Metro Nashville Council Member Zulfat Suara Refuses to Condemn Hamas Terrorists, Claims ‘Standing Up for Innocent Palestinian Children Doesn’t Make One Antisemitic’

Metro Nashville Council Member-At-Large Zulfat Suara has refused to condemn the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks that killed 1,400 Israelis, but claims that “standing up for innocent Palestinian children doesn’t make one antisemitic.”

Suara, the co-founder and former leader of the Nashville-based American Muslim Advisory Council, was first elected as one of the five at-large members of the 40 member Metro Nashville Council in 2019. She was re-elected to another four year term in August of this year.

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All Out for Palestine Rallies in Nashville and Elsewhere Led by Anti-Jewish Groups Seeking Annihilation of Israel

Contrary to the false narrative, the groups behind the All Out for Palestine rallies in Nashville and across the country are not the work of mere grassroots, peace-seeking activists.

The “social justice” demonstrations are being led by well-funded, anti-Jewish organizations, many with ties to Palestinian terrorist groups that want to carry out the extinction of Israel.

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Catholic Charities Receives $7M State Grant to Expand Services into Middle Tennessee Counties, But Model May Duplicate Liberal Advocacy Policies from Nashville

Catholic Charities of Tennessee is receiving $7.3 million in state grant funds to expand social services to 10 Middle Tennessee counties, but part of the organization’s model is based on liberal services performed in Nashville.

The Tennessee Department of Human Services (TDHS) said it is giving $50 in grants to 23 organizations and educational entities through its Two Generation (2Gen) approach.

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Islamist Activists Take Anti-Islamophobia Agenda to Sit-Down Meeting With Speaker Beth Harwell

Earlier in the week, members of the politically aggressive American Muslim Advisory Council (AMAC) that was formed in 2011 with the support of the Haslam administration, scored a sit-down meeting with Speaker Beth Harwell to discuss the problem of bullying in schools. As reported by WKRN, the group told Harwell that they want a bill that would protect students who are bullied because of their religion. Islamist activists in Tennessee connect bullying in school to Islamophobia which they claim leads to being regularly victimized or bullied because of their religion. In 2013, AMAC teamed up with Obama-appointed U.S. Attorney Bill Killian, to talk about Islamophobia as a means to suppress criticism of Muslims or Islam. At the time, Killian said that he would use federal civil rights laws to stop legally permissible hate speech directed at Muslims. Tennessee Bureau of Investigation’s state bias-crime statistics reflect a different reality in Tennessee. The numbers consistently show that followers of faiths other than Islam suffer higher numbers of bias-related crimes. Anti-bullying proposals are being offered by Islamist groups in other parts of the country to counter Islamophobia and to expand school privileges for Muslim students. The San Diego Unified School District worked with the Council on…

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Tennessee’s American Muslim Advisory Council Board Member Shouts Down Police During Saturday Protest at UT Knoxville

Drost Kokoye, a founding and current board member of the American Muslim Advisory Council (AMAC), Tennessee’s most prominent Muslim organization, was caught on video using a bullhorn held to the faces of police and shouting them down for wearing riot gear while they were protecting protesters like Kokoye at UT Knoxville on Saturday. You can see Kokoye aggressively pushing her bullhorn towards the face of one police officer at the 2:22 mark of this video from WATE TV. The demonstration was organized by UT Knoxville’s Progressive Student Alliance to protest the university’s decision to allow Matthew Heimbach, leader of the Traditionalist Worker Party, to speak at UTK, the first stop on his campus speech tour. Heimbach’s group ascribes to white nationalist ideology. During Saturday’s UTK demonstration that devolved into a hate protest against the police, AMAC board member Drost Kokoye joined marchers delivering that message – “cops get the f*** off our campus (look for the pink hijab in the video below): “COPS GET THE F*** OFF OUR CAMPUS” Student-led protests at the University of Tennesee today against ‘police and nazis’ as Matthew Heimbach set to speak. pic.twitter.com/f7mBMC3uxF — Matt Finn (@MattFinnFNC) February 17, 2018 Kokoye posted this tweet about…

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George Soros Money Funneled to Tennessee Organizations

The TN Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) and the American Muslim Advisory Council (AMAC) each received grants from the Proteus Fund, itself a recipient of millions of dollars from the George Soros Open Society Foundations. The grants to the two Tennessee organizations were made through the Proteus “Security & Collaborative Rights” (SCR) initiative. TIRRC received a $40,000 grant: To support TIRRC’s leadership development and civic engagement work with MASA [Muslim, Arab and South Asian] communities. This will include public education on immigrant and refugee policies at the local, state, and federal level and building MASA immigrant civic engagement through naturalization, voter engagement, and policy advocacy. AMAC received a $7,000 grant: Given the recent uptick in Immigrations and Customs Enforcement targeting and detaining Kurdish community members in Tennessee, SRC support will allow AMAC to implement plans to continue to provide a hotline, media outreach, and Know Your Rights seminars for the community. Shireen Zaman is Proteus SCR’s Program Director. Named by the Obama White House as a “Champion of Change, Zaman is also the former Executive Director of the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU). With offices in Dearborn, Michigan and Washington, D.C., the ISPU works to promote the interests of…

