Therefore, as you can imagine, I eagerly awaited the latest biography by Professor Manning Marable called “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention.” He had based his book on a decade worth of research and set out to reveal the man behind the legend. It would be a chance to get to know the character traits and morality of a person who had served as an inspiration to millions across the world. That Marable himself had died days before the book was published made it all the more interesting.

However, the emotion that I experienced whilst reading the book was not one of discovery or insight, but of profound disappointment bordering on disgust. Interspersed between slow and rambling passages, the book is littered with various accusations including that Malcolm X lied about his criminal past in order to sex-up his bad-boy image, that he was involved in a sexual relationship with an elderly white businessman, that he was a hypocrite who drank alcohol whilst calling others to be teetotal and that he carefully airbrushed all these parts out of his autobiography.

An example of the unjustified extrapolation that Marable engages in to arrive at these accusations is how he uses a letter from Malcolm X talking about a rough patch in his marriage and the fact that he was constantly away on speaking tours to come to the wild-leap conclusion that he and Betty were “most likely” unhappy and involved in an extra-marital affairs. Such statements have little evidence beyond the fertile imagination of Marable himself and are more befitting the lowest rung of tabloid newspapers rather than a serious academic text.

Given the amount of speculation deceitfully presented as factual revelations, one would think that the book would be consigned to the garbage tip of history. Instead, the literary community has this week awarded it one of its highest honours – the Pulitzer prize in history. What were they thinking? Perhaps they just wanted to honour a Professor who died before he could see his work published. Perhaps they didn't even read it. Or perhaps they wanted to pull the icon of Malcolm down a peg or two to the level of other great (but morally flawed) leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. or JFK.

To a jaded non-Muslim audience, these “revelations” are not shocking since it is possible for someone to engage in hypocrisy, adultery and lying on a grand scale in their private lives and still have their public image heralded as an example to millions. To Muslims and those who truly love Malcolm X, these accusations are a slur on the character of a martyred comrade, an inspirational leader and – most importantly – a brother in faith.

“A Life of Reinvention” was supposed to epitomize the amazing transformation Malcolm underwent from deep down in the gutter of humanity to one of the most influential figures of the 20^th century. Instead, this biography has ended up as a reinvention too far.

On April 12, 2012, Br. Tarek Mehanna was sentenced by a federal judge to 17.5 years in prison, and so ended another example of the injustice of our government against its own citizens. Having been able to sit in on the trial and sentencing, it became clear that Tarek was being punished merely for expressing unpopular speech and for his refusal to become a government informant.

I reiterate here what has been expressed by many others: for as long as I have known Tarek, I have known him to be kind, caring, and upstanding individual. In his sentencing hearing, he gave a powerful and moving speech which made evident that no matter the charges leveled against him, he would not compromise his beliefs. His speech was so moving that it elicited loud applause and takbirs from the hundreds of supporters in attendance (many of which were not from the Muslim community).

Tarek's statement to the court has been included below. May Allah give him and his family ease and patience during this time of trial. Amin.

Detailed coverage of the proceedings of the trial can be found on the Free Tarek websites: freetarek.wordpress.com and www.freetarek.com

Read to Judge O'Toole during his sentencing on April 12th, 2012.

In the name of God, the most Gracious, the most Merciful,

Exactly four years ago this month I was finishing my work shift at a local hospital. As I was walking to my car I was approached by two federal agents. They said that I had a choice to make: I could do things the easy way, or I could do them the hard way. The “easy” way, as they explained, was that I would become an informant for the government, and if I did so I would never see the inside of a courtroom or a prison cell. As for the hard way, this is it. Here I am, having spent the majority of the four years since then in a solitary cell the size of a small closet, in which I am locked down for 23 hours each day. The FBI and these prosecutors worked very hard—and the government spent millions of tax dollars – to put me in that cell, keep me there, put me on trial, and finally to have me stand here before you today to be sentenced to even more time in a cell.

In the weeks leading up to this moment, many people have offered suggestions as to what I should say to you. Some said I should plead for mercy in hopes of a light sentence, while others suggested I would be hit hard either way. But what I want to do is just talk about myself for a few minutes.

When I refused to become an informant, the government responded by charging me with the “crime” of supporting the mujahideen fighting the occupation of Muslim countries around the world. Or as they like to call them, “terrorists.” I wasn't born in a Muslim country, though. I was born and raised right here in America and this angers many people: how is it that I can be an American and believe the things I believe, take the positions I take? Everything a man is exposed to in his environment becomes an ingredient that shapes his outlook, and I'm no different. So, in more ways than one, it's because of America that I am who I am.

When I was six, I began putting together a massive collection of comic books. Batman implanted a concept in my mind, introduced me to a paradigm as to how the world is set up: that there are oppressors, there are the oppressed, and there are those who step up to defend the oppressed. This resonated with me so much that throughout the rest of my childhood, I gravitated towards any book that reflected that paradigm – Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and I even saw an ethical dimension to The Catcher in the Rye.

By the time I began high school and took a real history class, I was learning just how real that paradigm is in the world. I learned about the Native Americans and what befell them at the hands of European settlers. I learned about how the descendents of those European settlers were in turn oppressed under the tyranny of King George III. I read about Paul Revere, Tom Paine, and how Americans began an armed insurgency against British forces – an insurgency we now celebrate as the American revolutionary war. As a kid I even went on school field trips just blocks away from where we sit now. I learned about Harriet Tubman, Nat Turner, John Brown, and the fight against slavery in this country. I learned about Emma Goldman, Eugene Debs, and the struggles of the labor unions, working class, and poor. I learned about Anne Frank, the Nazis, and how they persecuted minorities and imprisoned dissidents. I learned about Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and the civil rights struggle. I learned about Ho Chi Minh, and how the Vietnamese fought for decades to liberate themselves from one invader after another. I learned about Nelson Mandela and the fight against apartheid in South Africa. Everything I learned in those years confirmed what I was beginning to learn when I was six: that throughout history, there has been a constant struggle between the oppressed and their oppressors. With each struggle I learned about, I found myself consistently siding with the oppressed, and consistently respecting those who stepped up to defend them -regardless of nationality, regardless of religion. And I never threw my class notes away. As I stand here speaking, they are in a neat pile in my bedroom closet at home.

