March, 25 2015, 10:45am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
CAIR Government Affairs Manager Robert McCaw, 202-742-6448, rmccaw@cair.com
CAIR Asks Presidential Candidate Ted Cruz to Drop Appearance at Event Featuring Hate Group Leader
WASHINGTON
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today called on Sen. Ted Cruz, a presidential candidate, to cancel his scheduled appearance at a conference in New Hampshire later this week because the event is hosted by a group with ties to white supremacists and other speakers include the leader of a designated hate group.
Sen. Cruz will reportedly speak at the "New England Freedom Conference," to be hosted by the Young America's Foundation on March 27 and 28.
The Young America's Foundation (YAF) joined with Young Americans for Freedom in 2011. In 2007, Young Americans for Freedom hosted an event at Michigan State University that featured two white supremacist activists. The event's main speaker was Nick Griffin, a Holocaust denier who was at the time the chairman of the white supremacist British National Party (BNP). The master of ceremonies for the event was Texas neo-Nazi Preston Wiginton.
Another scheduled speaker at the "New England Freedom Conference" is Robert Spencer. Spencer is a co-founder of Stop Islamization of America (SIOA), which has been designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Spencer's Jihad Watch blog is also designated as a hate group by the SPLC, which named Spencer as part of the nation's "Anti-Muslim Inner Circle." Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik cited Spencer's blog 162 times in his manifesto.
In a special report, the independent national media watch group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), identified Spencer as one of the "Dirty Dozen: America's Leading Islamophobes" who systematically "spread fear, bigotry, and misinformation."
"If Senator Cruz believes that he can campaign for president while sharing center stage with a professional hate monger like Robert Spencer, I seriously doubt his ability to win the U.S. minority vote or unite the country as president," said CAIR Government Affairs Manager Robert McCaw. "As the first Republican to declare his candidacy for president, CAIR recommends that Senator Cruz reach out to members of the American Muslim and other U.S. minority communities to better understand their issues and concerns. Senator Cruz will need more than just the evangelical bloc and Tea Party votes if he wants to rise past the Republican primary."
Yesterday, an umbrella organization of national Muslim groups sent an open letter to former Governor Jeb Bush asking him to drop an anti-Muslim activist as his PAC advisor.
Two weeks ago, CAIR expressed concern when Sen. Cruz and other likely presidential hopefuls participated in an anti-Muslim summit in South Carolina.
In January, CAIR issued an open letter to potential Republican presidential candidates urging them to reject Islamophobia and to reach out to American Muslim voters.
CAIR is America's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is a grassroots civil rights and advocacy group. CAIR is America's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance understanding of Islam, protect civil rights, promote justice, and empower American Muslims.
(202) 488-8787LATEST NEWS
Advocates Launch Campaign Featuring Children Who Didn't Survive Climate Chaos
"Premature deaths due to fossil fuel-related air pollution are silencing young voices."
Sep 13, 2023
To drive home the point that premature deaths from fossil fuel pollution and the climate disasters it causes—including those of children—are not "a distant, abstract concept but a pressing reality," two advocacy groups on Tuesday launched a campaign featuring the faces of kids who did not survive the climate crisis.
Fridays for Future U.S. and Youth Climate Strike L.A. generated the images using artificial intelligence with the help of creative agency Fred & Farid—but the campaign, titled "Silenced," emphasizes that the children in the pictures represent the hundreds of thousands of children who die each year from pollution and extreme weather events such as flooding and drought.
The six images produced for the campaign show children looking directly at the viewer, with the word "SILENCED" over their faces and a caption that reads, "This young person will not raise their voice against climate change because they died from climate change."
"Premature deaths due to fossil fuel-related air pollution are silencing young voices," said Fridays for Future U.S. on social media.
A United Nations Human Rights Special Procedures report found last year that globally, an estimated 150,000 premature deaths per year have been linked to climate change, while the American Thoracic Society has estimated that around 1,341 people die in Los Angeles each year due to poor air quality driven by pollution such as carbon and methane emissions from fossil fuel extraction.
