---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: <peacethrujustice@aol.com>
Date: Fri, Jan 14, 2011 at 6:06 AM
Subject: [bangla-vision] The Punishing Persecution of Sheikh Zoubir Bouchikhi

THE PEACE Thru JUSTICE FOUNDATION

11006 Veirs Mill Rd, STE L-15, PMB 298

Silver Spring, MD. 20902

SAFAR 1432 A.H.

(January 12, 2010)

Assalaamu Alaikum (Greetings of Peace):

This is coming to our readers from Houston, Texas, where I've just returned after the unconscionable re-detention of Sheikh Zoubir Bouchikhi, a beloved and respected Muslim scholar, teacher and religious leader from Algeria. Sheikh Zoubir and his family have resided in the U.S. for the past 13 years. (Three of his four children are American citizens by birth.)

I think it would help to provide a little background on this case for those unfamiliar with who Sheikh Zoubir Bouchikhi is.

Sheikh Zoubir arrived in the United States in December of 1997. He applied for a "green card," and received the approval of his 1-360 (a key immigration document) in October 2003. Almost four years later, in April 2007, he received a letter of intent to revoke.

After responding to all of the allegations behind the revocation document - providing the relevant documents and other evidence required by USCIS - Sheikh Zoubir still received the letter of revocation of the I-360, and denial of his green card application (I-485) based on new allegations.

Sheikh Zoubir, through his lawyer Brian Bates, then appealed to the Administrative Appeals Office (AAO) in Washington, DC., responding to all of the new allegations. While the AAO reportedly agreed with the Sheikh's position, it nevertheless dismissed his appeal in November 2008. Sheikh Zoubir was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers one month later, on December 17, 2008, as an "ARRIVING ALIEN." He was denied bond and spent five months in detention.

Sheikh Zoubir was released on a $20,000 bond in May 2009, with an electronic monitoring device (GPS) fitted to his ankle. Passports belonging to him, his wife and his eldest son (who entered the country as a year old infant) were confiscated, and the process for his removal went into high gear. In June 2009 an immigration judge ordered him removed. An appeal of this order, to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), was registered the following month (July 2009).

The BIA dismissed his appeal on December 2, 2010; Sheikh Zoubir then filed another appeal on December 22, 2010 (before the deadline to do so) to the Court of Appeals in the Fifth Circuit (New Orleans, LA).

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) handed him a Notice to Removable Alien on December 27^th, 2010; with a deadline to leave the country on January 24, 2011.

Despite the FACT that Zoubir Bouchikhi has lawfully and peacefully resided in America for the past 13 years, serving the community as a respected religious leader; despite the fact that he has three American born children in his family; despite the appeal that he still has pending in the federal judiciary's Fifth Circuit; and despite having a removal date of January 24, 2011 - Sheikh Zoubir was needlessly and callously taken back into custody on Tuesday, January 11, and sits once again in a detention center awaiting forced deportation.

It appears that this unfortunate ordeal was triggered by two things: (a) Sheikh Zoubir's brief travel outside of the U.S. and subsequent reentry in February 2006; (b) and one or more Muslim "leaders" in the Houston area, quietly working in tandem with the government to have him removed.

With that said, last evening the wife of Sheikh Zoubir (Mounira Belhacel), a close friend and supporter (Ali Khalili), his two sons (Ilyas and Omar), and I, were guests of a radio program in the Houston area called "Arab Voices." The program airs over the Pacifica Radio affiliate - KPFT. (You can access the broadcast below.)

Listen to the broadcast, and play close attention to the sentiments expressed by Sr. Mounira and her two sons. It puts a human face on the madness; it is the same sentiment being felt by Muslim families who feel themselves under siege all over America.

And finally, there's an interesting commentary at the very end ("Republicans and Their Guns") that's also worthy of a few moments of serious reflection.

I'm looking forward to seeing all who will join us tomorrow morning (Friday) for the demonstration at the ICE Building - from 9:00 to 12 noon - located at 126 Northpoint Dr., Houston TX 77060 -

Tel: (281) 774-4816.

There's a heated debate going on right now in America concerning the power of words. Words do indeed have consequence. But the ACTIONS towards Muslims - from both ends of the socio-political spectrum - have consistently spoken louder than mere words!

The struggle continues...