From all the historical figures I learned about, one stood out above the rest. I was impressed by many things about Malcolm X, but above all, I was fascinated by the idea of transformation, his transformation. I don't know if you've seen the movie “X” by Spike Lee, it's over three and a half hours long, and the Malcolm at the beginning is different from the Malcolm at the end. He starts off as an illiterate criminal, but ends up a husband, a father, a protective and eloquent leader for his people, a disciplined Muslim performing the Hajj in Makkah, and finally, a martyr. Malcolm's life taught me that Islam is not something inherited; it's not a culture or ethnicity. It's a way of life, a state of mind anyone can choose no matter where they come from or how they were raised. This led me to look deeper into Islam, and I was hooked. I was just a teenager, but Islam answered the question that the greatest scientific minds were clueless about, the question that drives the rich & famous to depression and suicide from being unable to answer: what is the purpose of life? Why do we exist in this Universe? But it also answered the question of how we're supposed to exist. And since there's no hierarchy or priesthood, I could directly and immediately begin digging into the texts of the Qur'an and the teachings of Prophet Muhammad, to begin the journey of understanding what this was all about, the implications of Islam for me as a human being, as an individual, for the people around me, for the world; and the more I learned, the more I valued Islam like a piece of gold. This was when I was a teen, but even today, despite the pressures of the last few years, I stand here before you, and everyone else in this courtroom, as a very proud Muslim.

With that, my attention turned to what was happening to other Muslims in different parts of the world. And everywhere I looked, I saw the powers that be trying to destroy what I loved. I learned what the Soviets had done to the Muslims of Afghanistan. I learned what the Serbs had done to the Muslims of Bosnia. I learned what the Russians were doing to the Muslims of Chechnya. I learned what Israel had done in Lebanon – and what it continues to do in Palestine – with the full backing of the United States. And I learned what America itself was doing to Muslims. I learned about the Gulf War, and the depleted uranium bombs that killed thousands and caused cancer rates to skyrocket across Iraq. I learned about the American-led sanctions that prevented food, medicine, and medical equipment from entering Iraq, and how – according to the United Nations – over half a million children perished as a result. I remember a clip from a '60 Minutes' interview of Madeline Albright where she expressed her view that these dead children were “worth it.” I watched on September 11th as a group of people felt driven to hijack airplanes and fly them into buildings from their outrage at the deaths of these children. I watched as America then attacked and invaded Iraq directly. I saw the effects of 'Shock & Awe' in the opening day of the invasion – the children in hospital wards with shrapnel from American missiles sticking out of their foreheads (of course, none of this was shown on CNN). I learned about the town of Haditha, where 24 Muslims – including a 76-year old man in a wheelchair, women, and even toddlers – were shot up and blown up in their bedclothes as the slept by US Marines. I learned about Abeer al-Janabi, a fourteen-year old Iraqi girl gang-raped by five American soldiers, who then shot her and her family in the head, then set fire to their corpses. I just want to point out, as you can see, Muslim women don't even show their hair to unrelated men. So try to imagine this young girl from a conservative village with her dress torn off, being sexually assaulted by not one, not two, not three, not four, but five soldiers. Even today, as I sit in my jail cell, I read about the drone strikes which continue to kill Muslims daily in places like Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. Just last month, we all heard about the seventeen Afghan Muslims – mostly mothers and their kids – shot to death by an American soldier, who also set fire to their corpses. These are just the stories that make it to the headlines, but one of the first concepts I learned in Islam is that of loyalty, of brotherhood – that each Muslim woman is my sister, each man is my brother, and together, we are one large body who must protect each other. In other words, I couldn't see these things beings done to my brothers & sisters – including by America – and remain neutral. My sympathy for the oppressed continued, but was now more personal, as was my respect for those defending them.

I mentioned Paul Revere – when he went on his midnight ride, it was for the purpose of warning the people that the British were marching to Lexington to arrest Sam Adams and John Hancock, then on to Concord to confiscate the weapons stored there by the Minuteman. By the time they got to Concord, they found the Minuteman waiting for them, weapons in hand. They fired at the British, fought them, and beat them. From that battle came the American Revolution. There's an Arabic word to describe what those Minutemen did that day. That word is: JIHAD, and this is what my trial was about. All those videos and translations and childish bickering over 'Oh, he translated this paragraph' and 'Oh, he edited that sentence,' and all those exhibits revolved around a single issue: Muslims who were defending themselves against American soldiers doing to them exactly what the British did to America. It was made crystal clear at trial that I never, ever plotted to “kill Americans” at shopping malls or whatever the story was. The government's own witnesses contradicted this claim, and we put expert after expert up on that stand, who spent hours dissecting my every written word, who explained my beliefs. Further, when I was free, the government sent an undercover agent to prod me into one of their little “terror plots,” but I refused to participate. Mysteriously, however, the jury never heard this.

So, this trial was not about my position on Muslims killing American civilians. It was about my position on Americans killing Muslim civilians, which is that Muslims should defend their lands from foreign invaders – Soviets, Americans, or Martians. This is what I believe. It's what I've always believed, and what I will always believe. This is not terrorism, and it's not extremism. it's the simple logic of self-defense. It's what the arrows on that seal above your head represent: defense of the homeland. So, I disagree with my lawyers when they say that you don't have to agree with my beliefs – no. Anyone with commonsense and humanity has no choice but to agree with me. If someone breaks into your home to rob you and harm your family, logic dictates that you do whatever it takes to expel that invader from your home. But when that home is a Muslim land, and that invader is the US military, for some reason the standards suddenly change. Common sense is renamed “terrorism” and the people defending themselves against those who come to kill them from across the ocean become “the terrorists” who are “killing Americans.” The mentality that America was victimized with when British soldiers walked these streets 2 ½ centuries ago is the same mentality Muslims are victimized by as American soldiers walk their streets today. It's the mentality of colonialism. When Sgt. Bales shot those Afghans to death last month, all of the focus in the media was on him—his life, his stress, his PTSD, the mortgage on his home—as if he was the victim. Very little sympathy was expressed for the people he actually killed, as if they're not real, they're not humans. Unfortunately, this mentality trickles down to everyone in society, whether or not they realize it. Even with my lawyers, it took nearly two years of discussing, explaining, and clarifying before they were finally able to think outside the box and at least ostensibly accept the logic in what I was saying. Two years! If it took that long for people so intelligent, whose job it is to defend me, to de-program themselves, then to throw me in front of a randomly selected jury under the premise that they're my “impartial peers,” I mean, come on. I wasn't tried before a jury of my peers because with the mentality gripping America today, I have no peers. Counting on this fact, the government prosecuted me – not because they needed to, but simply because they could.

