On Thursday, September 28, 2012 two FBI agents, one male and one female, knocked on the door of a home located in the greater Seattle area. The resident is a US citizen of Afghan descent, who has lived in the U.S. for over 30 years.When she answered the door, the agents flashed their badges, then began asking very personal question without further explanation, eventually bringing the woman to tears. The questions included:

After years of ongoing harassment and discrimination in a Puget Sound area school district, a local Muslim man found relief from years of suffering, after he finally saw his complaints fully addressed last month, July, 2012, with the assistance of CAIR-WA and an attorney in CAIR-WA's pro bono network.

The man, who supports his family of five by working two jobs as a custodian, first contacted CAIR-WA in 2009 when he was forbidden to pray or break fast at work during Ramadan.   

At the end of October, CAIR-WA’s Civil Rights Department had processed a total of 242 complaints reported to our office so far in the year 2012.  You may view summaries of some of these cases by vising our Civil Rights Digest here.

This already surpasses the total number of complaints reported for the entire year of 2011 (202 complaints), and there are still two months to go!

On Wednesday, September 19, 2012 a mosque in the Puget Sound area received a bomb threat in their email inbox.  Its subject line, the e-mail sent by Josh Standlee, a 26-year old man from Mukilteo, WA, read “Peace and Love” and the email itself stated: “Kindly get the f*** out of [city name] before more bombs go off, please.

On September 4, 2012, a group of eight Muslim men, who are all students at local colleges, rented two cars and drove to Lake Chelan, WA to jet ski on the lake. They parked their cars in the parking lot of the jet ski rental shop and left the car unattended while jet skiing, from 5:30 to 8:00 that evening.

On September 24, 2012, a Muslim man living in rental housing was informed that on Sept. 27, there would be a canine bed bug inspection of all apartments in his building.Not wanting to contaminate his home with dog saliva, the man immediately called his resident manager and left several messages asking for another method of inspection to be used on his unit because of his family’s religious abstention to contact with dogs.

Revelations of intelligence gathering by FBI at 'outreach' events prompts policy suggestions

On March 28, 2012, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) offered mosques and other Muslim institutions a model "Law Enforcement Engagement Policy.” (See below to read the complete policy).

The policy comes in the wake of revelations by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) that FBI agents have gathered intelligence on constitutionally-protected activities at mosques during community outreach events.

Members of the Asian and Asian Pacific Islander communities got a chance to communicate their concerns on several matters of federal legislation to Representative Adam Smith of the 9th Congressional District in a meeting at Tukwila City Hall on January, 27, 2012.  Notable attendees included Celso Tolman of the Filipino Community Center, Akemi Matsumoto of the Asian Pacific Islander Americans for Civic Empowerment and Diane Narasaki, the Executive Director of the Asian Counseling and referral service as well as the Executive Director of CAIR-WA, Arsalan Bukhari.

While working for a large security company, SafetyFirst, this was the choice that Khalid* felt he had to make: either he could keep his beard or his job, but not both.

On his first day of training with SafetyFirst, Khalid approached a human resources representative about his need for religious accommodations. Khalid was told that the company where he would be stationed, Computing Solutions, allowed mustaches only, not beards. Fearful for his job security, Khalid decided to shave his beard. When Khalid arrived to work with even a slight beard, the managers of Computing Solutions would pull him aside and chastise him for looking unprofessional.

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