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Scripps News FollowView Profile Tension is building between Arab-Americans and police near Chicago Story by Ben Schamisso • Yesterday 7:26 PM 74119 Comments In the southwest Chicago suburb of Oak Lawn, tensions are boiling between Arab-American activists and police. Hadi Abuatelah with his mother and family© Scripps News Activists have been showing up at every police and fire commission meeting since the violent arrest of a Palestinian-American teenager last July. Last week, chaos erupted after police supporters used their public comment time to show a video montage of officers getting killed in other cities. "The police force knows that they have absolutely no justification for what Patrick O'Donnell did," said Muhammad Sankari, lead organizer of the Arab American Action Network. Hours before the public meeting, Oak Lawn police officer Patrick O'Donnell appeared in court surrounded by around 40 other officers. He pleaded not guilty to aggravated battery and official misconduct for his involvement in the beating of 17-year-old Hadi Abuatelah. No other officers have been charged. In the southwest Chicago suburb of Oak Lawn. Loaded: 17.08% Play Current Time 0:08 / Duration 4:41 LQ Captions Fullscreen Scripps News Tension is building between Arab-Americans and police near Chicago Unmute 0 View on Watch More videos CBS ChicagoChicago voters select new civilian councils for police oversight 2:24 WGN-TV ChicagoMan charged with 9 counts of attempted murder of Chicago police officers 2:03 WGN-TV ChicagoCharges reportedly filed against suburban Chicago officer filmed beating teenager 1:56 Last summer, a bystander video of the beating sparked outrage in the Arab-American community. According to prosecutors, O'Donnell is seen punching Abuatelah more than 10 times in the head while another officer kneels on the teenager's legs. A third officer later joins in. O'Donnell uses his taser on Abuatelah, who was later hospitalized for six days for a fracture to his pelvis, a broken nose and internal bleeding of his brain. The incident started with police pulling over a car they say lacked a license plate and smelled of cannabis. A squad car camera shows Abuatelah running away. After catching up with him, the officers say Abuatelah reached for his shoulder bag. Police say they later recovered a loaded gun inside that bag. Oak Lawn police chief Daniel Vittorio defended his officers' actions the day after the arrest. SEE MORE: Why many Arab-Americans check 'White' on the US census "Had the offender drawn that weapon, he could have shot them," Vittorio said. "Were they supposed to wait for him to pull it out and then?" Emma Melton of the Council on American-Islamic Relations filed a civil rights lawsuit on behalf of Abuatelah against the village of Oak Lawn and the three officers involved in the beating. "We all saw the footage," Melton said. "I've seen it from multiple different angles, from the squad car cameras to the bystander videos, and at no point do I see him reaching for a gun. Hearing that the chief of police agreed with this level of use of force and how these officers interacted with Hadi shows that this is something that could and probably will happen again." Melton says Arab-American residents have long complained about the Oak Lawn Police Department. "A lot of the police officers in that area are actually White, and so when dealing with people from another background, sometimes a lot of the cultural awareness and sensitivity can be lost," Melton said. For professor of criminology Nicole Nguyen, the Oak Lawn incident reflects a lack of trust between law enforcement agencies nationwide and Arab communities. "Research studies have shown that Arab people face police brutality, physical threats, verbal harassment and so on," Nguyen said. In a recent survey about Arab-American communities in Chicagoland, 1 in 5 respondents said they experienced stereotyping and prejudice from the police. "There's a perception of Arabs and Muslims as dangerous, as potential threats," Nguyen said. O'Donnell's attorney didn't respond to multiple requests for an interview. However, the Oak Lawn Police Department tells Scripps News: "We live in a society based on laws and fundamental fairness, and that applies to everyone, including our men and women in uniform." For now, O'Donnell has been assigned to "administrative duties" with the police department and remains free on bond. His next court date is April 6. See comments 19