I learned one more thing in history class: America has historically supported the most unjust policies against its minorities – practices that were even protected by the law – only to look back later and ask: 'what were we thinking?' Slavery, Jim Crow, the internment of the Japanese during World War II – each was widely accepted by American society, each was defended by the Supreme Court. But as time passed and America changed, both people and courts looked back and asked 'What were we thinking?' Nelson Mandela was considered a terrorist by the South African government, and given a life sentence. But time passed, the world changed, they realized how oppressive their policies were, that it was not he who was the terrorist, and they released him from prison. He even became president. So, everything is subjective – even this whole business of “terrorism” and who is a “terrorist.” It all depends on the time and place and who the superpower happens to be at the moment.

In your eyes, I'm a terrorist, I'm the only one standing here in an orange jumpsuit and it's perfectly reasonable that I be standing here in an orange jumpsuit. But one day, America will change and people will recognize this day for what it is. They will look at how hundreds of thousands of Muslims were killed and maimed by the US military in foreign countries, yet somehow I'm the one going to prison for “conspiring to kill and maim” in those countries – because I support the Mujahidin defending those people. They will look back on how the government spent millions of dollars to imprison me as a “terrorist,” yet if we were to somehow bring Abeer al-Janabi back to life in the moment she was being gang-raped by your soldiers, to put her on that witness stand and ask her who the “terrorists” are, she sure wouldn't be pointing at me.

The government says that I was obsessed with violence, obsessed with “killing Americans.” But, as a Muslim living in these times, I can think of a lie no more ironic.

-Tarek Mehanna

4/12/12

Princeton University professor and political philosopher Robert P. George has recently become a target of controversy, accused by some of being anti-Muslim. The critics have cited only the report Fear Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America by Wajahat Ali which draws attention to the role of the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation in making grants to some vehement (and, in my view, misguided) critics of Islam and of leading Muslim organizations. George serves as one of eleven members on the Board of the Bradley Foundation. Some have inferred from this that George himself must be hostile to Islam and to Muslims. Based on this, Islamophobia Today has even gone so far as to sponsor a petition opposing the recent appointment of George to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).

However, on closer examination, this inference about George is significantly mistaken. His record shows public support for respectful, informed engagement of Muslims in our society today and building partnerships with Muslims to promote public welfare on issues of shared concern. Moreover, George has, in fact, repeatedly and consistently raised his voice in defense of Islam and the rights of Muslims, and he has courageously challenged other conservatives when they have unfairly attacked the Muslim faith or its adherents.

For example, in June of 2011, when then-presidential candidate Herman Cain said that, if elected, he would permit Muslims to serve in his administration only after exacting from them a “loyalty proof” higher than that which would be required of members of other faiths, George rebuked Cain, calling his comments “wrong, foolish, and unacceptable.” They are, George said, “disrespectful of Muslims, the vast majority of whom in our country are, as Cain himself seems to acknowledge, loyal, honorable citizens; and it is incompatible with a sound understanding of religious freedom (and with the spirit, if not the letter, of the Constitution's no-religious-tests clause).

Repeatedly, George, drawing on the teachings of Catholicism, has reminded his fellow Catholics of the official teaching of Catholicism on Islam, promulgated at the Second Vatican Council in 1965

The Church has a high regard for the Muslims. They worship God, who is one, living and subsistent, merciful and almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has also spoken to men. They strive to submit themselves without reserve to the decrees of God, just as Abraham submitted himself to God's plan, to whose faith Muslims link their own. Although not acknowledging Jesus as God, they revere him as a prophet; his virgin Mother they also honor, and even at times devoutly invoke. Further, they await the Day of Judgment and the reward of God following the resurrection of the dead. For this reason they highly esteem an upright life and worship God, especially by way of prayer, almsgiving, and fasting.

George and Shaykh Hamza Yusuf have collaborated repeatedly, and along the way established a relationship of tremendous mutual respect and friendship. These two men of extraordinary faith and a caliber of intellect attained by few, have found in each other a peer. The two men have plainly been influenced by each other's writings, and they speak of each other in glowing terms. Twice they have conducted major public dialogues on the importance of Islamic-Christian understanding and cooperation, one at Princeton and one at Georgetown, as captured here on video. At George's invitation, Shaykh Hamza has been a featured speaker at Princeton University's annual interfaith Respect Life Sunday service. Also at George's invitation, Shaykh Hamza contributed to a Witherspoon Institute forum on the “Social Costs of Pornography” and a book by the same name.

Shaykh Hamza has written of George:

Robert George, to me, represents what is best in the conservative movement. He is a scholar who loves the Western tradition and is committed to a higher set of values than what is presented today as morality. He is also a wonderfully modest man, despite his remarkable intellect and knowledge, and represents real Catholic ethical commitment. He is genuinely dismayed by the attacks of certain segments of the conservative Christian right on Islam. As a devout Catholic, he understands how religion is threatened today by the profoundly secular mindset that has taken over. However, he also recognizes that just as the great faith of St. Augustine and St. Aquinas is today misrepresented in the press as a religion infested with pedophiles, so too, the great faith of our saints, Imam al-Ghazali and Fakhar al-Din al-Razi, is being misrepresented as a religion rooted in terror that produces violent followers thirsting after the blood of infidels.

At Princeton University George has also helped to arrange for other Muslims, such as Abdullah Saeed, Suzy Ismail, and Ed Husain, to speak on campus. In his Princeton University courses on civil liberties George has invited Muslim clergy such as Imam Hamad Chebli of the Islamic Center of Central Jersey to speak to students on the tenets of Islam.  “Many non-Muslim students have misguided notions of what Islam actually teaches about issues such as religious freedom,” George has observed.  “I want to make sure they hear the truth about Islam from persons who speak with authority from within the faith.” Earlier this year at the university George published a series of interviews with Princeton faculty, representing different traditions of faith in the campus newspaper under the title “Keeping Faith.” His first interview in the series was with the Palestinian-American Muslim scholar Dr. Amaney Jamal of Princeton's Department of Politics. George's respect for Islam and esteem for his Muslim colleague shines through.

In 2009 George supported establishment of a new Islam and Civil Society Project (of which I am the Director) at the Witherspoon Institute in order to seek greater understanding of Islam and find ways to partner with Muslims on issues of shared concern such as supporting marriage and religious freedom, and he has remained a tremendous supporter of this project since its founding. The Islam and Civil Society Project has run an annual seminar on Islam since then, with the upcoming 2012 seminar focused on, “The Quran in the Modern World,” including speakers Dr. Abdullah Saeed, Dr. Mahan Mirza, and Asma Uddin. Articles I have published in my work while Director of this Islam and Civil Society Project are available here.

As a matter of full-disclosure, and as a point of pride, I should note that as George's colleague at the Witherspoon Institute I have had the pleasure of working with him in many important causes, including the defense of the rights of Muslims. We have spoken out together against anti-Islamic opposition, to construction of mosques in American cities and against the Florida Family Association's (FFA) boycott of sponsors of the television reality show “All American Muslim.” In a letter to the President of the FFA, we wrote that the vast majority of our Muslim fellow citizens “are good people and good Americans. They share our fundamental moral values and our commitments to democratic institutions and civil and religious liberty. They do not promote hatred of Christians and Jews and have no desire to establish an Islamic theocracy. They are as appalled as we are at the rhetoric and conduct of those of their religion who do promote hatred and who seek to undermine democratic freedoms.” We went on:

It is fundamentally unjust to tar all or most Muslims with the brush of extremism; and, as Christians and Americans, we must never countenance injustice. Moreover, effectively countering the threats posed by genuine extremists requires us to welcome, as friends and allies, Muslims who share our opposition to radicalism and violence, who value their American citizenship and American freedom just as we do, and who contribute constructively to their communities and the larger society. When we treat our Muslim fellow citizens justly, and when we welcome them as partners in our efforts on behalf of life, liberty, and human dignity, we are being true both to our Christian faith and to our American heritage

The New York Times calls George “our nation's most influential conservative Christian thinker.” Another profile of George calls him a, “Conservative Heavyweight.” To be sure, the public expression of these sentiments by a figure as important as Robert George in the American conservative movement is particularly important, and even risky to George himself, at a time when the American conservative movement is, sadly, riddled with activists espousing anti-Muslim perspectives. Indeed, as a result of expressing his support for Muslims and the rights of Muslims as fellow Americans, George has come in for his share of abuse from anti-Muslim extremists. (For example, one letter he and I received from an American in response to one of our joint articles about Muslims featured a stamp on the envelope, “Mecca delenda est,” Latin for “Mecca must be destroyed,” and the letter went on from there.) In spite of all this he has stood his ground.

Yet what about George's position on the Bradley Foundation board? Is it inconsistent with his advocacy of the rights of Muslims and his work for Christian-Muslim cooperation? The Bradley Board discussions are confidential and, says George, “what I have to say about Bradley grants and grantees I will say to them and my colleagues on the Bradley board.” Frankly I am glad that he is part of the Bradley Board. He can have more influence by participating inside than by protesting from outside, and having so prominent a defender of Muslim rights, and of Islam as a faith, in such a visible place of honor and influence in the conservative movement sends a clear message to other conservatives that they need not, and should not, view Islam with contempt or regard their Muslim fellow citizens with suspicion.

Someone like Robert George who enjoys enormous prestige and influence in the conservative movement could easily remain quiet in the face of anti-Muslim hostility. He has little to gain personally by speaking out, and more than a little to lose. Liberals don't like him because of his strong support for the pro-life cause and for traditional marriage. By publicly and forcefully speaking up for the rights of Muslims, he risks alienating the friends and supporters he does have, who are mainly on the right. Having had the pleasure and honor of working with him for several years, I have seen that he runs that risk because he truly believes that as a Christian he has a duty to defend the rights of those whom he never hesitates to call his “Muslim brothers and sisters”.  His appointment to USCIRF brings to this Commission a man with deep understanding of and commitment to religious freedom, who approaches his work with a strong, principled posture of fairness and respect for all religious believers. And as his track record shows, “all” for George includes Muslims.

Jennifer S. Bryson, Ph.D., is Director of the Islam and Civil Society Project at the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, NJ.

Action Item:

Palestinian female prisoner, Hana' al-Shalabi  enters today her 31^stday of hunger strike. She informed her lawyer that she stopped taking salt and is only taking water and that she will continue until her release.

According to her lawyer, Raed Mahameed, that Shalabi was examined by a doctor from Physicians for Human Rights and the doctor said that she suffers from law heart beat rate, law blood sugar, loss of weight, weakness in muscles, yellowing of the eyes and high levels of salt  in the blood which affected her kidneys causing her pain in her sides specially the left side as well as pain in chest bones.

Physicians for Human Rights said that Shalabi cannot sleep because of pain, she also suffers dizziness and blurred and occasional loss of vision.

Salabi told Mahameed that she took salt last week but refused to take any salt and is living on two litres of water  a day.

Commentary cross-posted from Richard Falk

No sooner had Khader Adnan ended his 66 day life threatening hunger strike than new urgent concerns are being voiced for Hana Shalabi, another West Bank hunger striker now without food for more than 24  days (now 31). Both strikes were directed by Palestinian activists against the abusive use of administrative detention by Israeli West Bank occupying military forces, protesting both the practice of internment without charges or trial and the degrading and physically harsh treatment administered during the arrest, interrogation, and detention process.

The case of Hana Shalabi should move even the most hardhearted. She seems a young tender and normal woman who is a member of Islamic Jihad, and is dedicated to her family, hopes for marriage, and simple pleasures of shopping.

She had previously been held in administrative detention at the HaSharon prison in Israel for a 30 month period between 2009 and 2011, being released in the prisoner exchange of four months ago that freed 1027 Palestinians and the lone Israeli soldier captive, Gilad Shalit. Since her release she has been trying to recover from the deep sense of estrangement she experienced in prison, and rarely left her home or the company of her family.

