Muslim Apple

UPDATE: I deleted that nonsense about my blog being Masaud Khan’s personal website.

It has always fascinated me how people find my blog and so a few days ago as I was scanning the list of link referrals to my blog I noticed one link from the wikipedia-esque Terrorism Resources website entry on Masoud Khan in the “homegrown terrorist database” section.

The entry states that: “This dossier was compiled by WM and MJ. The final editing was done by Crystal Ball. Copyright 2008 TerrorismResources.Org”

I don’t know who WM, MJ, or Crystal Ball are but their entry is skewed and inaccurate. It seems that they make up for their lack of information by making it up as they go along. My blog Muslim Apple is listed as the personal website of Masaud Khan simply because I posted two statements by him and one from his family. The statement he read at the original sentencing hearing, and later, a letter he wrote from prison, and an update from his family on the status of his case.

I thought about creating an account on that site so I could login and try to update and correct the misinformation but haven’t gotten around to it yet.

Masaud Khan was sentenced to life plus 65 years and then had the sentence reduced by twenty years to life plus 45 years.

Please remember those caught up in this unjust war on individuals and their families in your prayers.

Amnesty International: You can tear down Guantanamo and end illegal U.S. detentions. One pixel at a time.

View a panoramic photo of a cell at Guantanamo

Coming Soon The Guantanamo Cell Tour: Experience Guantanamo in a town near you.

This Thursday (April 10th) the University of Maryland at College Park Muslim Students Association is hosting a free screening of USA vs. Al-Arian in the Hoff Theatre, Stamp Student Union @ 6 PM.

If you have not already seen the documentary then you should make a point to see this thought-provoking film. When I saw the film, one of Dr. Al-Arian’s sons was at the panel discussion afterward and today one his daughters will be speaking afterward so even though I have class at that time, I will try to go again.

In December 2005, a Tampa jury acquitted Dr. Sami Al-Arian of “terrorism” charges. Two years later he is still in prison because the Bush administration refuses to honor a May 2006 promise to release and deport him. Dr. Al-Arian was due to be released in weeks, but is now on a hunger strike to protest the government’s refusal to honor a plea agreement.

Come find out why.

“USA vs Al-Arian” Screening at University of Maryland
Featuring Guest Speaker: Laila Al-Arian, Journalist and daughter of Dr. Al-Arian.
Please join us on Thursday April 10, 2008
From 6:00pm - 10:00pm in the evening.
The event will take place the Hoff Theater, located within the University of Maryland Stamp Student Union
College Park, MD

Sponsored by: The Muslim Students Association, International Socialist Organization, Feminism Without Borders, Organization of Arab Students, Students for a Democratic Society, and Peace Forum

From the Storehouse:

Free Sami al-Arian Now!

The way our government has treated Sami al-Arian, a fellow American citizen is an absolute disgrace. No doubt that we will look back at this period in our history with shame just as we do when remembering the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII.  Not much hope from the cast of characters in the current administration but hoping the next administration will apologize to and pardon Dr. Al Arian.

I had the opportunity to watch the documentary film USA vs. Al-Arian in Washington DC last year and highly recommend it to everyone. It’s the sort of film that exposes unpalatable truths about the injustice regularly perpetrated by the government in this pseudo-war-on-terror on innocent individuals and families that no one wants you to see, which is one reason that the film can’t seem to find a distributor in the US.

I received this delightful little ditty yesterday from a first-timer to Muslim Apple called bthorn, I wasn’t going to publish it and had it marked for deletion but then I reconsidered:

What is truly scary is that many of you are sympathetic to the Gitmo detainees.  Yeah, they were only caught on the battlefield, carrying a weapon, and trying to kill MY countrymen.  The fact that you feel bad for THEM and are completely silent regarding the actions which landed them at Gitmo in the first place only reaffirms my original belief that you all have the SAME radical, militant, oppressive, and murderous belief structure.  Still stuck in the 7th century.