CNN FollowView Profile Why Arabs and Muslims feel stung by coverage of the Qatar World Cup Story by Nadeen Ebrahim • 1h ago React1 Comment| 2 “Today I feel Qatari. Today I feel Arab. Today I feel African. Today I feel gay. Today I feel disabled. Today I feel a migrant worker,” FIFA chief Gianni Infantino said in a fiery tirade on Saturday, comparing his own plight as a redhead son of migrants to that of marginalized communities. His ostensible empathy with Qatar was due to the barrage of criticism the nation has faced in Western media for hosting the tournament. But it’s hypocritical of the West to be giving lessons in morality to others, he said. Those statements on the eve of the World Cup went viral, inviting much anger and ridicule. But to many Arabs and Muslims, they resonated strongly. Omar Alsaadi, a 21-year-old Qatari, told CNN that Infantino vocalized “from a Western point of view” what many of his compatriots have felt about being targets of racism. In the run-up to the tournament, Western media coverage has been dominated by the controversies surrounding the event rather than the sport itself, including the Gulf nation’s treatment of migrant workers, its rules on LGBTQ people and its tight social restrictions. Britain’s public broadcaster, the BBC, refrained from airing the opening ceremony on television, opting instead to cover criticism of the host nation. The BBC said it did broadcast the ceremony on their video-on-demand service. This year’s World Cup is certainly like no other before it. It is the first to be held in a Muslim country and Qatar has gone a long way to give the event a distinctly Arab and Muslim flavor. The Bedouin-themed opening ceremony on Sunday began with a female singer donning a traditional burqa, a kind of face covering that has been banned in several European countries. It also cited a verse from the Quran about God creating humanity into “nations and tribes” so they can get to know each other. According to social media reports, some hotel rooms in the country offer visitors QR codes to learn about Islam, and Muslim volunteers have been teaching visitors about Islamic fashion. Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy (SC), which is responsible for overseeing the infrastructure projects and planning for the World Cup, didn’t respond to CNN’s request for comment. But in an earlier statement to CNN, the SC said it was committed to “an inclusive and discriminatory-free” World Cup. “Everyone is welcome in Qatar, but we are a conservative country and any public display of affection, regardless of orientation, is frowned upon. We simply ask for people to respect our culture.” The visibility of Islamic symbols in Qatar hasn’t escaped those attending. An on-air joke by a French journalist about the presence of “a lot of mosques” in the country caused outrage among Muslims on social media. Western news outlets have also been accused of peddling stereotypes about Arabs and Muslims. The Times of London on Monday said “Qataris are unaccustomed to seeing women in Western dress in their country” in a photo caption that was later deleted after being flagged on social media. Around 87% of the country’s population of 2.9 million is made up of expatriates, many of whom are Western. “I think that the Western media is biased because they don’t want to see an Arabic success, a Muslim success in the delivering and hosting of a global cup for football in a third [world country],” Najd Al-Mohanadi, a 20-year-old Qatari, told CNN. But some in the Western media have spoken out against stereotyping and alleged biases. Ayman Mohyeldin, an MSNBC host who previously worked for Qatar’s Al Jazeera, said recent coverage of Qatar shows “the depths of Western prejudice, performative moral outrage and, perhaps most significantly, gross double standards.” The Economist and the New York Times have also run articles defending Qatar’s right to host the tournament. The Times of London ran an essay saying criticism of Qatar was “laced with hypocrisy.” “I always question the timing [of the criticism], as migrants throughout the region endure poor living arrangements for meager pay, while also working under strenuous physical and mental conditions,” said Mira Al Hussein, a postdoctoral researcher from the UAE who is studying at Oxford University in England. “Scrutiny is overdue and it makes no sense to tie it to global events where virtue-signaling becomes deeply problematic,” Al Hussein told CNN. “Especially when it comes from non-NGO entities that are themselves embroiled in human rights violations within and across their borders.” James Lynch, director of the human rights group FairSquare and a former British diplomat in Qatar, said that while some of the coverage around Qatar in the West has reinforced negative stereotypes about the Arab Muslim world, most of the criticism has been “fair and proportionate.” “It’s absolutely right to call out instances of that kind of coverage, but wrong to generalize from those examples to imply that all, or most, criticism is driven by racism,” he said. Workers in the country continue to “face harsh, abusive working conditions and severe exploitation, with domestic and construction workers among those most