UNICEF, the U.N.'s children's agency, determined in 2021 that approximately 1 billion children worldwide are at "extremely high risk" of being exposed to potentially deadly environmental and climate shocks.
Calling the climate crisis "a child's rights crisis," UNICEF said that 240 million children are "highly exposed" to flooding in coastal areas, 400 million are exposed to cyclones and hurricanes, 820 million are exposed to extreme heat, and 1 billion are exposed to "exceedingly high levels of air pollution."
The World Health Organization also revealed in 2017 that more than 1 in 4 deaths of children under the age of five are attributable to "unhealthy environments" including those that expose children to air pollution.
The children featured in "Silenced" either "could have been alive today but unfortunately passed away early or were not born at all due to the harmful effects of air pollution, particularly caused by fossil fuel emissions," said Fridays for Future U.S.
"We believe that 'Silenced' is a powerful reminder of the real human cost of climate change," said Katharina Maier, the group's national coordinator. "We're facing more and more destructive impacts from fossil fuel pollution, contaminating our water and air, and sickening our communities—with low wealth and communities of color hit first and worst."
"We need an immediate and just transition from fossil fuels. This campaign is a call to action for all of us to stand up against the fossil fuel industry and work towards a cleaner, more sustainable future," Maier added.
The campaign was launched ahead of a global climate strike planned for September 15-17, which is taking place just before world leaders convene in New York at the U.N. Climate Ambition Summit to present updated climate action and emissions reduction targets.
The climate actions of wealthy countries such as the U.S. have left advocates continuing to demand that President Joe Biden declare a climate emergency and end fossil fuel drilling on public lands, as the Biden administration this year approved the Willow drilling project in Alaska and the Mountain Valley Pipeline in Virginia and West Virginia.
"Join us on September 15th and 17th for the global climate strike as we demand an end to the era of fossil fuels," said Maier. "We are the heroes we've been waiting for."
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NYC Pension Funds and State of Oregon Sue Fox Over Election Lies
"Defendants chose to invite robust defamation claims, with potentially huge financial liability and potentially larger business repercussions, rather than disappoint viewers of Fox News," the lawsuit reads in part.
Sep 13, 2023
The state of Oregon and New York City's pension funds filed a lawsuit against Fox Corporation Tuesday, arguing that the company allowed its Fox News channel to air falsehoods surrounding the 2020 election that put shareholders' investments at risk.
The lawsuit, which was filed in the Delaware Court of Chancery, is the most important shareholder action against the company since it settled a defamation suit for a record $787.5 million with Dominion Voting Systems in April. It also comes as experts had long warned the corporation it was leaving itself vulnerable to exactly these kinds of lawsuits by spreading lies that could lead to defamation claims, CNN reported.
"The board of Fox Corporation took a massive risk in pursuing profits by perpetuating and peddling known falsehoods," Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said in a statement. "The directors' choices exposed themselves and the company to liability and exposed their shareholders to significant risks. That is the crux of our lawsuit, and we look forward to making our case in court."
"Fox's board of directors has blatantly disregarded the need for journalistic standards and failed to put safeguards in place despite having a business model that invites defamation litigation."
In the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, both guests and hosts on Fox News repeated the false claim that former President Donald Trump had truly won the election and circulated conspiracy theories justifying this view, such as the lie that Dominion voting machines had swapped Trump votes to votes for President Joe Biden. The lawsuit argues that by catering to the desires of pro-Trump viewers, it failed in its duty to shareholders.
"Defendants chose to invite robust defamation claims, with potentially huge financial liability and potentially larger business repercussions, rather than disappoint viewers of Fox News," the lawsuit reads in part, according to The Associated Press.
Both New York City's pension funds and the state of Oregon have significant investments in Fox Corporation. The city pension funds had $28.1 million worth of shares at the end of July, while the state of Oregon had shares worth $5.2 million as of August 31, its Department of Justice said.