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Tennessee Muslim Advisory Council Co-Founder Endorsed Islamic Proselytizing Organization

Sabina Mohyuddin, long-time volunteer and former Youth Director at the Islamic Center of Nashville (ICN), co-founder of the Tennessee American Muslim Advisory Council (AMAC), and a featured panelist at a recent event held at the University of the South in Sewanee, endorsed the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), a U.S. based leader in dawah (Islamic proselytizing), at a 2013 event as an organization that “help[s] American Muslims stay true to their religious values while being uniquely American.” ICNA was named in a 1991 Muslim Brotherhood document, An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America as one of the Brotherhood’s 29 likeminded “organizations of our friends” that shared the common goal of destroying America from within and turning it into a Muslim nation “so that … God’s religion [Islam] is made victorious over all other religions.” ICNA is also the organization that admits public school students should be targeted for dawah conducted under the guise of “sharing knowledge of Islam as an attempt to correct the misrepresentations often found in secular reading materials.” Mohyuddin offered the ICNA endorsement during her slide presentation Understanding the American Muslim Community, which was part of a 2013 AMAC sponsored forum in Manchester,…

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Chairman of Metro Nashville School Board Defends Mosque Speaker Giving Students Misleading Information

On October 17th, students from Metro Nashville Meigs Middle Magnet School visited the Islamic Center of Nashville (ICN) where Dina Sirois, the mosque’s operations director, told them that they would “talk about beliefs and practices in Islam.” The Tennessee Star contacted Ms. Anna Shepherd, Chairman of the Metro Nashville School Board about the audio recording of the presentation given to the students, and asked the following questions: how to find a copy or link to the MNPS policy that complies with the [2016] Tennessee law [regarding inclusion of religion in local curriculum] and whether public notice and comment related to the adoption of the Metro policy was provided as required by the state law how to access information required by part (c) of the state law [a complete syllabus that includes information regarding major assignments and field trips] confirmation as to whether MNPS considers that the provisions in the [state law] also apply to guest speakers on and off school grounds during field trips Ms. Shepherd responded as follows, explaining: Please see the policies below in regard to religious education. I hope these are helpful. Sixth and seventh grade students study a number of religions as part of state’s approved Social Studies Standards. Sixth grade concentrates…

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Tennessee American Muslim Advisory Council Board Member Says Constitution is Document of White Supremacy

Tennessee’s American Muslim Advisory Council (AMAC) board member Drost Kokoye says the U.S. Constitution “is a document that writes white supremacy into law.” Those were the exact words Kokoye used in a tweet sent from her Twitter account on September 17, 2014–the 227th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution at the close of the Constitutional Convention on September 17, 1787: #ConstitutionDay to celebrate a document that writes white supremacy into law. — Drost Kokoye (@drostk) September 17, 2014 Kokoye is a Kurdish refugee who, as a young child, came to live in Nashville, grew up there and was educated in Nashville’s public schools. While attending college at Middle Tennessee State University, she worked for the TN Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) as a “Multicultural Organizer.” TIRRC offers workshops encouraging immigrants to become citizens and assists them through the naturalization process, after which TIRRC says they can represent “the immigrant vote” in elections. In 2012, Kokoye was featured in TIRRC’s “New American Voter” campaign: Voting gives me the opportunity to voice what not every immigrant or refugee can yet. It’s my chance to choose the people and laws that will allow others to practice this freedom I now have. While…

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Illinois First State to Legislatively Discriminate Against All Religions Except Islam

Tennessee Star

The “Muslim American Advisory Council Act” (MAACA), signed by Illinois Republican Governor Bruce Rauner last week permanently establishes a formal role for Muslims to influence the state’s policy: The purposes of the Council is to advise the Governor and the General Assembly on policy issues impacting Muslim Americans and immigrants; to advance the role and civic participation of Muslim Americans in this State; to enhance trade and cooperation between Muslim-majority countries and this State; and to build relationships with and disseminate information to, in cooperation with State agencies, boards, and commissions, Muslim American and immigrant communities across this State. In 2014, the Urban Muslim Minority Alliance endorsed Rauner over Democrat Governor Pat Quinn. As written, the MAACA law claims that the state’s public policy is to “promote diversity and to ensure inclusion of all religious, racial, and ethnic groups within this State” even though there are no other legislatively sanctioned religious councils inside the state government. The new law requires political appointments of twenty-one people to the Muslim council along with liaison personnel from multiple state agencies. Additional state government employees will provide administrative and technical support. A staffer from the Governor’s office will serve as the ethics officer. No fiscal note…

