Featured Issue: The Ukraine Refugee Crisis and the Test of Humanity; The Rising Tides of Authoritarianism Reach India’s Muslims

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Issue 69: Friday, 18 March 2022


THIS WEEK IN DC— DOJ Names Chief Prosecutor For Pandemic Fraud Task Force; Obama Tests Positive For Covid-19; Raskin Withdraws As Biden’s Fed Nominee; Senate Agrees On Permanent Daylight Saving Time; Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff Tests Positive For Covid, White House Says; Harris' Deputy Press Secretary Leaving Her Office; Zelenskyy Pleads For Help In Impassioned Speech To Congress; Biden Announces Hundreds Of Millions In New Security Aid For Ukraine; Dr. Ashish Jha Is The New White House COVID Response Coordinator; House Passes Bill To Suspend Normal Trade Relations With Russia; House Passes Bill To Suspend Normal Trade Relations With Russia; Biden and China's Xi hold call to discuss Ukraine.

IN THIS ISSUE
* Featured Issue: The Ukraine Refugee Crisis and the Test of Humanity
* The Rising Tides of Authoritarianism Reach India’s Muslims
* ICYMI: AMEAON Celebrates Women’s History Month


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** The Ukraine Refugee Crisis and the Test of Humanity
By: Prema Rahman, MPAC Policy Analyst
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Image credit: AFP


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We are in the midst of a global refugee crisis, with millions of families and individuals from all over the world, including South Sudan, Myanmar, Syria, Afghanistan, and, most recently, Ukraine, forced to flee their homes. These people have come face to face with the horrors of war, hunger, violence, and persecution. They had to give up all the comforts, familiarity, and sense of belonging one has from being home, to simply survive.

For nations and people who enjoy the privilege of stability and resources, it is a moral imperative to help the helpless. That is our duty as citizens of humanity.

More than 2.5 million Ukranians have now fled their homeland to seek refuge from the Russian invasion, an unprecedented rate of external displacement in this era. How we respond to this crisis and the overall global refugee crisis is a test of our humanity. For American Muslims and Muslims worldwide, it is also a test of our faith…

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** The Rising Tides of Authoritarianism Reach India’s Muslims
By: MPAC Policy Bureau

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Artwork: Soham Sen/ThePrint


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Earlier this week, an Indian court upheld a challenge to the so-called Hijab ban.

The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) party led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has encouraged the targeting of religious minorities, including Muslims, for years.

This is well known and thanks to the work of journalist Rana Ayyub through her book “Gujarat Files: Anatomy of a Cover Up,” his participation in the mass killing of Muslims in Gujarat is irrefutable. Others who have tried to tell this story face grave danger including Mrs. Ayyub’s colleague, Mr. Ajit Sahi. He, a Hindu, was forced to flee his homeland and move to the United States just because he was reporting on the atrocities that Muslims in India have faced...

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ICYMI:


** MPAC Celebrates Women's History Month
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This Women's History Month, the American Muslim Elected and Appointed Officials Network (AMEAON), a collaboration between Muslim Public Affairs Council, American Indivisible and IL Muslim Civic Coalition held a panel with Farrah Khan, Mayor of Irvine, California, Sadia Covert, Board Commissioner for DuPage County in Illinois and Nadia Hassan, Commissioner for Maryland Governor’s Office of Community Initiatives to learn more about their story and journey through public service.

Watch the webinar→ ([link removed])


GOOD TO KNOW
* India court upholds ([link removed]) a ban on hijab in schools and colleges
* Fact check: Earliest attacks on US Capitol date back ([link removed]) to 19th century
* New COVID variant spreads ([link removed]) as world starts to ditch restrictions
* Pfizer seeks ([link removed]) emergency authorization for 2nd Covid booster for 65-plus


- THIS WEEK IN HISTORY -

Mar 13, 624 - Battle of Badr: Prophet Muhammad's Muslim forces win significant victory over Meccan army; Mar 13, 624 - Abu Sufjan becomes Quraish chief and leader of Mecca after loss at Battle of Badr against Muslim forces; Mar 14, 1913 - South African Supreme Court declares that marriages not celebrated according to Christian rites and/or not registered by the Registrar of Marriages, are invalid; all Muslim and Hindu marriages are therefore declared invalid; Mar 14, 1991 - Emir of Kuwait returns to Kuwait City, after the Iraqis leave; Mar 14, 2005 - Cedar Revolution, where over a million Lebanese march in the streets of Beirut to demonstrate against the Syrian military presence in Lebanon, and against the government, following the assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri; Mar 16, 1922 - Egypt achieves independence from Britain, but British troops remain; Mar 16, 1977 - US President Jimmy Carter pleads for a Palestinian homeland; Mar 16, 2005 - Israel officially hands over Jericho to
Palestinian control; Mar 18, 1975 - Kurds end fight against Iraqi army; Mar 19, 2002 - U.S. invasion of Afghanistan: Operation Anaconda ends (started on March 2) after killing 500 Taliban and al Qaeda fighters with 11 allied troop fatalities; Mar 19, 2003 - Airstrikes by an American and British-led coalition signal the beginning of the invasion of Iraq, without United Nations support and in defiance of world opinion.

Mar 13, 1865 - Confederate President Jefferson Davis signs bill authorizing use of slaves as soldiers (US Civil War); Mar 13, 1938 - World News Roundup is broadcast for the first time on CBS Radio in the United States; Mar 14, 1743 - First American town meeting is held in Boston's Faneuil Hall; Mar 14, 1907 - By Presidential order, Japanese laborers are excluded from entering the USA; Mar 14, 1973 - Future US senator John McCain is released after spending over five years in a North Vietnamese prisoner of war camp; Mar 15, 1783 - In an emotional speech in Newburgh, New York, George Washington asks his officers not to support the Newburgh Conspiracy. The plea is successful and the threatened coup d'etat never takes place; Mar 16, 1869 - Hiram R. Revels makes first official speech by an African American in the Senate; Mar 16, 1883 - Susan Hayhurst becomes first US woman graduate of a pharmacy college; Mar 16, 1964 - LBJ asks Congress to pass Economic Opportunity Act as part of his War on
Poverty; Mar 18, 1766 - Britain repeals the Stamp Act, which had caused outrage in colonial America and helped lead to the American Revolution; Mar 18, 1877 - US President Rutherford B. Hayes appoints Frederick Douglass marshal of Washington, D.C.; Mar 18, 1942 - US President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9102, creating the War Relocation Authority, which was charged with overseeing the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II; Mar 15, 1947 - John Lee appointed first black commissioned officer in US Navy; Mar 14, 1966 - Riots erupt in the Watts area of Los Angeles, CA; Mar 15, 1989 - US Department of Veterans Affairs officially established as a Cabinet position; Mar 15, 1991 - 4 officers of the LAPD are charged with excessive force over the beating of Rodney King.

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