Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. The Muslim Times has the best collection for interfaith tolerance. Suggested reading: Why Did Muhammad Fly to Jerusalem?
Source: The Guardian
In Houston on Saturday, an annual Islamic convention hosting presidential hopefuls Bernie Sanders and Julian Castro braced for an armed far-right protest and a counter-demonstration.
The 56th Islamic Society of North America (Isna) convention was billed as one of the largest yearly events held by Muslim American advocacy groups. Castro and Sanders were slated to take the stage for one-on-one presidential forums. Organizers estimated around 30,000 would attend the three-day event.
“We are really happy [Castro and Sanders] are coming in to address our community,” Lubabah Abdullah, an Isna board member, told the Guardian. “We’ve recently realized the Muslim community has a strong voting bloc, if we do go out and register and actually show up to vote.”
In the 2018 midterm elections, Muslim Americans in four key states – Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Virginia – showed up to the ballot box at a rate of 25% higher than the 2014 midterms, according to a study by the advocacy group Emgage.
After coming to office in January 2017, the Trump administration introduced a travel ban targeting mostly Muslim-majority countries, slashed the number of refugees admitted to the US to an all-time low of 30,000 per year, and drummed up the threat of “unknown Middle Easterners” attempting to cross the southern border.
Suggested reading
Houston: Islamic group hosts Sanders and Castro as rightwingers protest
Why Did Muhammad Fly to Jerusalem?
How can we build the Third Temple together?
Archaeologists find evidence of Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem, as told in the Bible
Categories: Anti-Semitism, Collection of articles, Interfaith tolerance, Islamophobia, Israel, Judaism, The Muslim Times, USA
Nice to The Muslim Times report an ISNA EVENT on Bernie Sanders.
Thanks
At the same time, Sanders pointed to causes for optimism: the non-Muslims who joined in airport protests against the travel ban and the Muslim who have been elected to Congress under Trump. “What that tells me is that the American people understand our country is at our best when we stand together regardless of our religious or spiritual beliefs,” Sanders said.
On foreign policy, Sanders touted his 2002 opposition to the the Iraq War, which, he noted, created instability in the region and gave rise to the Islamic State terrorist group whose victims are overwhelmingly Muslim. Sanders also broached a topic that has not gotten wide discussion in the 2020 field, criticizing India for recently revoking the autonomy of Kashmir, a disputed region with Pakistan.
“India’s action is unacceptable,” Sanders said. “The communications blockade must be lifted immediately, and the United States government must speak out boldly in support of international humanitarian law and in support of a U.N.-backed peaceful resolution that respects the will of the Kashmiri people.”
Both Castro and Sanders made other stops in Houston prior to the ISNA convention. Castro appeared at a protest organized outside a migrant detention facility on the outskirts of downtown, railing against the Trump administration policy of separating migrant children from their parents at the border.
https://www.texastribune.org/2019/08/31/julian-castro-bernie-sanders-court-muslim-vote-houston/