Saga of Oak Lawn grocer targeted for racism grows

An Oak Lawn Grocer alleges he was targeted for racism by a village inspector. The issue involves a two-year long battle between the inspector and the grocer. But it crossed the line when on July 15, the grocer, Naim Massad, and his wife Suzanne and his son Abed, were arrested during a surprise inspection brought on by a call to the village by a neighboring store owner, Pat Bartell who owns the music store just north of Massad's Grocery.

(Bartell is listed in the police report as having made the initial complaint and she is quoted on FOX TV and also now in the Southtown as complaining about Massad's store).

Here are links to my stories so far. And I mean so far because this story continues to get worse as you dig into the allegations from the inspector, Jeanne Foody Galzin, which seem exaggerated to say the least.

Click to read the news story on the arrest?

Click to read the column I wrote on the arrest?

Click to read the Daily Southtown Story on the arrest?

What's interesting is the role of the music store owner in all this. Her attorney Pat Sullivan insists she is not anti-Arab or harboring any racist feelings. But in talking to him, he says her store was "damaged" by sanitation problems in Massad's store.

The problem with that is that the Village DID NOT CLOSE Bartell's music store. She closed it on her own. And the problem, Bartell's attorney says, involves sewage, but there is no direct link to Massad's store. Rather than look at the possibility that the building is a problem, Bartell has been pointing a finger of blame directly at Massad, I think unfairly. You can read the note she posted on her door when she closed her own store in my news story above.

It's very possible that water is leaking fromt he roof or someplace into Bartell's store. Why blame him?

Sullivan said there was a "stink" coming from somewhere -- they say Massad's store.

That might be. Massad's store was closed on July 15 by the village and locked up for almost two weeks by the village without access. In fact, Galzin, the village inspector has been showing the media pictures of rotted and outdated food products that Massad says were taken AFTER he was arrested and the village bolted his store shut. he couldn't get in to his store until the village opened it last week, only after I started to ask questions.

And the ridiculous accusation that Massad stored food in an unsanitary condition is really outrageous. I looked at the facts. Here is what I found.

The vacant store is clean and was clean there never were "pots of sewage" stored in that store which is the basis of the complaint.

Nothing was being stored in EXCEPT old clothing that Palestinians have been collecting over the past few months so they can ship them to help the Palestinian refugees living in the Gaza Strip. (Is that a problem I wonder? You say "Gaza" and many uneducated Americans start thinking, Hamas, terrorism, al-Qaeda ... really dumb stereotypes and racist feelings come out with that.)

The delivery truck arrived minutes before the inspector arrived with four police squad cars, called by the music store owner.

The delivery man was unloading the pallets of food when Galzin arrived and insisted that the music store owner said he was operating his business when in fact he was not. When Massad said that was not true, he told the delivery man to put the food in the vacant store -- which was open because the night before the village busted the door down and the windows (now boarded up), Galzin got upset and charged Massad with putting the food in the vacant store and had him arrested on that charge.

The village now claims, falsely, that Massad was arrested (according to the Daily Southtown Story) for:

"repeated and flagrant violation of food safety," according to the July 15 inspection report.

That contradicts the charges in the police report:

Click to read the police report that was filed by Galzin and updated 8 days later after I began asking questions. Even in the update, the arrest report does not make that exaggerated charge.

“At Jeanne Galzin’s request,” the police report details, Massad was handcuffed and charged with the crime of “storing food in an unsanitary condition.”

Is it possible that the "smell" that Martell is talking about which prompted her to close her store before the arrest and just before my story broke August 5, 2009 came from the food being locked in the store by the village between July 15 and July 31 when the store was finally re-opened?

If that's the case, then maybe someone should give the Village of Oak Lawn a citation for violating sanitation conditions because they locked the store and Massad and his family could not enter the store.

In my opinion, a lot of the lies promoted in this story against the Massad family are driven by racism and anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment. I can't find any other explanation for it, and the exaggerated claim of sanitation problems blamed on Massad clearly suggest something more.

-- Ray Hanania

www.RadioChicagoland.com

East and West clash even in backdrop of child's killing

East and West collide even in a child’s death
By Ray Hanania

Earlier this week, a woman was arrested and charged with the murder of her two year old niece. The story itself is tragic enough, but on top of it are details of her religion. She happens to be Muslim in a region of Chicago where anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hatred has been notorious prevalent.

In this case, though, the woman, Nour Hadid, was charged with beating her niece by the Orland park Police Department. The police followed routine procedures and finger printed and also photographed for a standard police “mug shot” the accused suspect. But her attorneys, represented by Brodsky and Odeh LLC, claims she is the victim of pressure and intimidation.

