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Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - March 16, 2006
Turks decide not to move where they're not welcome
By Jan Ackerman
When several South Park residents made anti-Islamic speeches at a March hearing about a proposed Islamic center, township Supervisor George A. Smith tried to silence them. "We are dealing with hard issues," Mr. Smith said during the hearing, which was supposed to focus on zoning issues, not religious or cultural differences. "I was not elected to impose my personal beliefs on the community. This is not productive to this kind of discussion," he said.
But the anti-Islamic rhetoric was there and it had an impact on the West Penn Cultural Center, a small Turkish nonprofit organization which operates a private school in Monroeville. The group withdrew its application Tuesday to turn the old, vacant Broughton Elementary School into an Islamic center where members could worship and preserve their Turkish culture.
"It was not an easy decision for us," said Yuksel Korkmaz, director of the cultural center. In a news release, the group cited comments made at last Thursday's hearing as the reason it was moving on. "[People] came forward and made comments that deeply hurt members of the cultural center," the release said.
"As a group that promotes peace and dialogue, we have never encountered such negativity in our long history here..…WPCC is looking for a peaceful and lovely environment to perform its activities. ... It is clear to us that South Park is not the best place for our organization."
The group, which has been in Pittsburgh for six years, said it was looking for a place to keep its traditions alive and to engage in interfaith dialogue. It bought the graffiti-covered, boarded up school for $100,000 and planned to make about $300,000 in improvements, their attorney, Dwight Ferguson, repeatedly told South Park officials and residents.
Bekir Duz, a board member of the cultural center, said Tuesday that the group would sell the old school and look for another property. "We are sincerely disappointed that the neighbors at Broughton school could not open their hearts to us. If they would just get to know us, if they would have accepted our invitations to get together and talk, we believe they would have understood us better. "We are still very hopeful they will come to visit us someday. We would be happy to know them better."
At the hearing, some people expressed fear about Islamic terrorist cells. John Morden, of South Park, who circulated a petition opposing the center, said he agreed that Islam in Turkey is not as violent as in other parts of the world, but that he thought people who believe in interfaith dialogue between Christians and Muslims were being fooled.
"The true teachings of Islam are anti-Christian," said Mr. Morden, who tried to explain his opposition at the hearing, but was silenced by Mr. Smith. "I do not want an anti-Christian group in this school, even though they have watered it down," Mr. Morden said outside the meeting.
In a letter to the editor that appeared in Tuesday's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Rob Belan, of South Park, demanded that the cultural group openly denounce radical Islam and terrorism if it hopes to be accepted in South Park.
Supporters of the cultural center explain that they are Turks, not Arabs, and that their country, while 98 percent Islamic, is a secular republic which has been a friend and ally of the United States and NATO for 50 years.
James Kelly, of Bethel Park, a real estate broker who has worked with the group, said members of West Penn Cultural Center were "nice people, loyal, ethical and hardworking." He said one member of the group has a high-level U.S. security clearance. "They are trying to make a way for their culture," he said.
The group follows the teachings of M. Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish religious scholar whose movement emphasizes education and interfaith dialogue…..
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06075/670710.stm
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette – March 15, 2006
Group drops plan for Turkish cultural
center in South Park, Pennsylvania
By Jan Ackerman
After facing what it saw as anti-Muslim sentiment at a public hearing last week, a Turkish organization has dropped its plan to turn a vacant school in South Park into a cultural center.
"As a group that promotes peace and dialogue, we have never encountered such negativity in our long history here," the West Penn Cultural Center board said in a statement yesterday.
The group will withdraw its application for a permit to turn the old Broughton Elementary School into a facility where members of the Turkish community could adapt to American culture while maintaining Turkish traditions and language. They also planned to worship in one of the classrooms on Friday afternoons.
At the public hearing, some residents said they didn't want the cultural center to renovate the school, claiming Islamic centers and mosques can harbor sleeper cells of terrorists.
Barbara Houston, program director of the South Hills Interfaith Ministry in South Park, which promotes interfaith dialogue, said she was devastated by the news. She attended last Thursday's hearing. "I feel defeated. How heartbreaking for us. We should be ashamed in this community," she said yesterday.
George A. Smith, chairman of the township board of supervisors, tried to focus last Thursday's hearing on zoning issues, but said some speakers made comments that were "inappropriate."
"Some of the remarks were hurtful. It was unfortunate. That is not how one man should treat the other," said Mr. Smith. He conceded that the cultural center's decision to pull out of South Park will "make a lot of people happy."
Bekir Duz, a board member of the cultural center, said the group now will sell the old school, which it purchased for $100,000 last year……
In its statement yesterday, the board of the cultural center said residents living around Broughton Elementary School "came forward and made comments that deeply hurt members of the cultural center."
