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Both sides find reason to cheer in Missouri church-school case
ACLU says 8th Circuit Court of Appeals prohibited Bible distribution in public schools
ST. LOUIS, Missouri (Press Release) - The American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri applauded the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit that upheld a permanent injunction ending the practice of Bible distribution in the public school of a rural Missouri county.
The Court affirmed the injunction entered in January 2008 by the United States District Judge Catherine D. Perry that prohibited the South Iron R-1 School District from "allowing distribution of Bibles to elementary school children on school property at any time during the school day." The permanent injunction was the culmination of the ACLU of Eastern Missouri's suit that was filed in early 2006 and asserted that the 30-year practice of distributing Bibles to elementary-school children breached the separation of state and church mandated by the Establishment Clause. The district court had earlier entered a temporary injunction against Bible distribution, which was upheld by the Eight Circuit appellate court in August 2007.
The ACLU of Eastern Missouri filed suit on behalf of three families whose children attend the South Iron public schools. They objected to the school board's continual efforts to find ways to distribute Bibles to elementary school children during the school day after the former superintendent, the board's attorney, and the district's insurance carrier, in addition to the ACLU, explained that the practice violated clearly established law.
"Religious liberty is among the most fundamental of the freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights," said Leonard Frankel, of the law firm Frankel, Rubin, Bond, Dubin, Siegel & Klein, who was the ACLU's cooperating attorney on the case. "And religious liberty is best protected by keeping the government out of the realm of religions. Public schools should leave religious training to parents and churches."
"The ACLU and others made numerous attempts to work with the school board to fix this problem," ACLU of Eastern Missouri Executive Director Brenda Jones said. "Unfortunately, it has taken the intervention of the courts to stop the active promotion of Christianity to the elementary students in South Iron."
"Grade schools should be in the business of educating kids, not proselytizing to them," said ACLU of Eastern Missouri Legal Director Anthony E. Rothert, who was co-counsel for the parents. "At every step of this case, the court recognized that public schools cannot become religious recruiting grounds."
The school district was represented by Liberty Counsel, a legal organization founded by late television preacher Jerry Falwell.
Liberty Counsel applauds 'open forum' that permits literature offerings at designated places
ST. LOUIS, Missouri (Press Release)– The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the South Iron School District on Thursday and upheld the right of the district to establish an open forum for distribution of materials on school property. The Court of Appeals reversed the District Court and held that the District’s new policy should not have been declared unconstitutional by the lower court judge. Under the district’s policy, secular and religious material can be distributed by any group, including the Gideons. Liberty Counsel has defended the school in the case of Doe v. South Iron R-1 School District since 2006. Mathew Staver presented oral argument at the Court of Appeals.
In September 2006, the ACLU filed suit against the district to stop the Gideons from providing Bibles to public school students. Federal District Judge Catherine Perry issued an order prohibiting the distribution of any Bible, which she derisively described as an “instrument of religion.” The district then adopted a written equal access policy that treats the distribution of secular and religious literature outside of class on an equal basis. Outside groups may apply to distribute literature from stationary tables in two designated locations, and literature cannot be distributed in the classroom. Judge Perry also ruled the district’s equal access policy unconstitutional, saying that under the policy, the Bible could still be distributed. The ruling presented a novel (and unconstitutional) theory that a private third party (like the ACLU) must have the opportunity to veto the distribution request of the private applicant. The veto power, the judge wrote, must be provided to veto religious, but not secular, literature.
The Court of Appeals reversed the District Court, and thus upheld the district’s new equal access policy. The Court rejected the lower court ruling because it would have precluded the school “from ever creating a limited public forum in which religious materials may be distributed in a constitutionally neutral manner.” The Court stated that “school officials must remain free to experiment in good faith with new policies to accommodate the tensions between educational objectives, … private rights under the Free Exercise Clause, and … the Establishment Clause…”
Mathew D. Staver, Founder of Liberty Counsel and Dean of Liberty University School of Law, who argued the case at every stage of the litigation, commented: “We are pleased that the new equal access policy can finally go into effect. The Bible cannot be singled out for special penalties like contraband. The Founders never envisioned open hostility toward religious viewpoints.”