El-Hajj Mauri' Saalakhan

http://arabvoices.net/

Date:	January 12, 2011	Zoubir Bouchikhi
Topic/ Guests:	Imam Zoubir Bouchikhi's Case At the end of December 2010, ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) sent Imam Bouchikhi a letter asking him to leave the United States by January 24, 2011. On January 11, 2011, ICE arrested Imam Bouchikhi in Houston, despite the fact that his lawyers had filed few weeks ago an appeal with the 5th circuit court of appeal!	Zoubir Bouchikhi
	We will talk with our guests (Ali Khalili, with the Coalition to Free Imam Zoubir Bouchikhi, Mounira Belhacel, Imam Bouchikhi's wife, Ilyas & Omar Bouchikhi, Imam Bouchikhi's sons, and Mauri' Saalakhan, Director of Operations at The Peace Thru Justice Foundation) about the case of Imam Bouchikhi, who is a well-respected Imam, scholar and teacher in Houston with two masters degrees; and a father of four children (3 of them are U.S. citizens).

Republicans and Their Guns

by E.R. Bills / January 12, 2011

Republicans can disavow responsibility for Jared Loughner all they want, but he was wearing Christine O'Donnell's "man-pants," he did exercise Susan Angle's interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, and he did use conservative radio host Joyce Kaufman's bullets when the ballots didn't work. Oh, and he did get a Democrat in Sarah Palin's bull's eye crosshairs.

Most folks are tiptoeing around the partisan nature of the shooting of U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and others in Tucson, but count me among the uncouth. There is blood on conservative hands and they should be called out. Another homicidal nut-job has brought their irresponsible rhetoric to fruition and they should answer for it.

I don't want to hear Republicans saying there's no place for this kind of violence in this country or condemning Loughner as an isolated, incidental mad man. Especially as if it's something new or unexpected. Conservative rhetoric has been cranked up way past the "stun" setting ever since the Bush Administration was on its last crooked legs. And the target audience for their hate-speak has clearly been compelled.

Lest we forget, it was a conservative who walked into his former church in Knoxville, Tennessee on July 28, 2008 and shot eight people (killing two) because liberals "were ruining the country" (and his church had gotten too liberal). It was conservatives who were brandishing firearms at political events in the 2008 presidential campaign. It was a conservative evangelical Christian who shot abortion doctor George Tiller at his church in Kansas on May 31, 2009. It was a conservative white supremacist who shot security guard Stephen Tyrone Johns at the Holocaust Museum on June 10, 2009. And it was arguably an anti-government conservative that flew his plane into the IRS office in Austin, Texas on February 10, 2010.

There is no reason to mince words. Violence is implicit in conservative rhetoric because its audience honestly believes dissenters should be vilified and punished, and it thrills the Republicans' conservative base to see its philosophical opponents squirm. Threatening language is necessary for their cause because fear and hatred are presently the load-bearing joists in their political platform. And what's more, deep down, they're not even ashamed of it.

Rush Limbaugh once blamed John Edwards' affair with Rielle Hunter on Elizabeth Edwards, now deceased. He said that John Edwards sought companionship with Hunter because, unlike his wife, Rielle "did something with her mouth other than talk." It was callous and repugnant, but it wasn't scripted, and it didn't diminish Limbaugh's ratings one iota. The comment was telling about who Limbaugh is and how he thinks, but also about who his audience is and how they think. The truth is, it's not hard to imagine Limbaugh serving up something equally asinine about Congresswoman Giffords. Right now, he wouldn't dare because there's too much heat. But just because he isn't saying it doesn't mean he's not thinking it.

And this is why Limbaugh is the voice for so many conservatives in this country. He touches a nerve with his listeners; he teases a brutish, authoritarian strain in them that reveres clichés like "my country right or wrong," " love it or leave it," etc. And these folks take comfort in implied threats for people who disagree with them. That's why they can rationalize the notion that the ends justifies the means.

Deep down, they're not really bothered by the combustible letter that was sent to Janet Napolitano; she's from the wrong side of the aisle. And somewhere inside they're not terribly upset by what happened to Giffords, because she's the ideological enemy. They can't help themselves. It's just who they are.

But one of these days a sharp contrarian will finally expose it. It will be like that showdown scene from "A Few Good Men." The contrarian will get a Limbaugh or a Beck or a Palin or an Allen West on a "stand" and challenge their methods and their authority and their warped world view and badger them and demand the truth; and that Limbaugh, Beck, Palin or West will say the rest of us can't handle the truth and launch into a blustery diatribe explaining that heathens like Tiller and liberals like Giffords got what they had coming to them and the country is a better place with every less one them around.

And everyone will be shocked and offended except those in gun-toting red states who, deep down, can see what Limbaugh, Beck, Palin and West were really trying to say, before they were misquoted or misinterpreted.

E. R. Bills is a freelance writer from Fort Worth, Texas. His works appear in Fort Worth Weekly, South Texas Nation, Fort Worth Magazine, etc. He can be reached at: erbillsthinks@gmail.com. Read other articles by E.R..

http://dissidentvoice.org/2011/01/republicans-and-their-guns/#comment-79642

--- On Wed, 1/12/11, Javed Chaudry <jchaudry@rogers.com> wrote: