RIYADH, 13 November 2002 — The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has issued an appeal for donations during the holy month of Ramadan to help spearhead a media campaign in the US in defense of Prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him) and Islam.
“CAIR has already collected $1.04 million to place 52 quarter page weekly advertisements in USA Today‚ starting from the third week of Ramadan. But we need more funds for extending the campaign through 10 major newspapers,” Mohammed Al-Qotobi, editor-in-chief of Al-Mustaqbil, a monthly journal brought out by the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, told newsmen at WAMY’s new headquarters yesterday.
The press conference was to have been addressed by Dr. Nihad Awad, executive director of CAIR. Speaking on behalf of Dr. Awad, Al-Qotobi said the plan to counter anti-Islam smear campaign had two components. Besides the publicity campaign, CAIR had also brought out a compact library of 16 books on various aspects of Islam and two films priced at $ 150 per package. Their plan was to distribute this “Islamic Library” free of charge to all major libraries in the United States.
Referring to WAMY’s activities during Ramadan, Al-Qotobi said they would be distributing 840,000 meals in Riyadh and over one million meals in the Kingdom. WAMY had also allocated SR4 million for the distribution of Iftar packets in the Kingdom and abroad. The library project seeks to distribute a collection of reading material and DVDs about Islam to the country’s 16,000 public libraries, 95 percent of which have sought new material on Islam
WAMY had also drawn up an ambitious program to train 1,000 university students in the United States, so that they could defend their faith in the US. The pilot project would start with 142 students, of whom 60 would come from Kansas, 40 from Florida, and 42 from Maryland. These trainees would be put through an orientation program to enable them to project Islam in its correct perspective.