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AAI in the News

US Conference Probes Muslims' Civil Rights, Inclusion

Islam Online
Posted on Friday September 16, 2005

CAIRO, September 16, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – The US Indiana University will play host on September 22-24 to a conference on the relationship between growing Muslim minorities and the institutions of the West European and North American states.

Fourteen scholars from both sides of the Atlantic will make informed policy recommendations to improve the treatment and inclusion of Western Muslims while addressing salient security concerns, according to the Web site of the “Muslims in Western Politics” conference.

“This is the first conference to look comparatively at how Muslim minorities and state institutions interact, with a focus on politics, policies, law, human rights and security,” said organizer Abdulkader Sinno, Assistant Professor of Political Science and Middle Eastern Studies at Indiana University.

Among leading dignitaries to address the three-day conference is James Zogby, the president of the Washington-based Arab American Institute, which serves as the political and policy research arm of the Arab American community.

The conference will also feature David Cole, a professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center.

It will be supported by several university divisions that are considered recognized leaders in the development of workable solutions to cultural and transnational issues.

They include the Center for the Study of Global Change, the Center for West European Studies, and the Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies Program.

Political Representation

The meeting will probe means of making Muslims stakeholders in the political process and gaining political representation.

It will also tackle ways of how Muslims could be perceived by their fellow citizens and how they perceive their compatriots in the post 9/11 world.

“Western nations and their rapidly growing Muslim populations are adjusting to each other under the constant pressure of “exogenous shocks,” said Sinno, himself a Muslim and Arab American.

An authority on Middle Eastern politics, Muslims in the West, conflict processes and state building, he stressed that the way the two sides manage the process “will deeply affect Western politics and their relations with the Muslim world.”

Muslim minority in the West, particularly, the United States have been facing difficult times since the 9/11 attacks for many reasons, including the misunderstanding of Islam in the west, fueled by distorted media coverage, according to many observers.

Stephen Schwartz, the executive director of the US-based Center for Islamic Pluralism, has earlier criticized the western media for failing to meet the challenge of reporting on Islam after the 9/11.

A May 2004 report released by the US Senate Office Of Research concluded that Arab Americans and the Muslim minority have taken the brunt of the Patriot Act and other federal powers applied in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

Amnesty International said that racial profiling by US law enforcement agencies had grown over the past years to cover one in nine Americans, mostly targeting Muslims.