As she was returning to normalcy she was re-arrested in an abusive manner, which allegedly included a strip-search by a male soldier. On February 16, 2012, the day of this renewal of her administrative detention, Hana Shalabi indicated her resolve to start a hunger strike to protest her own treatment and to demand an end of administrative detention now relied upon by Israel to hold at least 309 Palestinian in prison. Her parents have been denied visitation rights, Hana Shalabi has been placed in solitary confinement, and her health has deteriorated to the point of concern for her life. Impressively, her parents have committed themselves to a hunger strike for as long as their daughter remains under administrative detention. Her mother, Badia Shalabi, has made a video in which she says that even to see food makes her cry considering the suffering of her daughter.

Despite the calls to Palestinian from liberals in the West these extraordinary hunger strikes have met with silence or indifference in both Israel and the West. Israeli authorities declare that such a posture is a voluntary action for which they have no responsibility. The UN has not raised its voice, as well. I share the view of Khitam Saafin, Chairwoman of Union of Palestinian Woman's Committee: “The UN must be responsible for the whole violation that are going on against our people. These prisoners are war prisoners, not security prisoners, not criminals. They are freedom fighters for their rights.” The plight of Hana Shalabi is also well expressed by Yael Maron, a spokesperson for the Israeli NGO,Physicians for Human Rights- Israel: “The story of Hana Shalabi, like that of Khader Adnan, before is in my opinion a remarkable example of a struggle that's completely nonviolent towards one's surroundings..It is the last protest a prisoner can make, and I find it brave and inspiring.”

To engage in an open ended hunger strike, especially for a person who is not in a leadership role, requires a deep and abiding dedication to right a perceived wrong of the greatest gravity. It is physically painful and dangerous to bodily health, as well as being psychologically demanding in the extreme. It presupposes the strongest of wills, and usually arises, as in these instances, from a sense that any lesser form of resistance is futile, and has a long record of failure. In the end, it is an appeal to the conscience and humanity of the other, and a desperate call to all of us, to understand better the cartography of abuse that abusive imprisonment entails, which I would imagine is pervasively humiliating for a religiously oriented young Islamic woman. To risk life this way without harming or even threatening the oppressor is to turn terrorism against the innocent on its head. It is potentially to sacrifice one's life to make an appeal of last resort, an appeal that transcends normal law and politics.

We can only fervently hope and pray that Hana Shalabi's heroic path of resistance will end with her release and the restoration of her health. For Israel's own moral wellbeing it is time, really long past time, to renounce reliance on administrative detention and to do more than this, to end forthwith its varied crimes of occupation. At this point the only possible way to do this is to withdraw unconditionally behind the 1967 borders, and to start peace negotiations from that altered position. It is politically unimaginable that Israeli leaders will heed such a call, but it is morally unimaginable that Israel will survive its impending spiritual collapse if it does not do so.

(photo by Joe Catron)

(February 21, 2012) The Muslim Students Association of the United States and Canada (MSA National) officially expressed its concern today over new allegations that certain elements of the New York Police Department (NYPD) have been spying on local MSA chapters around prominent university campuses including Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania and other prestigious colleges around the Northeast.

According to a recent story in the Associated Press, the intelligence division of the New

York Police Department (NYPD) went far beyond New York's city limits and began to

“trawl daily through student websites run by Muslim student groups at Yale University,

the University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers and 13 other colleges in the Northeast.”
According to the same AP story, NYPD officials spoke with local authorities about
professors in Buffalo and went so far as to send an undercover agent on a whitewater
rafting trip, where he recorded Muslim students' names and even noted within police
intelligence files how many times they prayed on a daily basis.

SEE: “New York Police Department Monitored Muslim Students All Over Northeast”

(Associated Press)

“MSA National has always been an organization willing to work alongside law
enforcement agencies to help keep our communities safe,” said MSA National President
Zahir Latheef. “However, we believe that the NYPD clearly overstepped its boundaries
when it began spying on average American Muslim college students who were simply
taking whitewater rafting trips or innocently participating in school activities at their
college or university campus.”

Ms. Aamna Anwer, vice president of MSA National, further added that, “We at MSA
National actively work to distance ourselves from extreme ideologies of any kind. While
we appreciate the efforts of law enforcement agencies to ensure the safety of all
Americans, we hope that in the future law enforcement agencies will conduct
themselves in a manner devoid of spying on people simply based on religious and racial
profiling.”

The Muslim Students Association of the United States and Canada (MSA National) is a
non-profit organization that strives to facilitate networking, educating and empowering
the American Muslim college students of today to be productive citizens of tomorrow's
global community.

–END—

CONTACT: MSA National President Zahir Latheef, 979-575-5870,
president@msanational.org
MSA National Vice President Ms. Aamna Anwer, 309-335-7665

“This is the true agenda of much of Islam in America,” a narrator intones. “A strategy to infiltrate and dominate America. … This is the war you don't know about.”

This is the feature-length film titled “The Third Jihad,” paid for by a nonprofit group, which was shown to more than a thousand officers as part of training in the New York Police Department.

Read more from The New York Times at “In Police Training, a Dark Film on U.S. Muslims“

This leave Ron Paul as the only candidate in the presidential campaign fighting the bill and generally advocating civil liberties as a rallying point for his campaign. Paul offered another strong argument against the Patriot Act and other expansions of police powers in his last debate. He also noted that the Patriot Act provisions were long advocated before 9-11, which was used as an opportunity to expand police powers. As discussed in a prior column, Obama has destroyed the civil liberties movement in the United States and has convinced many liberals to fight for an Administration that blocked torture prosecutions, expanded warrantless surveillance, continued military tribunals, killed Americans on the sole authority of the President, and other core violations of civil liberties.

The White House is saying that changes to the law made it unnecessary to veto the legislation. That spin is facially ridiculous. The changes were the inclusion of some meaningless rhetoric after key amendments protecting citizens were defeated. The provision merely states that nothing in the provisions could be construed to alter Americans' legal rights. Since the Senate clearly views citizens are not just subject to indefinite detention but even execution without a trial, the change offers nothing but rhetoric to hide the harsh reality. The Administration and Democratic members are in full spin — using language designed to obscure the authority given to the military. The exemption for American citizens from the mandatory detention requirement (section 1032) is the screening language for the next section, 1031, which offers no exemption for American citizens from the authorization to use the military to indefinitely detain people without charge or trial.

At least Senator Lindsey Graham was honest when he said on the Senate floor that “1031, the statement of authority to detain, does apply to American citizens and it designates the world as the battlefield, including the homeland.”

