Address For Peace Arch Border Crossing

Muslims Vigil at Blaine US-Canada Border « Penjihad's Blog

Muslims Vigil at Blaine US-Canada Border

It began with a story of a young Muslim lady who was removed from her Southwest Air flight by a paranoid stewardess in San Diego in March 2011. In May 2011, two Muslims were removed from their Atlantic flight because the pilot refused to take Muslims on his plane.

Following the second event, 58 leaders and heads of Churches, Synagogues and Mosques wrote a letter to President Obama asking him to instruct the Secretary of Transportation to inform all airlines of serious consequences if they arbitrarily removed people from their flights; we got a form-letter from the White House in reply.

In the meantime, stories of Muslims suffering humiliating and terrorizing treatment at the hands of Customs and Border agents at entry-points like the Blaine (WA) had also been piling up for years…again with letters to the regional head of ICE/CBP/USCIS and to Janet Napolitano, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security that I refer to as, “Fatherland Security”.  Again, our letters got us nothing but canned letters telling us how every agent is trained to the highest standards etc., etc., etc.,

We were also continuing to get news that law-enforcement agencies (Police departments, FBI and CIA) as well as the military, were being trained that Islam and Muslims pose the greatest threat to the US because we are determined to destroy the US; the brainwashing of our protectors is well underway .

The overall impression is inescapable; we are not simply paranoid, they are actually out to get us.

What to do? We tried reaching out to our persecutors and their bosses, but got nothing. We tried to reach out to our lawmakers, the Senators and the Representatives, but once again, when faced with supporting the right cause and being called “soft on terrorism” or, standing patriotically “tough!”, Muslims lost out.

In May, we started exploring the possibility of conducting a vigil-demonstration on the US-side of the Peace Arch border-crossing at Blaine, WA. We started with publicizing within the Muslim communities and to non-Muslim friends, to join us and make this a success. We got the support of Kamran, fellow Muslim and owner of Digi-Copy printers who gave us expert design advice and a HUGE discount for our banners (we wanted everything to be first-class) and even then, the cost of printing the banners came to almost $900. The publicity began; I was determined to hold the demonstration even if I went alone.

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