New York Muslims to rally against NYPD

New York, February 02: The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the US city of New York has planned a rally to protest the recent actions of the New York Police Department (NYPD) against the Muslim community.

CAIR-New York has posted an announcement for the “Rally for Justice” on Friday Feb. 3 from 3-5pm in Foley Square on its website cair-ny.org urging the Muslim community of New York City to participate and call their family and friends to do so as well.

“The NYPD has transgressed all boundaries of respect for our community namely in their instillation of spying and surveillance program of masjids (mosques) … and more recently in the use of the anti-Muslim film “The Third Jihad” in NYPD trainings,” CAIR wrote on its website.

The “The Third Jihad” is a 72-minute documentary-style film Many Muslim produced by the American-Israeli institution Clarion Fund makes controversial movies to promote Islamophobia in America. Many Muslim organizations have branded the movie as inflammatory.

CAIR-New York's announcement said the movie “depicts the majority of American Muslims as supportive of violent extremism” adding that, “most disappointingly is the participation of current police commissioner Ray Kelly in the video.”

Kelly had denied the use of the film before it was revealed that the movie had been used in police training for over 1500 NYPD anti-terrorism police cadets.

According to CAIR, since Kelly and Mayor Bloomberg both refuse to accept the severity of the case, or meet with local Islamic leaders in an attempt to mend the situation “we as a community with full force must stand up to the mistreatment and dismissal of our community at large. Silence and lack of reaction to this pressing issue will only allow this type systematic persecution of a minority community to continue and escalate without any reprimand.”

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WikiLeak's Assange extradition fight heads to UK Supreme Court

London February 01: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's extradition fight goes to Britain's Supreme Court on Wednesday for two days of hearings on whether he should be sent back to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault.

In November, Assange -- who is under house arrest -- lost a court battle to stay in Britain. The following month, the British High Court said he would be allowed to mount an appeal.

Assange's lawyers have vowed to take the fight all the way to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary.

Two women in Sweden accused Assange in August 2010 of sexually assaulting them.

Although he has not been charged with a crime, Swedish prosecutors want to question him in connection with the allegations.

Swedish authorities allege that one unnamed woman agreed to have sex with him only if he wore a condom, and that he then had unprotected sex with her while she was asleep.

Assange denies wrongdoing and says the case is politically motivated.

The extradition case is not linked to Assange's work as founder and editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, which has put him on the wrong side of U.S. authorities.

His organization, which facilitates the anonymous leaking of secret information, has published some 250,000 confidential U.S. diplomatic cables, causing embarrassment to the government and others.

It has also published hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. documents relating to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But the organization has come under increasing financial pressure in recent months, leading Assange to announce in October that WikiLeaks was temporarily stopping publication to "aggressively fundraise" in order to stay afloat.

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