AIFD denounces Hizb ut-Tahrir
as anti-American jihadist group
CHICAGO (Press Release) – The American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) is calling on American Muslim organizations to denounce Hizb ut-Tahrir, one of the oldest and largest indoctrinating organizations for jihadism. Hizb ut-Tahrir is holding its first U.S. recruiting conference at the Hilton Oak Lawn hotel on July 19, 2009.
Hizb ut-Tahrir is an Islamist network that is committed to creating an Islamic Caliphate that spans the globe. The organization is banned in Germany and Russia as well as several Arab countries and targets Muslim children between the ages of 9 and 18. Many compare their efforts to organizations like the Hitler Youth. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, is counted among their alumnus.
“Americans need to be vigilant to not allow Hizb ut-Tahrir to establish a stronghold in the American Muslim Community,” said Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, President of AIFD. “All American Muslim organizations including CAIR (Council for American Islamic Relations) and ISNA (Islamist Society of North America) need to be on the record that Hizb ut-Tahrir’s actions, ideologies and mission are unacceptable to both Americans and as Muslims.”
AIFD is the most prominent American Muslim organization confronting the ideologies of political Islam and openly countering the belief that the Muslim faith is inextricably rooted to the concept of the Islamic State. AIFD believes that Muslims can better practice their faith when they are liberated by the separation of mosque and state.
“Hizb ut-Tahrir preaches an ideology that calls for the destruction of the principles that America is founded on,” said Dr. Jasser. “While their words are protected by our First Amendment, their actions and movement must not be allowed to take hold. The silence of American Islamist organizations like CAIR and ISNA in condemning the ideologies of Hizb ut-Tahrir and their agenda of insurgency in America speaks
volumes to their own, albeit, more camouflaged Islamist agenda.”
AIFD seeks to fuel a movement within the Muslim consciousness and community which separates mosque and state. AIFD accomplishes its mission by educating Muslims on the value of Liberty and Freedom to the expression of faith and through the contest of ideas among non-Muslims and Muslims.
Four Neturei Karta members
visit Haniya in Gaza
GAZA CITY (WJC)—
Four members of the anti-Zionist sect of ultra-Orthodox Jews Neturei Karta (‘Guardians of the City’), which is opposed to the existence of Israel as a Jewish state, have visited Hamas leaders in Gaza. The men, clad in the traditional ultra-Orthodox garb of black hats and coats and with long side-curls in their hair, met Hamas leader Ismail Haniya, who welcomed them by saying that Hamas rejected Zionist ideology, not Jews.
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"We feel your suffering, we cry your cry," the Associated Press quoted Rabbi Yisroel Weiss as saying. "It is your land, it is occupied, illegitimately and unjustly by people who stole it, kidnapped the name of Judaism and our identity." The Neturei Karta leaders entered Gaza with a convoy of activists who travelled through Egypt. Haniya described the men as "heroes", according to Palestinian media reports.
Members have praised Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for saying Israel should be erased from the pages of history. They also attended a Holocaust denial conference in Tehran.
Court rules support for Hamas
should not bar scholar from U.S.
NEW YORK (Press Release)– A federal appeals court on Friday found that the U.S. government had not adequately justified its denial of a visa to a Swiss professor and leading scholar of the Muslim world. The decision, which reverses a ruling of a lower federal court, comes in a case in which the American Civil Liberties Union contended that the government's exclusion from the U.S. of Professor Tariq Ramadan violated the First Amendment rights of organizations inside the United States that had invited Ramadan to meet with and speak to their members.
In Friday's ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit found the First Amendment rights of U.S. organizations are at stake when foreign scholars, artists, politicians and others are excluded, quoting from a 1972 Supreme Court ruling in Kleindienst v. Mandel that the organizations have a First Amendment right to "'hear, speak, and debate with' a visa applicant." The appeals court also found that the government cannot exclude an individual from the U.S. on the basis of "material support" for terrorism without affording him the "opportunity to demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that he did not know, and reasonably should not have known, that the recipient of his contributions was a terrorist organization."
"We're very pleased with the appeals court's decision. The court properly found that the exclusion of foreign scholars like Ramadan implicates the First Amendment rights of Americans, that the judiciary has a role in policing the government's exclusion of foreign scholars, and that in this case the government simply has not offered a constitutionally adequate justification for its actions," said Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU National Security Project, who argued the case before the appeals court. "As we've been emphasizing from the outset of this case, the exclusion of foreign scholars on ideological grounds skews and impoverishes academic and political debate inside the United States. The government should not be using the immigration laws as instruments of censorship."