Neither plaintiff has specified an amount of damages, but New York City Comptroller and pension fund manager Brad Lander toldThe New York Times the city needed to "make the shareholders whole."
"Fox's board of directors has blatantly disregarded the need for journalistic standards and failed to put safeguards in place despite having a business model that invites defamation litigation," Lander said in a statement reported by CNN. "A lack of journalistic standards and a proper strategy to mitigate defamation has clearly harmed Fox's reputation and threatens their bottom line and long-term profitability."
Fox leadership did not comment to any major outlets on the lawsuit.
In addition to the Dominion suit, Fox has faced several other defamation claims, including an upcoming $2.7 billion lawsuit from election technology company Smartmatic and another from Ray Epps, a man from Arizona at the center of a conspiracy theory alleging he ran an FBI plan to instigate the riots at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Some groups argue that Fox News should face consequences beyond lawsuits. On July 3, the Media and Democracy project filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to not renew the broadcast license for FOX 29 Philadelphia (WTXF-TV).
"As an FCC broadcast licensee FOX is bound to broadcast in the public interest, convenience, and necessity," the petitioners wrote. "Instead, it has repeatedly aired false information about election fraud, sowing discord in the country and contributing to harmful and dangerous acts on January 6, 2021."
Media experts and activists Steve Macek and Mitchell Szczepanczyk argued in a column that appeared at Common Dreams last week that the petition had merit.
"Although stripping an established TV station of its broadcast license may seem like an extreme measure," they said, "the Fox Corporation's record of malfeasance and its repeated betrayal of the public trust justifies the action in this case."
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200+ Groups Implore COP28 Nations to Address UAE's Human Rights and Climate Abuses
"Allowing COP28 to be held by the rulers of a repressive petrostate, and overseen by an oil executive, is reckless, represents a blatant conflict of interest, and threatens the legitimacy of the whole process."
Sep 13, 2023
More than 200 civil society organizations from around the world on Wednesday urged leaders of countries participating in this autumn's United Nations Climate Change Conference—popularly known as COP28—to address host nation United Arab Emirates' "human rights record and destructive policies on climate change."
"We support the concerns expressed by climate justice movements that allowing COP28 to be held by the rulers of a repressive petrostate, and overseen by an oil executive, is reckless, represents a blatant conflict of interest, and threatens the legitimacy of the whole process," the groups wrote in a letter, referring to Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, the CEO of the United Arab Emirates' state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC)—one of the world's largest fossil fuel firms.
Earlier this year, one European Union lawmaker likened al-Jaber's COP28 presidency to "having a tobacco multinational overseeing the internal work of the World Health Organization."
The groups' letter continues:
Climate justice and human rights are deeply interconnected—there cannot be one without the other. As COP28 delegates prepare to attend the talks in Dubai, it is crucial for the international community to use the opportunity to shine a spotlight on the UAE's human rights record, and to stand in solidarity with communities on the frontlines working to stop climate change impacts and human rights violations in the UAE and across the world.
The signatories called on the world leaders to:
- Demand that the UAE not spy on COP28 attendees and end unlawful surveillance that violates international human rights law;
- Call on the UAE to release all prisoners of conscience;
- Demand action on violations of women's rights;
- Condemn violations of LGBTQ+ rights;
- Call for workers' rights reforms and reparation for forced labor;
- Urge the UAE to stop supporting human rights violators in Yemen and across the Middle East and North Africa; and
- Publicly repudiate UAE greenwashing and fossil fuel hypocrisy.
"In addition, we urge all nations to make meaningful and ambitious commitments at COP28, with rich countries taking responsibility for their historical emissions and leading the way with commitments in line with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities and principles of equity," the letter asserts.
"COP28 must produce a global commitment to phase out all fossil fuels and fossil fuel subsidies at the speed needed to keep global average temperature increases below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels," the signers added.
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