"WPCC has been living and working in Pittsburgh peacefully as a center for more than six years and many of our members have lived here for more than 10 year," the board said. "We are sincerely disappointed that the neighbors of Broughton school could not open their hearts to us. If they would just get to know us, if they would have accepted our invitations to get together and talk, we believe they would have understood us better."
The cultural center, which says it is dedicated to promoting interfaith dialogue and intercultural understanding, counts among its members professionals, students and business people who work to bring together those of different communities, ethnic backgrounds and faiths.
They are well-known for their annual "iftar" dinners, which join religious and political dignitaries to mark the break of the Ramadan fast in the Islamic calendar….
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06074/670440.stm
Detroit Free Press - March 16, 2006
Warren City denies plan for Islamic center
BY DAN CORTEZ
Warren's planning commission said it doesn't care what will go on inside a building that could become the city's first mosque -- it won't let the project move ahead because of what most of its members believe would happen outside it.
But Steve Elturk -- whose proposal to build the mosque and Islamic learning center at an office and retail building on Ryan was shot down in a 6-3 vote Monday -- said commissioners' concerns about parking and the prospect of a loudspeaker announcing the Muslim call to prayer had already been addressed by another city body.
Elturk said he may head to court to see if he can open the mosque, alleging that city officials' rejection of the project had more to do with religion than with parking spaces.
"One of the things I learned is the City of Warren is notorious for these attitudes," said Elturk, who added that the building cost close to $1 million. "I think the next step is going to be litigation, lawsuits. We need to work together to bring tolerance. I'm ready to fight this."
Commission member Alan Casmere, who voted against the project, said the commission had no racial motives in making its ruling.
"We weren't racist at all toward this gentleman," Casmere said. "I know the commission feels strongly about that. We're not objecting to them locating in the City of Warren."
Last year, Elturk tried to put the mosque in Hazel Park, but city officials would not rezone a property to accommodate him.
Elturk and the Islamic Organization of North America bought the building in August, and had already agreed in writing to not broadcast the five daily calls to prayer outside. But commissioners said Monday they were still concerned about the possibility of the call disrupting the neighborhood.
Several residents at the commission meeting raised concerns about the external loudspeaker. Commission members had the same worry, but Elturk said it was unfounded. On Jan. 25, Elturk received a variance from the city's Zoning Board of Appeals to open the center in a commercially zoned area. That variance included notice that the center could not place a loudspeaker on the building.
"It's already in writing," said Elturk, who was born in Lebanon and moved to Detroit in 1976. "It's a condition, and we all understand if we violate the condition we can lose the building." "The sentiments were not only racial and discriminatory but the decision was premeditated," Elturk added. "We feel we have been discriminated against."….
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060316/NEWS05/603160516
Washington Post - March 20, 2006
Work starts on Islamic high school
Nation's Reaction to 9/11 Spurred Annapolis
Group's Idea for Expanded Mission
By Daniel de Vise
Construction has begun on a 20-acre campus near Annapolis that will house an Islamic high school, a television station, athletic facilities and eventually a college, according to project directors.
Mohammad Arafa, executive director of the Islamic Society of Annapolis, said the Mekkah Learning Center will be the first Islamic high school in the region. Work will progress on the $8 million project only as fast as donations permit; religious law forbids the society to take out a loan with interest.
The school will complement two established Islamic schools in the region, Al-Huda School in College Park and Al-Rahmah School in Baltimore, each serving a few hundred students up to the middle-school grades. Arafa said he has the support of 22 Muslim leaders across Maryland.
He envisions the campus as a means "to help our children to be Americans and Muslims without having to compromise their identity" and as a place where Muslims and non-Muslims can gather to bridge their differences. . .
Arafa cannot predict when classes will begin on the site, southwest of where Crain Highway meets Interstate 97. The next wave of fundraising will pay for grading work and a septic system. School organizers hope they can offer classes in fall.
The first building will house a prayer hall, assembly rooms and space for two ninth-grade classes, one for boys and one for girls. Arafa hopes to add one grade each year, eventually serving 250 to 300 students. Plans call for 171,000 square feet of building space.
If all goes as planned, he said, the school will be a place "where you can give me the child at 3 years old and he can finish with a PhD."
Shama Farooq, civil rights director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations for Maryland and Virginia, said Arafa is probably correct in predicting that the school will draw students from the broader Baltimore-Washington region.
"Obviously, people are sending their children to Islamic middle schools, and they're trying to find Islamic high schools as well," she said. "I know of people who drive their children 30, 40 miles to private schools."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/19/AR2006031901085.html
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