Community News (V15-I36)

Bronx area Bangladeshis demand action after attacks

BRONX,NY-Parkchester Bangladeshis held a rally to denounce  a spate of attacks against community members and demand action from the authorities. A cabbie was recently stabbed in the back after he left a mosque in the area.

Police haven’t labeled the attack a hate crime, but Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. noted that the attacker didn’t rob Nabi.

“All he was doing was coming out of the mosque, worshiping Allah,” said Diaz Jr., who noted that although crime is generally down, Bangladeshis appear to have been targeted in a number of incidents over the last year.

The 100 demonstrators demanded increased police patrolling in the area.

Imam leads benediction at Hurricane Katrina anniversary event

BATON ROUGE,LA–Imam Rafeeq Numan led the benediction at an interfaith prayer breakfast to commemorate the eighth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. The Imam of Masjid Al Raheem said that he  had a newfound consciousness of the coastal erosion crisis, he said, and prayed with the attendees that there was time to “restore the things he has created.”

Speakers at the event  called for local and federal action on climate change in view of Louisiana’s rapidly eroding coastline.

Free legal clinic held in Minneapolis

The Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) held  free legal clinic last Saturday at the annual “Day of Dignity” event in north Minneapolis.

CAIR-MN has created a network of 50 Minnesota Muslim attorneys and law students, and the group plans to organize more free legal clinics and seminars in the community,said Lori Saroya, the executive director of CAIR’s Minneapolis chapter in an interview to the Tribune.

“We talk about at CAIR trying to eliminate Islamophobia, and this is really one of the best ways to do it. Just showing people that we are out there offering services … and we’re contributing members of the community.”

Akbar Hamid appointed Director of Technology at SmartTronix

Smartronix announced in a press release that it hired Mr. Akbar Hamid as Director of Technology. In his new role, Mr. Hamid will be responsible for driving the Smartronix Cloud Assured product offerings of the Intelligent Cloud Hub, Cloud managed services, and Cloud consulting services.

Mr. Hamid has 17 years of experience in the technology field, ranging from satellite communications, intelligence, and mission-critical systems to high performance public Web systems. He was formerly the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), where he led the Agency technology strategy and vision. Under his guidance, the NLRB consolidated disparate case management systems into a single unified enterprise case management system with electronic case records. Additionally, with his strategic vision, the NLRB moved core infrastructure and applications to such Cloud services as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Office 365.

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