at risk,” he said, adding that Qatar’s women and LGBTQ people “face serious discrimination and repression, both in law and practice.” Critics of Western media coverage of Qatar have countered that other countries with questionable human rights records didn’t receive such scrutiny when hosting global sporting events. “At the risk of engaging in whataboutism… Qatar’s human rights records, as poor as they may be, cannot possibly be more outrageous than other countries, such as Russia, China and Israel,” said Al Hussein. “Qatar is certainly not engaging in ethnic cleansing, nor are migrants living in concentration camps, despite the poor living conditions.” Maryam AlHajri, a Qatari researcher at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, said some of the recent rhetoric around Qatar shows that some Western critics have been more concerned with feeding into an “orientalist discourse,” referring to language aimed at imposing Western worldviews, than human rights. “This should not be read as a justification to cease criticizing the migrant worker condition in Qatar,” she said. “Rather, it should be interpreted as an argument for the necessity to contextualize the migrant workers situation as part of a globalized economic order built on colonialism and racial capitalism.” She noted however that some over-zealous defenders of the government on the Qatari side have neglected the country’s human rights shortcomings. “Many of the people defending Qatar are also using terrifyingly pro-government language,” she said, adding that it reaches a point that doesn’t help the cause of Qatar’s migrant workers. “The plight of migrant workers in places like the US or the UK does not take away from the fact that we have problems in Qatar,” AlHajri told CNN. “It shouldn’t be about whataboutism.” With additional reporting from Mariam Dirar Alqasem in Doha Iran protests Social media videos have emerged allegedly showing Iranian security forces sexually assaulting female demonstrators on the streets. With media access inside Iran severely constrained, CNN went to the region near Iraq’s border with Iran, interviewing eyewitnesses who’d left the country and verifying accounts from survivors and sources both in and outside Iran. The covert testimonies revealed sexual assaults on male and female activists as a women-led uprising spreads throughout Iran. US Special Envoy for Iran Rob Malley on Tuesday tweeted it is “a reminder of what is at stake for the Iranian people - and of the lengths to which the regime will go in its futile attempt to silence dissent.” Read the article here. Here’s the latest on the protests in Iran: UN human rights chief Volker Türk said on Tuesday that the rising number of protest-related deaths highlights the “critical” nature of the situation in the country. The UN said its sources had reported over 40 deaths “in mainly Kurdish cities in the past week.” Forty foreign nationals “affiliated in riots” have been arrested in Iran since protests started in September, Iranian judiciary spokesperson Masood Satayshi said without revealing their nationalities. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday the US is taking steps to “push back against actions Iran is taking to repress its own people.” Mobile internet was restored in Iran after a major disruption on Monday, according to internet watchdog NetBlocks, which said that cellular data was down for about 3.5 hours as security forces cracked down on protesters in the Kurdish region of Iran. World Cup Saudi Arabia produced one of the biggest upsets in World Cup history Tuesday, beating Lionel Messi’s Argentina 2-1 in an astonishing Group C match. Many had expected the South American team, ranked third in the world, unbeaten for three years and among the favorites to win the tournament, to sweep aside its opponent, ranked 48 places below it in the world rankings. Watch CNN’s Becky Anderson speak to celebrating fans of the Saudi team: Also read: A brief history of World Cup shocks. Watch: hilarious moments of Saudi fans celebrating. Many are wondering how a tiny nation with little footballing history ended up hosting one of the biggest sporting events. Find out here. Some of those attending the matches have experienced difficulties when trying to enter stadiums wearing clothing in support of LGBTQ rights. How World Cup politics explain the modern world. Here’s what fans can’t do in Qatar. Qatar is a minefield for World Cup advertisers. One team has already lost a sponsor. The digest Teenage student dies in twin explosions in Jerusalem Two explosions shook Jerusalem early Wednesday, killing one person and injuring 18 others in a suspected “combined terror attack,” according to an Israeli police spokesperson. The first explosion occurred at a bus station near the entrance of Jerusalem, killing a 16-year-old student at a Jewish seminary, his