I am not sure which is worse: the loss of core civil liberties or the almost mocking post hoc rationalization for abandoning principle. The Congress and the President have now completed a law that would have horrified the Framers. Indefinite detention of citizens is something that the Framers were intimately familiar with and expressly sought to bar in the Bill of Rights. While the Framers would have likely expected citizens in the streets defending their freedoms, this measure was greeted with a shrug and a yawn by most citizens and reporters. Instead, we are captivated by whether a $10,000 bet by Romney was real or pretend in the last debate.

Even more distressing is the statement from sponsor Senator Levin, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee that “The language which precluded the application of Section 1031 to American citizens was in the bill that we originally approved … and the administration asked us to remove the language which says that U.S. citizens and lawful residents would not be subject to this section.”

Source: Guardian

Click here to view the embedded video.

Transcript:

بسـم الله الرحمن الرحيم

I will first start with a verse from the Qurʾān, which I will recite in Arabic and then read the English translation.

“Truly, God does not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves.” (Qurʾān 13:11)

America is facing immense challenges today. Often, pressure is put on our leaders and politicians to solve them. But tonight, I would like to focus on another group of people. A group that's supposed to hold the real power. A group that have always helped reform America. These are the American citizens, people like you and I. Because we are the people America desperately needs today. But where are the American citizens today?

To understand our place in society, we have to understand the concept of popular consent. Popular consent is how democracy runs– we elect our leaders, who represent us in government. But in our history, consensus has been a double-edged sword, because it was consensus that once endorsed slavery, that prevented women from voting, that kept alive segregation and racism after it was outlawed.

So, consensus can sometimes mask a country's true ideal, because the opinions people have can be manipulated. Fringe groups understand too well the power of fear and bigotry. The impact the KKK had for example, was to de-sensitize Americans to levels of violence and terrorism they would have previously never accepted. This is what made racism so rampant and hard to overcome.

And this is why Dr. King was so special: he was able to fight a skewed consensus, by popularizing the concept of freedom and dignity and the idea that “we are all created equal.” He realigned America with its own constitution. And that was his dream.

But yet again, America's vision has become clouded, thanks to the steam of hate mongers. We no longer look at our nation with hearts that believe in “we are all created equal,” but with suspicions based on ethnicity and religion. When it comes to terrorism and Islam, the American public has again tragically been misled.  For it is not Islam or Muslims that we see, but rather unconcealed hate from fringe groups on both sides, which only desire to make us forget that “we are all created equal.”

And many of us have forgotten. Now, instead of lynching in the south, or concentration camps in California, we have Guantanamo and the Patriot Act, and full body scanners.

And so today, I have a dream to make “we are all created equal” a reality. And I need your help.

It will perhaps surprise you that I was never taught the Islam most Americans learn from their televisions. The Islam I was taught by my madrasah, which is the Arabic word for school – not terror camp -, actually gave me many lessons that can benefit America today and clear our vision.

At madrasah, I learned the true meaning of mercy and love – how one would never gain mercy from God if he never showed mercy to God's creation, how mercy and a concern for society's well being is a natural extension of faith, that removing obstacles from the road was really a form of worshiping God.

I learnt that the Prophet Muhammad said that leaders are the servants of their communities – that they should serve the public before they serve themselves. 14 centuries ago, he established that lobbying was illegal, that it was wrong to use government money for funding personal luxuries. The Prophet Muhammad himself developed the institution of shura – a democratic council wherein he consulted his followers, and took their opinions. Because, at the end of the day,  he desired to do the most correct thing.

And the most profound lesson I learnt was from the verse I just recited. ““Truly, God does not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves.” (Qurʾān13:11) And I believe this message is extremely relevant to America.

Because, America, whenever it strayed away from its Constitution, was always reined in by its citizens, such as Dr. King, Malcolm X, and so many others. And this is what brings me immense hope.

Ladies, and gentlemen – we are the ones who have to change. A healthy democracy requires a healthy citizenry that can build an informed consensus.  We have to realize that there will be no hope, no reform, until we reform ourselves, unless we dig in our heels, open our eyes and realize that the mass media we have been absorbing is doing nothing but promoting the world views of the corporations that own them, that real knowledge about a subject comes from witnessing things for yourself and embarking upon your own path of discovery.

Our democracy is the strongest in the world, and thus we are potentially the strongest citizens in the world. The consensus you and I form, the opinions you and I have, has a huge impact on the world. We have to realize that America will never become a beacon of light in the world, until we become beacons of lights in our communities, that we will never make peace with the world if we can't make peace with ourselves and our families, that the world will continue to glare at us with angry eyes, so long as we continue to close our eyes to the actions of our government, that our government will never listen to us if we don't raise our voices, resist the pressure to live in herds, and aspire to become leaders at whatever level we can.

But, today, most of us seemingly are living our own lives, even as our country slips further and further. Yet we must remember: If we are all content to blindly trust our government and stop educating ourselves and participating, we do not deserve our status as citizens and we should not expect any rights.

Ladies and gentlemen, change is long overdue. But, tonight, I want everyone to ask themselves a question:  are we ready to change ourselves?

• Mohamed Elibiary is a Dallas-based Texas Muslim community leader and an Advisor to the Homeland Security Enterprise.
• While the recent report by Ackerman on FBI's “Islam training” is troubling, Elibiary provides some contextual insight
• How is the key FBI trainer, Gawthrop, viewed in FBI circles? Who is Coughlin and his relevance?
• Allaying Muslim community concerns & learning from the “Texas model”
• Elibiary's own personal experiences in dealing with the FBI

Insights about the Exposé

Earlier this week, a news story broke and achieved what rarely happens, broad-based scrutiny and indignation towards the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI). In Wired Magazine, Spenser Ackerman' s article exposed FBI Counter-Terrorism training at Quantico as unprofessional and inaccurate. The training manuals were filled with information based on anti-Muslim bigotry or Islamophobia. As a liaison between the FBI and the Muslim community, I can attest that there is nothing new in Ackerman's reporting and could add volumes more to it of FBI wrongdoings; nonetheless, it has been disquieting and demoralizing for someone in my position to watch the ripple effects upon our community's psyche.

In response to this FBI anti-Muslim bigotry training story breaking, a dear friend wrote to me lamenting that “this report goes against almost everything we are working as a community to do to reach out to authorities. It's like we moderate orthodox Muslims are left out to dry, and all of our arguments that there is little to no racism and bigotry within the circles of security agencies in America against Muslims are all bogus!”