Ramadan was invited to teach at the University of Notre Dame in 2004 but the U.S. government revoked his visa, citing a statute that applies to those who have "endorsed or espoused" terrorism. In January 2006, the ACLU and the New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit challenging Professor Ramadan's exclusion on behalf of the American Academy of Religion, the American Association of University Professors and the PEN American Center. After the ACLU filed suit, the government abandoned its claim that Ramadan had endorsed terrorism, but it continued to defend his exclusion on the grounds that he had made small donations to a Swiss charity that the government alleged had given money to Hamas.
"I am very gratified with the court's decision," said Ramadan. "I am eager to engage once again with Americans in the kinds of face-to-face discussions that are central to academic exchange and crucial to bridging cultural divides."
The case will now be sent back to the lower court for further proceedings, but the ACLU expressed hope that the Obama administration would end Professor Ramadan's exclusion without further litigation.
"Given today's decision, we hope that the Obama administration will immediately end Professor Ramadan's exclusion," said Melissa Goodman, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project. "We also encourage the new administration to reconsider the exclusion of other foreign scholars, writers and artists who were barred from the country by the Bush administration on ideological grounds."
Attorneys on the case, now called Academy of Religion v. Napolitano, are Jaffer, Goodman, Lucas Guttentag and Judy Rabinovitz of the ACLU, Arthur Eisenberg of the NYCLU, and New York immigration lawyer Claudia Slovinsky. The lawsuit was originally brought against then-Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Jerusalem garbage accumulates as civil disturbances continue
JERUSALEM (WJC) —Violent protests by ultra-Orthodox Jews continued for the fourth day in a row following the arrest of an Orthodox woman on suspicion of depriving her three-year-old child from food. The child is now recovering in Hadassah Hospital. Doctors say the mother suffers from a condition known as Münchausen syndrome by proxy, in which a person deliberately makes another sick.
After the violent protests, parts of the city are now covered with garbage. Throughout the night security forces armed with water cannons and backed by mounted units battled the protesters, who hurled bricks and bottles at them and blocked main thoroughfares with piles of garbage.
Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch urged the leaders of the Haredi community to act immediately to restore order and peace to the capital. " It is inconceivable that entire neighborhoods and highways will be blocked and that the city would have to suspend municipal service for fear for its employees' safety," he said. "The police will continue to enforce the law and will prosecute rioters to the full extent of the law."
During this week's disturbances, Jerusalem City Hall cut off some services to some ultra-Orthodox areas, mainly sanitation, after its workers were attacked.
Meanwhile, Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin has called a special session of the Israeli parliament following the Jerusalem riots. "We cannot ignore the escalating situation in Jerusalem and it calls for an urgent discussion," he said. The session is expected to take place early next week.
Ahmadinejad says U.N. must condemn murder of Muslim woman in German courtroom
TEHRAN—Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to condemn the German government over the murder of an Egyptian woman in a courtroom in Dresden. In his letter to Ban, Ahmadinejad asked: “Isn’t it the time to firmly condemn the recent murder and call for punishment of the factors of this scandal?” Marwa al-Sherbini, a 31-year-old Muslim woman, was stabbed to death by a man in a courtroom in Dresden, against whom she was to testify.
Ahmadinejad alleges that Germany had kept silence in this regard. In his letter, he wrote that this was “no wonder as long as they humiliate their own nation when it comes to Zionists,” according to Iranian news agency reports. Ahmadinejad added that it was “astonishing that certain European and American leaders claim defending human values and remain silent over the issue.”
He also voiced astonishment over Ban stance, saying if he did not demand justice and fulfill his duties as UN secretary-general, greater problems would be created for humanity and more people would become victims of injustice and discrimination.
Meanwhile on Friday, Iranian police have fired tear gas and used batons to disperse opposition supporters gathered at Friday prayers at Tehran University. Thousands of people gathered chanting their support for Mir Hossein Moussavi, a candidate in the disputed election on 12 June. Opposition leaders were due to appear in public for the first time in weeks.
The regime in Tehran has announced a new atomic chief following the resignation on Thursday of Gholam Reza Aghazadeh. Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's former envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, will take up the post, the government announced. It is not immediately clear why Aghazadeh, the long-serving head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, stood down from the job, but he is said to be close to Moussavi.
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