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College Campuses Warn Of Islamophobia, Discouraging Critical Examination Of Islam

The University of the South in Sewanee held a panel discussion on Islamophobia last month at which objections to Islam were dismissed as prejudice. The event was hosted by the Muslim Student Association and was called “Understanding Islamophobia in America.” College campuses around the country have heightened their criticism of Islamophobia – depicted as an irrational fear of Islam and its followers – even as Islamists have increased their attacks on innocents around the world, including in the West. The latest attack came Monday, when at least 22 people were killed in a bombing at a concert in Manchester, England. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack. The attention on Islamophobia has made critical examination of Islam a difficult and risky prospect for college students and faculty. One of two Muslim guest speakers at the Sewanee event on April 14 was Sabina Mohyuddin, a Tennessee native and Vanderbilt graduate with a degree in mechanical engineering. Mohyuddin serves as board secretary for the American Muslim Advisory Council, a Tennessee advocacy group. Mohyuddin said at the event that Islamophobia “developed as a consequence of uninformed prejudice and reactions to acts of terrorism,” according to an article in The Sewanee Purple, the student…

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OFF THE RECORD

Tennessee Star - Off the Record

OOOPS…Corker caught on tape Last Saturday during Bob Corker’s talk to the TN GOP State Executive Committee members, an observer just happened to switch on their phone when Corker was asked to comment about the state’s lawsuit against the feds over the refugee resettlement issue.  If you’ve ever taken the time to contact Corker’s Senate office with a comment that is something other than a compliment or praise for the Senator, you likely received a circuitous non-response which is sometimes referred to as being “blown off.” In typical Corker fashion, he throws out a bone to conservatives in the crowd because he thinks they haven’t yet figured out that he is not a conservative.  What conservatives in Tennessee do know is that when Corker first went to D.C. in 2007, he was openly against illegal immigration (not to confuse illegal immigration with refugee resettlement which is legal immigration). He was so against it that he said, that to be “fair to American citizens,” illegal aliens should have to leave and then re-enter before they could apply to be here legally….. Then after spending too many years in Washington, he supported the 2013 “Gang of Eight” illegal immigration amnesty bill. On Saturday,…

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Tennessee Muslim Group Cheers Ruling In Sports World Allowing Hijabs

The American Muslim Advisory Council is cheering a change made by the International Basketball Federation last week that will allow female players to wear hijabs during games. A Tennessee group based in Nashville, the AMAC praised the change in a Facebook post.   Allure magazine is also enthusiastic about the change, writing in a story last week, “The world of basketball just got a little more inclusive. The International Basketball Federation, FIBA, has just made it so that players can finally rock their hijabs without risking being excluded from participating in games.” FIBA began considering a change after Qatar’s women’s basketball team decided not to participate in the 2014 Asian Games because players were not allowed to wear hijabs. Governing members of FIBA “praised a historical moment that occurred in Iran on April 13, when a FIBA test game featuring women wearing hijabs marked the first time men witnessed a women’s sporting event in person,” according to a FIBA press release. The new rule, which goes into effect in October, says that headwear must be black or white or have the same dominant color as the uniform and must be the same for all players on the team. It also can’t…

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Nashville Mayor Megan Barry To Speak At Muslim Community Day Luncheon

Tennessee Star

Nashville Mayor Megan Barry will speak next week at the third annual Standing up for Justice and Muslim Community Day luncheon sponsored by the American Muslim Advisory Council. The event will be held May 6 at the Islamic Center of Tennessee in Antioch. A progressive Democrat, Barry speaks often about welcoming Muslims to the Nashville area and earlier this year slammed President’s Trump ban on travel from several Muslim-majority countries. The AMAC is a Tennessee-based outreach and activist group that had its beginnings in protests against state anti-terrorism legislation in 2011. Early versions of the bill mentioned “jihad” and “sharia.” The legislation, which passed in modified form with those words taken out, strengthened efforts to punish people who provide material support to designated terrorist organizations. In 2013, the AMAC hosted a forum in Manchester, Tennessee, titled “Public Discourse in a Diverse Society” that was regarded by hundreds of protesters as a push to squelch free speech about Islam. On its website, where the group goes by the name American Muslim Advocacy Center, the first item under a tab about services offered is information about how to file an incident report “if you have been the victim of or have witnessed an anti-Muslim…

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