The sentiments of this influential national community leader were echoed by another community leader who summed up her community's concerns as “OMG, look at what they are doing to us?”; she continued by relating an example of how many millions were possibly spent in her hometown over the years promoting such ideas. I realize that our communities are scared and outraged but I would like to emphasize the following points as we read reports like Mr. Ackerman's:

Who is Gawthrop? - William Gawthrop, the analyst who authored most of the training in the article, is well-known and detested in many FBI circles. The reason we're seeing his work being made public is because there are agents inside the FBI trying to marginalize him and push him out. If one reads between the lines, even the article's author hints at FBI insiders assisting. These forces are trying to make Gawthrop's tactics public, as it's not easy to fire a federal employee because of all the rules involved.

The Coughlin Factor - I would encourage concerned citizens to study the case of Rtd. Major Stephen Coughlin, who gave his inaccurate understanding of Hanafi, Malaki and Shafi Fiqh as true foundations of terrorism to the Joint Military Chiefs of Staff themselves before having his contract retired and pushed out of the Pentagon.

• For full disclosure, I did not play any role at DOD concerning Coughlin, but did fly up to the Freedom and Justice Foundation office years ago with well-known scholars like Dr. Waleed Basyouni to deeply analyze the arguments in Coughlin's Master's thesis on this topic. I shared that research with some FBI and Homeland Security Intelligence Enterprise allies back then.
• What Coughlin and Gawthrop type analysts are essentially arguing to National Security officials is that violent extremism is a product of religious (theological, not identity) “radicalization” and not sociological, psychological or political. People like Robert Spencer on the outside try to perform the role of echo chamber in order to mainstream such analysis and provide it with a base inside the political system.
• I believe as Coughlin's career was ended, so will Gawthrop's and other less infamous full-time analysts inside the National Security enterprise, due to many factors about our country's resilient value system and scientific inquiry appetite that these individuals hardly understand.

What is the solution? - As counter-intuitive as it sounds, the solution on a national level is not top down but requires that we work city by city and state by state to reorient the system. Even with the portions of my bio I elected to share below, someone in my position very infrequently travels to the White House or engages with the National Security Council Staff on these issues. The real work that needs to be done is at the local city and state levels.  Federalism is a powerful concept, and American Muslim advocacy strategies have yet to be leveraged effectively.

The Tipping Point - When a community working with its local law enforcement partners gets relations at a regional FBI field office to the tipping point, then you'll see local FBI officials push back to HQ and the intelligence community on the ideas that Gawthrop and co. promote. You will also see the top FBI official in a city put out clear messaging to local police executives of what is the true relationship with the local Muslim community, contrary to what politicians like Peter King might message on a FOX opinion show. Accurate and beneficial counter-terrorism law enforcement training will replace bigoted, for-profit, alarmist nonsense that undermines local security by disenfranchising American Muslims allied in countering violent extremism.

Look for good FBI agents - Just like there are bridge burners like Gawthrop, I also know of FBI agents who, out of their own pockets, buy proper Islamic books for office libraries, read Bukhari and Muslim, and confer with community-based allies about training materials HQ instructors have taught them at Quantico.

The bottom line is that we live in a democracy, and, just as we have in this country civilian oversight of the military, we also have civilian oversight of Intelligence, Counter Terrorism and Homeland Security systems. The challenge for the Muslim community has always been simply: how do we “step up our game” and become civic leaders of society around these topics? Or as Mahdi Bray used to say in community fundraisers I attended growing up, raising our children to become “headlights” and not just “taillights”.

Muslim Community Concerns

Sitting one day in a government meeting at DHS-HQ last year, I recall in a briefing we were receiving from a national polling agency on the public's attitude towards various law enforcement agencies that American Muslims generally had a 60% confidence level in the FBI. The numbers broke down a little less for African-American Muslims than other segments of the community but that certainly is expected given the well documented historical experiences there. It has been a long time since I've witnessed a media report resonate across so many segments of Muslim communities as this Ackerman report, so we'll have to wait to see if it produces a long-lasting impact upon the Muslim community's confidence in the bureau.

Those of us who, while informed by the past, are constantly looking forward might then wonder, so what next? How does one size the scale of this problem of inaccurate counter terrorism training at the FBI and across the wider law enforcement community? How does this problem get fixed? How much impact on national security policy development do Islamophobia's promoters really have and which forces can one strengthen to counter and marginalize them?

The reality is that a dissertation can be written about each of these questions, but considering the points mentioned above can help distinguish reality from perception. As Muslims, we know, more than any other segment of society, that the public does not get an accurate understanding of Islam and Muslim issues simply through the media and that personal contact is the more accurate conveyor of reality. Similarly, what's good for the goose is good for the gander in this case, and so replacing FBI for Muslim in the preceding sentence is similarly accurate.

One must engage with the FBI across its various enterprise elements (ex. local Agent, support staff, Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), supervisors, Special Agents in Charge (SAC), national security branch Asst. SACs Head Quarters Intelligence Analysts, HQ Section Chiefs, Office of Public Affairs (OPA), CT Division, Directorate of Intelligence, Asst. Directors, Exec. Asst. Directors, the Director, previous Directors, retired FBI personnel, FBI whistle blowers, Overseas FBI Legal Attaché Officers, other elements across the National Security Enterprise that engage with various parts of the FBI, etc.) to get an accurate temperature of the organization's policies, attitudes and “culture”.

Learning from the Texas Model

Several hundred Texas Muslim community leaders from each city across the Lone Star State were present at a conference our foundation organized on Homeland Security inside the Texas State Capitol on September 10, 2004. I told them it simply boils down to “Your Rights as Americans, Your Duties as American Muslims.” Yes, surveys show we're patriotic and the majority of us are supportive of law enforcement, but who amongst us wants to have our kids waiting for the FBI to figure out all the Muslim world's complexities all on its own?

In Texas (Dallas & Houston), our community charted a third way over the past decade, not with the National Security hawks who scrutinize every benign social development amongst Muslims globally and not with the big government types who would forsake civil liberties in pursuit of domestic security. We didn't have to throw national community groups or other law-abiding American Muslim leaders under the bus to solve these problems as sell-out Muslims do, but we also didn't elect to sit behind our keyboards and complain that we have no power to act because that's not our deen either.