Perhaps bthorn, you could explain this article to me from the Washington Post: 82 Inmates Cleared but Still Held at Guantanamo. Did you watch Road to Guantanamo?

From the Storehouse:

See You at Guantanamo

Trailer: Road to Guantanamo

Dr. AbdulHaleem Ashqar and Muhammad Salah were acquitted on most of the serious charges against them this week by a federal jury in Chicago although they were convicted of obstruction of justice and contempt for refusing to testify.

A small victory in the “war against Truth”.

Read more.

these brothers and their families and know that there are countless more like them all over this country, and other countries, and in Guantanamo Bay in this “war against the Truth” where justice and “just us” are denied.

Imam Anwar al-Awlaki: Unjustly Detained

Dr. Ali al-Timimi: Statement at Sentencing & Update

Ali Asad Chandia: Statement at Sentencing

Seifullah Chapman: On Ali Asad Chandia’s Conviction

Masuad Khan: Statement at Sentencing & Update

When Opening Your Fast

Prophet Muhammad (sal Allahu alayhi wa sallam) said:

“You see the believers as their being merciful among themselves and showing love among themselves and being kind, resembling one body, so that, if any part of the body is not well then the whole body shares the sleeplessness (insomnia) and fever with it,” [Bukhari]

The contractor working on the outside of our house cut our cable/internet line for about the fourth or sixth time (I’ve lost count) in the last year and our ISP doesn’t intend to fix it for at least another week. Backhoes and flimsy underground cables lines are not a good mix.

So, I’ve been living under my rock, only catching a few snippets of news reports here and there on my car radio. Jose Padilla, an American citizen is still being detained in solitary confinement after several years without trial. Augusto Pinochet is dead. And many in the media (at least on the radio) can’t seem to pronounce either of their names correctly but have no problem saying Litvinenko.

Three blogs I used to read and one still on my blog list (in hopes that it might return) have been deleted by their owners. It’s a strange feeling that news from those corners of the world has now been closed off to me since I didn’t know any of those bloggers except through their blogs. May Allah protect them.

A side note that occurred to be while reflecting on the Litvinenko post, what would happen to my blog if I died…

Whoever relieves a believer’s distress of the distressful aspects of this world, Allah will rescue him from a difficulty of the difficulties of the hereafter..Allah will help the servant as long as the servant is helping his brother. [Muslim]

Masaud’s family would like to extend their dua for everyone that helped out on last Friday’s fundraiser. As many of you have been wondering, below is a brief overview of Masaud’s plight so far:

2004: Trial in Eastern District Court of Virginia

Masaud was asked to plea bargain by the government; he pleads innocent of all charges and refuses to implicate any Muslim brother

June 2004: Sentenced to life imprisonment without parole

July 2004: Appeal filed in U.S. Court of Appeals, Richmond requesting a new trial by jury since the 3 defendants had not been given that option at trial. Masaud’s lawyer asked for reduction of the gun charges, which sentence, according to Judge Brinkema, was “draconian”, and which would remove the life sentence imposed on him. She said she had sentenced murderers to lesser sentences than what Masaud was given. (Masaud had fired one bullet at a target as a demonstration and was given 30 years for firing that one bullet, according to Virginia law.) Read more »

Ken Saro-Wiwa on his detention in Nigeria:

A year has gone by since I was rudely roused from my bed and clamped into detention. Sixty-five days in chains, weeks of starvation, months of mental torture and recently, the rides in a steaming, airless Black Maria to appear before a kangaroo court, dubbed a special military tribunal, where the proceedings leave no doubt that the judgement has been written advance…

The men who ordain and supervise this show of shame, this tragic charade, are frightened by the word, the power of ideas, the power of the pen; by the demands of social justice and the rights of man. Nor do they have a sense of history. They are so scared of the power of the word, that they do not read. And that is their funeral.

- From In the Shadow of a Saint, A Son’s Journey to Understand His Father’s Legacy by Ken Wiwa.