family told local media. The second explosion occurred almost half an hour later at the city’s Ramot junction. Initial investigations indicated that explosive devices were placed at both blast sites and a search is underway for suspects, the police spokesperson said. Background: The attack brings the number of people killed on the Israeli side of the conflict to at least 29 this year. This year has also been the deadliest for Palestinians in the West Bank since 2015. Why it matters: Jerusalem has not seen a double bombing like this one in many years. Prime Minister Yair Lapid said after participating in a situation assessment with security officials that the incident was “different from what we have seen in recent years.” The explosions come after months of tensions in the occupied West Bank. Russia to build attack drones for Ukraine war with the help of Iran, intelligence assessment says Iran and Russia have reached an agreement to begin the production of attack drones in Russia, according to a new intelligence assessment from a country that closely monitors Iran’s weapons program. Iran is beginning to transfer blueprints and components for the drones to Russia after the initial agreement was struck earlier this month, said a source familiar with the assessment. Background: US officials have said that Russia has received hundreds of drones from Tehran which have had a deadly effect in Ukraine. Earlier this month, the Iranian government acknowledged for the first time that it had sent a limited number of drones to Russia in the months before the start of its invasion of Ukraine. Why it matters: The move would further cement the partnership between Tehran and Moscow and likely provoke significant anger from Ukraine and its western allies including the US. Sources explained that the goal is for Russia to produce thousands of new attack drones using Iranian components and blueprints. Saudi Arabia says it may take steps to balance market Oil rose on Tuesday after Saudi Arabia said OPEC+ was sticking with output cuts and could take further steps to balance the market, outweighing global recession worries and concern about China’s rising Covid-19 case numbers, Reuters reported. Saudi Arabian Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman on Monday was also cited by state news agency SPA as denying a Wall Street Journal report that said OPEC was considering boosting output. Background: The Wall Street Journal earlier on Monday reported an output increase of 500,000 barrels per day was under discussion for the next meeting of OPEC and its allies, known as OPEC+, on December 4. The report cited unidentified OPEC delegates. The report sent oil prices plunging by more than 5%. Why it matters: The oil cartel last month cut production by 2 million barrels per day in an effort to stabilize the market “in light of the uncertainty that surrounds the global economic and oil market outlooks.” The oil cut was made despite strong US pressure against it. Potential further cuts could exacerbate already tense relations between the US and Saudi Arabia. LM Add a comment 1

I was wondering was there a such thing as lefthanded arabs? Was it true Umar was lefthanded, were there any left handed shias in history?

Salaam everyone, I uh have been trying to reconcile something. If Adnan was the ancestor of the Quraysh and the Prophet SAW, and he existed sometime 562 BC, after Nebuchadnezzar II took out the Qedar (tribe of Ishmael pbuh, and ancestor to Quraysh purportedl) Kingdom.... and the Prophet SAW himself was born in 570 AD... This would mean there's roughly 1100+ years between them. And the Prophet SAW says his descendants are 20/21 men before from himself, all the way to Adnan. So.. There's a small contention here. This would mean on the AVERAGE age of each and every one of the prophet's forefathers at conception of the next descendant, would be 54 years old......... I'm sure some of you already realize that this is problematic. Most people have kids between the ages 20 - 30 years old. Especially in ancient culture/traditions, wives may have had kids as soon as they hit 17/18 or even younger. The Prophet SAW himself had his first child in his 30's. This is really hard to reconcile as plausible guys. It seems highly unlikely that this claim is true. Unless the first 10 or so ancestors had their patrilineal main guy at 60/70 years old, then the last 10 guys had their kids at 30/40 years old.... This wouldn't make too much sense (even that example is highly dubious). The average survival age for males back then... as you all may already know.. was 50's, 60's if one was lucky. Logically, it makes sense why culturally we have kids from a very young age: Because they didn't live too long during those times. Can anyone provide or offer some insight who is knowledgeable on the subject of the Lineages and Pre-Islamic Arabia?