The victim was two year old Bhia Hadid and an autopsy concluded the child was beaten to death by blunt trauma. She had 55 bruises police and medical examiners concluded occurred over a four day period at her home.

The mainstream media carried the story, which is amazingly tragic on its face. Few mentioned that Nour Hadid is a Muslim or an Arab, although to those in the community the race and religion seemed obvious.

The mug-shot of the suspect showed the suspect with an expression of great pain and grief, like she was crying. There was nothing unusual in the picture. But this morning, Nour Hadid’s husband accused the Orland Park Police of “discrimination,” arguing that his wife was innocent and had her religion disrespected because she normally wears a Hijab, or head covering.

Removing the Hijab and forcing his wife to pose for the picture and then making the picture public, he alleges in several media interviews, violated her rights as a Muslim and depicted her in a disrespectful manner.

Is it really racism? Should the debate be focused on whether or not the accused woman was in fact the victim of discrimination, which the Orland Park Police denied claiming they followed the same procedure for Nour Hadid as they do for all suspects?

Or, is the real story the tragic death of the two-year old girl. Beaten to death, according to the autopsy report?

There was no outrage over the death, but there have been many calls and emails complaining that Nour Hadid’s rights were violated. The incident has also drawn the ire of conservative media fanatics who have blasted the husband and who are using the discussion as a basis to foment their continued anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hatred.

According to the media, Nour’s husband, Alaeddin Hadid said Orland Park police are “really going to be in big trouble” for releasing the woman's booking photo to the news media after she was charged with first-degree murder. He continued that Nour, who is Muslim, “never leaves the home without covering up.” He vowed to file a lawsuit. He asserted, “It [being shown without your hijab] is against our religion; we do not do this in our culture.”

One Muslim activist is quoted in the media saying that the police would not have been so disrespectful to a Christian Nun. The constant comparison of Muslim women who wear a Hijab and Christian Nuns is a constant argument used to support charges of anti-Muslim bias in this country. But are the two really relevant?

Another said it was disrespectful, adding that she looked like she was in her “underwear.” The photo showed Nour Hadid from just below her shoulders upwards. Her arms were crossed over her chest which was not visible.

The comment regarding the nuns is especially offensive to Christians – mainstream Christians and Arab Christians, too – as it was made on the eve of Good Friday as Christians around the world prepare to celebrate Easter (this Sunday for mainstream Christians and next Sunday April 19th for Orthodox Arab Christians).

The fact is that a Nun is not just any woman who observes her religion and wears a head covering, called a “Habit.” In fact, they are official members of the Catholic Church and represent the Catholic Church in official capacities, working at Churches. The “Habits” are obligated by specific Church doctrine to be worn at all times.

Some Muslim women wear a Hijab, which is not to be confused with the oppressive “berqa.” A Hijab is a head and hair covering, similar to the coverings worn by Orthodox Jewish women and very conservative Christian women, too. A “berqa” is a full body covering that also includes the covering of the wearer’s face, which is offensive and reflective less of religious belief and more of male arrogance and domination over women, and not just Muslim women, but Jewish and Christian women too, who are often as easily enslaved in gender-driven oppression.

But the husband asked in the media, “Would they do that to a Nun?” Would they force a nun to remove her Habit off her face to pose for an official criminal identification photograph called a “mug shot?”

The answer is yes. Nuns arrested and charged in crimes have been photographed for mug shots without their head coverings, too. The mug-shots are not private either because police agencies are public institutions. That means that the mug-shot is a legitimately issued public domain property. The public has a right to know who is charged and alleged to be involved in a criminal offense, especially offenses of such heinous nature.

Is Nour Hadid guilty or innocent? Too often in America, Arabs and Muslims are guilty until proven innocent. That was in fact the policy of this country for the past eight years after Sept. 11, 2001, when 19 terrorists who happened to be Muslim, became the poster children of the anti-Muslim and anti-Arab conservative fanatics and mainly Christian zealots in this country.

Nour Hadid is innocent until proven guilty. But is this an incident of discrimination? I’m not sure. The Orland Park police were simply following procedure in events that were out of their control. A woman is accused of murdering a two year old child. And Orland Park has had a history of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim incidents.

It’s the murder of the child that is really the significance in this matter. In the face of such atrocities, some – I repeat some -- individual rights must be sacrificed, especially those rights with which have to do with identification.

You cannot permit anyone accused of a crime to hide behind their religious observance. The real tragedy is that the crime, whether Nour Hadid is innocent or guilty, imposes on us a vigilance that must place the need to determine the truth as our cumulative priority.

