new mosque.ON NOVEMBER 7, 2002, POLITICIANS AND OTHER LUMINARIES--including Boston Mayor Thomas P. Menino--gathered at the corner of Tremont Street and Malcolm X Boulevard in Boston's Roxbury neighborhood. They held shovels and awaited a photo op to celebrate the ground-breaking of a new mosque for the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB). It was a special occasion. The design for the $22 million mosque included a125-foot minaret as well as a 75-foot dome over the prayer hall. Al Jazeera joined the local Boston media...

TAMPA - There was, perhaps, no better place to witness American-Islamic relations Saturday than from a comfortable seat in the lobby of the Tampa Convention Center. Outside the ballroom that would host the Council on American-Islamic Relations' annual Tampa banquet were olive-skinned men with beards and women wearing long dresses and burkas. They exchanged assalamu alaikums and cheek kisses. Flowing through the crowd of activist Muslims were those entering and exiting the Tampa Boat Show: light-skinned men in deck shoes and Hawaiian shirts and tanned women wearing capri pants and halter tops. Some were drinking beers, others pushing strollers. The...