hello. I wonder if someone knows if the Quran mention anything about Esau, older Jacob's brother? He's mentioned in the bible, but I'd like to know if there's any shia islamic version of him. In some websites is mentioned that Isa (Jesus) is Esau, I mean that Esau and Isa are almost the same name, is that true? I've also heard that irani people say that they're not arabs, are arabs direct descendants of Ismael? Does the quran say anything about it? or the arabs have another book that registered the descendents of Ismael that at some point, it end up related the arabs as sons of Ismael, as the bible does with the jews. I'd appreciate so much If someone can answer it

I have a friend who doesn't like living with her family because they are tempered and always start trouble with her for the smallest thing. They always curse and disrespect her and the parents fight 24/7. Also they really dislike her because she has an older sister that made some mistakes so she gets judged for it by her family and the Muslim community in her city. She is really sick of the drama so she doesn't know what to do anymore. But she thinks if she moves out she will be more religious and good, what advice would u give to someone in her position? Thanks!

Thought some of you may be interested in this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdRc8c8jhU8

TYRE is a small province on Lebanon’s border with Israel, a place of poor tobacco farmers and tin-roofed shacks. Only about half the population has enough to eat. Many say that, in the past six months, somebody in the household has spent a day without food or gone hungry to bed. But there is something odd about the burden of malnutrition. While in hungry households just over a quarter of children under five are too short for their age—a classic symptom of malnutrition—a third are overweight, malnourished in the opposite sense. Tyre is suffering malnutrition and obesity simultaneously. This “dual burden” is growing everywhere, but nowhere as quickly as in the Arab world. Between 15% and 25% of Arab children under five are too short for their age and between 5% and 15% are underweight. Almost half of pregnant Egyptian women are anaemic, reflecting an iron deficiency often caused by poor diets. Yet a survey in 2006 reckoned that 30% of Egyptian adults were obese. Obesity estimates for Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were even higher: between 35% and 45%. The most obvious explanation for this paradox is that the two problems exist in separate realms: obesity among the well-to-do, under-nutrition among the poor. Yet this is not the whole story. Obesity and malnutrition exist not only in the same country but within the same community, the same household and even, strange as it may seem, in the same person. A study by Hala Ghattas of the American University of Beirut looks at three marginal populations in Lebanon: the villages of Tyre, a group of Bedouins and Palestinian refugees. All are relatively poor, but a third of the worst-off Bedouin were still obese and another quarter were overweight. In Tyre, some villages are largely unaffected; one, called Tayr Harfa, is many times worse off than its neighbours. Problems of under- and over-nutrition appear in the same communities. But how can they appear in the same household? It is largely because of the way the body reacts to changing diets. If a woman is severely malnourished in the womb or during her first two years of life, her metabolism will change permanently. She will store spare calories as fat—an insurance against future hard times. If 20 years later the family gets a more plentiful yet still poor diet (with a lot of calories but not many micronutrients, such as iron or vitamins) she will become overweight or obese, while her children will suffer nutritional deficiency, such as anaemia or blindness. They will be undernourished and she will be obese. As countries move from extreme poverty to middle-income status, this move from starvation rations to calorie-rich, nutrition-poor diets has become more common. In Egypt, 12% of children are stunted and have obese mothers. The mothers will not escape problems from nutritional deficiency. They still have an unhealthy diet. In Egypt, Peru and Mexico, about half the women with anaemia are overweight or obese. They are simultaneously over- and underfed: too many calories, not enough micronutrients.

Okay, im just wondering, not trying to be offensive, but why are so many of the Arab countries keep the names of the British colonial mandates? a little back ground on history, most of the modern Arab states, like Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine, Jordan..etc. were created when Britain and France drew lines in the sand after dismantling the Ottoman Caliphate. Arabs didnt really have much of a say in this even though the British had promised them independence if they back stabbed the Turks and sided with them. Instead the British and French just cut up the states. They gave them names based on what they felt it should be, like Jordan and Palestine: these names were put into place by the British and had no historical meaning in Arabic! Some others, kept their old names, like Syria for example. Im not sure about Lebanon and Iraq though, i think Lebanon might be a French name. seems like a pretty pointless issue, but im just wondering, how could a proud people like the Arabs accept names and borders given to them by a foreign occupier?