Let’s determine who did or did not kill baby Ghia Hadid. Everyone should be ready to make a personal sacrifice for that.
END

East and West clash even in backdrop of child's killing

East and West collide even in a child’s death
By Ray Hanania

Earlier this week, a woman was arrested and charged with the murder of her two year old niece. The story itself is tragic enough, but on top of it are details of her religion. She happens to be Muslim in a region of Chicago where anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hatred has been notorious prevalent.

In this case, though, the woman, Nour Hadid, was charged with beating her niece by the Orland park Police Department. The police followed routine procedures and finger printed and also photographed for a standard police “mug shot” the accused suspect. But her attorneys, represented by Brodsky and Odeh LLC, claims she is the victim of pressure and intimidation.

The victim was two year old Bhia Hadid and an autopsy concluded the child was beaten to death by blunt trauma. She had 55 bruises police and medical examiners concluded occurred over a four day period at her home.

The mainstream media carried the story, which is amazingly tragic on its face. Few mentioned that Nour Hadid is a Muslim or an Arab, although to those in the community the race and religion seemed obvious.

The mug-shot of the suspect showed the suspect with an expression of great pain and grief, like she was crying. There was nothing unusual in the picture. But this morning, Nour Hadid’s husband accused the Orland Park Police of “discrimination,” arguing that his wife was innocent and had her religion disrespected because she normally wears a Hijab, or head covering.

Removing the Hijab and forcing his wife to pose for the picture and then making the picture public, he alleges in several media interviews, violated her rights as a Muslim and depicted her in a disrespectful manner.

Is it really racism? Should the debate be focused on whether or not the accused woman was in fact the victim of discrimination, which the Orland Park Police denied claiming they followed the same procedure for Nour Hadid as they do for all suspects?

Or, is the real story the tragic death of the two-year old girl. Beaten to death, according to the autopsy report?

There was no outrage over the death, but there have been many calls and emails complaining that Nour Hadid’s rights were violated. The incident has also drawn the ire of conservative media fanatics who have blasted the husband and who are using the discussion as a basis to foment their continued anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hatred.

According to the media, Nour’s husband, Alaeddin Hadid said Orland Park police are “really going to be in big trouble” for releasing the woman's booking photo to the news media after she was charged with first-degree murder. He continued that Nour, who is Muslim, “never leaves the home without covering up.” He vowed to file a lawsuit. He asserted, “It [being shown without your hijab] is against our religion; we do not do this in our culture.”

One Muslim activist is quoted in the media saying that the police would not have been so disrespectful to a Christian Nun. The constant comparison of Muslim women who wear a Hijab and Christian Nuns is a constant argument used to support charges of anti-Muslim bias in this country. But are the two really relevant?

Another said it was disrespectful, adding that she looked like she was in her “underwear.” The photo showed Nour Hadid from just below her shoulders upwards. Her arms were crossed over her chest which was not visible.

The comment regarding the nuns is especially offensive to Christians – mainstream Christians and Arab Christians, too – as it was made on the eve of Good Friday as Christians around the world prepare to celebrate Easter (this Sunday for mainstream Christians and next Sunday April 19th for Orthodox Arab Christians).

The fact is that a Nun is not just any woman who observes her religion and wears a head covering, called a “Habit.” In fact, they are official members of the Catholic Church and represent the Catholic Church in official capacities, working at Churches. The “Habits” are obligated by specific Church doctrine to be worn at all times.

Some Muslim women wear a Hijab, which is not to be confused with the oppressive “berqa.” A Hijab is a head and hair covering, similar to the coverings worn by Orthodox Jewish women and very conservative Christian women, too. A “berqa” is a full body covering that also includes the covering of the wearer’s face, which is offensive and reflective less of religious belief and more of male arrogance and domination over women, and not just Muslim women, but Jewish and Christian women too, who are often as easily enslaved in gender-driven oppression.

But the husband asked in the media, “Would they do that to a Nun?” Would they force a nun to remove her Habit off her face to pose for an official criminal identification photograph called a “mug shot?”

The answer is yes. Nuns arrested and charged in crimes have been photographed for mug shots without their head coverings, too. The mug-shots are not private either because police agencies are public institutions. That means that the mug-shot is a legitimately issued public domain property. The public has a right to know who is charged and alleged to be involved in a criminal offense, especially offenses of such heinous nature.

Is Nour Hadid guilty or innocent? Too often in America, Arabs and Muslims are guilty until proven innocent. That was in fact the policy of this country for the past eight years after Sept. 11, 2001, when 19 terrorists who happened to be Muslim, became the poster children of the anti-Muslim and anti-Arab conservative fanatics and mainly Christian zealots in this country.