In Dallas and Houston, where 90% of the Texas Muslim community lives, there are many strong relationships between local Muslim community leaders across dozens of masajid, Islamic schools and local community groups and multiple FBI Special Agents, Joint Terrorism Task Force Supervisors, and Special Agents in Charge & Asst. SACs

National Muslim groups, like CAIR and Muslim Advocates, have issued their press releases and called upon elements within the Department of Justice and FBI to conduct their investigations, so these groups are already taking care of the top-down solution method our community has been employing since the early 90s. We can, in our various cities, enhance these efforts by expanding the grassroots work happening at the city and state levels that the Texas Muslim community has begun to become recognized for at the national level as the “Third Way” model of building a Centrist Environment. For these are the problems that no President can truly solve on his own.

There are 56 FBI field offices, 16 of which in major American cities have 60-70% of the FBI's counter terrorism personnel, about 400 small town resident agency (RA) offices and a handful of agents in LegAt offices in US Embassies oversees. There are way more of us then there are of them, so let's love them with the self-confidence that our religion teaches us that God doesn't put a burden upon a people who can't carry it. I'm not saying to 'move on, nothing to see here' in Mr. Ackerman's work, but instead let's get to work because there's nothing “new” here to anyone already working extensively on these challenges.

My Personal Experience

On Thursday, September 8^th FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III personally handed me the Louis E. Peters Memorial Service Award for 2011 in front of an audience of over five hundred retired Directors (ie. Judge William Webster who was Director of not just the FBI but also the CIA), a couple of dozen national security and law enforcement VIPs and several hundred retired FBI officials.

The Peters Award is the highest honor awarded annually to a civilian by the FBI whose assistance was invaluable in a major investigation. This year signified the first time it was given to someone working in the Homegrown Violent Extremism sphere that the American Muslim community has been struggling with post 9/11.

It was a closed-door ceremony in a banquet hall without media, a bit like the scene in the movie Charlie Wilson's War where the CIA gives him their highest civilian award for all he did to help remove the Soviets from Afghanistan. Two of the cases, in which I played the unique role of having one hand stretched out to the FBI and the other hand stretched out to local Muslim community leadership across multiple cities, were shared.

In both of these cases, like others, involved my being the trusted diplomat in two worlds who from my vantage point are married at the hip for the foreseeable future. Both the FBI and the American Muslim community are riding in the same boat, and should God forbid another disaster like 9/11 befall our country, neither party will be able to save its skin from the wrath of the American people by throwing the other party under the bus.

In the introduction explaining why I was receiving the award, Lester Davis as the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI stated that “For the past eight years he has been working closely with the FBI and the Muslim community to create a relationship built on trust and respect. Never once has Mr. Elibiary requested any compensation or recognition for his efforts. The work he has undertaken to spot, identify and address radicalization in the United States cannot be understated.”

The FBI continued on their website press release by further stating that “Mr. Elibiary, of Dallas, Texas, was selected as a result of his extraordinary contributions to specific cases in support of the FBI's counterterrorism mission. He has also been a consensus builder between the national Islamic community and the numerous agencies dedicated to the prevention of terrorism.”

One thing I stated in my speech to that audience is that while “the last decades have witnessed a transformation of our FBI into the global intelligence led crown jewel in our nation's security architecture, with such awesome power comes awesome responsibility also of the bureau as the guardian of our civil, democratic fabric.”

In private, I further relayed to the Director that our community is willing and able to help FBI-HQ address homegrown violent extremism challenges more effectively but that in the meantime, we will continue to work at the grassroots level to help build up relationships with field offices. The message was clear and constructive, so as long as we act like empowered citizens and continue then more positive changes are inevitable, God willing.

In every advocacy strategy employed there are foundational assumptions. Though not an activist pre-9/11, nor belonging to a national community organization, I convened a few dozen community leaders at a Dallas hotel about a year after 9/11 to lay out my own foundational assumptions on how “the system” was working and the beginning of a road map for us as Texas Muslims on how we'd address governmental challenges. Over the years, traveling coast-to-coast visiting with all kinds of Muslim community leaders I've learned to appreciate the wisdom behind federalism even more.

As the FBI's own press release highlights, I elected after 9/11 to perform a consensus building role, whether across government security agencies or the national Islamic community. Just like there are good Muslims and bad Muslims, there are good FBI and bad FBI. What the average American Muslim needs to understand is that, while our post 9/11 relationship might have been securitized with our fellow countrymen due to factors beyond our control, if we step up our game and learn how to identify the good FBI, ally with them and stay the course, then it's a simple “we win and they [anti-Muslim Bigots] lose”.

As a father, I asked myself years ago: do I want to pass on these challenges to my kid's generation or do I want them to get a better position in America's bright future? Each one of us has to answer that question for ourselves, get busy working in our cities to engage deeper with the FBI and win this marathon of reorienting America's National Security Enterprise, or we can sit on our hands, complain and hope by some miracle the politicians will fix it for us.

Mohamed Elibiary is a Dallas-based Texas Muslim community leader and an Advisor to the Homeland Security Enterprise. He has served for multiple years on the Training Advisory Board of the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), and was appointed by DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano to the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) in October 2010 after his earlier service on the Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Working Group helping craft the department and broader law enforcement community's framework to addressing Homegrown Violent Extremism (HVE). Mohamed has testified on Homeland Security matters before both the Texas State Legislature and the US Congress (“Working with Communities to Disrupt Terror Plots” – March 2010). He works as a private consultant at Lone Star Intelligence, LLC and speaks often on Homeland Security, Counter Terrorism and Community Partnership matters at law enforcement conferences. Mohamed has assisted multiple offices at the Dept. of Justice to advance Community Oriented Policing methodologies and the Building Communities of Trust (BCOT) Initiative. The Congressional Research Service (CRS) in a report to Congress highlighted how in the previous administration Mohamed assisted the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) Program Manager for the Information Sharing Environment (PM-ISE) to crafter landmark civil liberties protecting guidelines for the Nationwide Suspicious Activities Reporting Initiative (NSI). These landmark federal guidelines for Fusion Centers were expanded upon by a broad-based coalition of faith-based civic groups and DPS and passed by the Texas State Legislature in 2011 as Law enacted through the Texas Fusion Center Policy Council (TFCPC).