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Bush apologises to Muslims over gaffe
Kashif
07/01/01 at 19:51:38
Bush apologises to Muslims over gaffe US President George Bush has apologised over an incident at the White House, when a visiting Muslim community leader was mistakenly ordered out of the building. A uniformed Secret Service officer approached 20-year-old Abdallah al-Arian, a member of a Muslim delegation, and asked him to leave immediately. No reason was given. The whole group of visiting Muslim leaders then left in protest. When the Secret Service realised that it had made a mistake, the Muslims were invited back, but they declined. "The president is very concerned that an action was taken that was wrong and inappropriate, and the president apologises for it on behalf of the White House," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. Funding meeting The Muslim leaders were at the Old Executive Office Building for a meeting to discuss President Bush's faith-based initiative, that calls for providing federal funds to religious organisations involved in charity and community work. Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American Islamic Relations welcomed Mr Bush's apology. But he called for the White House to appoint a full-time liaison officer to the Muslim community, to "dispel impressions within the Muslim community that there's some kind of exclusion from his policy-making circles". The BBC's Stephen Sackur in Washington says that there has still been no explanation as to why Mr al-Arian, a student doing volunteer work in Washington, should have been ejected. But his uncle, a Palestinian academic, was imprisoned for three years without trial by the US authorities after being accused of links with Islamic militants. Mazen al-Najjar was released six months ago. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1414000/1414900.stm
NS

Re: Muslim "Mistakenly" thrown out of White House
se7en
07/02/01 at 00:03:49
as salaamu alaykum wa rahmatAllah, Today I spoke with a sister who's in the same program as brother Abdallah Al-Arian, MSN - the Muslim Student Network in DC.  He is the son of a Muslim activist, Sami Al-Arian who helped work against the secret evidence act.  Brother Abdallah was attending a briefing with the assistant director of the white house Mark Scott on faith based and community initiatives. The Muslims in DC are heated.. and Bush's lame apology is nowhere near adequate in rectifying this "gaffe". It's interesting how the AP report mentions his uncle, who was questioned for terrorist activity, and not his father. You can check out [url=http://cair-net.org/]cair[/url] for more info on this.
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