Nour Hadid is innocent until proven guilty. But is this an incident of discrimination? I’m not sure. The Orland Park police were simply following procedure in events that were out of their control. A woman is accused of murdering a two year old child. And Orland Park has had a history of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim incidents.

It’s the murder of the child that is really the significance in this matter. In the face of such atrocities, some – I repeat some -- individual rights must be sacrificed, especially those rights with which have to do with identification.

You cannot permit anyone accused of a crime to hide behind their religious observance. The real tragedy is that the crime, whether Nour Hadid is innocent or guilty, imposes on us a vigilance that must place the need to determine the truth as our cumulative priority.

Let’s determine who did or did not kill baby Ghia Hadid. Everyone should be ready to make a personal sacrifice for that.

END

Anti-Arab racism continues to plague southwest Chicago suburbs

It has been nearly a decade since residents of Palos Heights sullied their community by rising in protest against their neighbors who happened to be Muslim who sought to open a Mosque where they could observe their religion.

The move pushed nearly 2,000 people to sign a petition protesting the mosque plans, and sparked a high profile public battle led by some members of the Palos Heights City Council.

A few years later, after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, nearly 700 residents of Orland Park tried but failed to prevent Muslims from doing the same there, claiming that building a Mosque for the region’s Arabs who bring Osama Bin Laden’s terrorism to the suburb.

Although both incidents have faded from public view, the anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hatred that sparked the incidents of community racism has not dissipated at all. There have been many less publicized incidents.

So it was not surprising when on Sept. 16, 2008, a 17-year-old girl working a late night shift at T.J. Grinders in Palos Heights on Harlem Avenue claimed she had been sexually assaulted by a man who looked “Arab” or “Indian.”

According to police, the girl had sent a text message to a friend saying a strange man who looked “creepy” had been ogling her through the sandwich shop’s window before coming in an ordering a sandwich.

Two hours later when she was alone and closing the store, the “creepy man” put a knife to her neck, ordered her into the back seat of his black car, and threatened to kill her if she made a sound. He drove around for 20 minutes and then took her to the forest preserves where he sexually assaulted her.

After the 30 minute assault, she said he drove her within blocks of her home and dropped her off in her t-shirt and underwear.

The police drawing of the suspect, based on the young girl’s description, clearly described a man who looked Middle Eastern. It was a horrible thing to see for Arabs and Muslims in the area as the flyer was distributed everywhere, from Palo Heights to Burbank and to Orland Park, communities with large Arab American populations.

The story immediately became a major report on the weekly FOX News Crime program “America’s Most Wanted,” a program that has done so much good to capture criminals and make the public aware of crime. But you could sense the animosity reflected in the tone of the words of the host, John Walsh when he spoke about the “vicious sexual assault” and the “disturbed sexual predator.” The report noted repeatedly that the suspect was “Arab” or “Indian.”

Over the past few weeks, emails have been circulating through the Internet about those “Arab animals” and “Muslim monsters” who live in Palos Heights, Orland Park, Burbank and elsewhere.

The Southwest suburbs have a large concentration of Arab Americans. Although they are mostly Christian, the Muslims whose women wear Hijabs of head coverings, stand out making them more obvious targets of the growing hatred.

This week, Palos Heights police announced they were closing their investigation into the alleged sexual assault. The girl’s attorney, Martin A. Dolan, issued a statement that apologized to the “Southwest suburban community” for “the unnecessary concern and the time and effort from everyone involved.”

Dolan’s statement continued, "At this time, we assure you our community is safe and always has been... we ask you to continue your prayers for the family and avoid criticism or anger as they move forward and cope."

It must be terrible to be the parents of a young child that is disturbed enough to make up such a story. But I wonder how people in the Southwest Suburbs feel about a child who found it so easy to point a finger of blame against an “Arab” or an “Indian.”

I wonder how many of the people who sent the hate emails around warning about the vicious Arab rapist who was wandering our community from Burbank, to Palos Heights to Orland Park still believe all this?

Dolan said he did address the issue of the racism and the family specifically apologized to the specific ethnic groups that were mentioned. This was the action of a young, immature girl and she did not intentionally try to single out Arabs and Indians, he said. “But I think maybe it might be a wider problem and I can appreciate it for sure," Dolan said.

But, I wonder how long it will be before all of the phony police sketches of the “Arab” or “Indian” suspect will be removed.

It probably will happen faster than many people in the Southwest suburbs will be able to cleanse their hearts of the racism that helped make this tragic young girl’s lies so believable.

-- Ray Hanania